Isabelle Bosley and Conner Are Rising Through the Ranks
After a standout 2025 season and a top-10 finish at Kentucky CCI4*-S last month, Isabelle Bosley and Conner are emerging as one of the most exciting young partnerships in US eventing.
For Isabelle Bosley & Conner, the rise has been building for a while. Now, it is becoming impossible to ignore.
The nine-year-old gelding closed out 2025 with a win at Maryland CCI3*-L, producing the highest-rated performance at the level on US soil all season. That result was no one-off. Across the year, the pair recorded three international wins, one runner-up finish, and clear showjumping rounds at every FEI start - establishing Conner as one of the standout young horses in the country.
This spring, they stepped into four-star company, most recently adding a sixth-place finish at Kentucky CCI4*-S to an already impressive resume. Off the back of another major performance, Conner now sits fifth among US nine-year-olds on EquiRatings Elo.
But the real story behind Conner & Isabelle is not just the results, it is how they got there.
Produced From the Beginning
Having been brought up in a deeply horsey family, Isabelle was immersed in the sport from the beginning. Her parents are both racehorse trainers, and much of her early riding came through foxhunting, galloping racehorses, and spending her childhood around barns. Producing horses herself was never really a question, it was simply the way she learned the sport.
And that's how Conner entered the picture. Isabelle bought him at the end of his five-year-old season, before he had done much of anything in the sport, and everything since then has been built together.
“When I got him, he had not done anything. So we’ve had him from the very beginning stages, first cross-country school, first horse show. So it’s been a very long process. I know him really well. And he really trusts me."
Conner feels like the first true top-level horse Isabelle has had underneath her. Before him, she had only taken one other horse to the four-star level - something she described as “almost like taking a pony around Advanced.”
But even now, despite the results and growing attention around the partnership, she still talks about Conner like the young horse she first brought home as a five-year-old.
Isabelle & Conner out cross-country at the Cosequin Lexington CCI4*-S
Maryland to Kentucky
Maryland CCI3*-L felt like the moment everything clicked. Conner's 96 HPR placed him alongside some of the strongest three-star performances seen from young horses in the US over the last number of seasons.
The next challenge was four-star.
Stepping up this spring came with a learning curve. Isabelle admits there were moments where the pair had to rethink things, particularly around balance and control as Conner adjusted to bigger tracks and faster questions.
Kentucky, though, looked like confirmation they were moving in the right direction.
"The bigger the crowd, the better it is for me, especially on cross-country. It kind of lifts him up and gets him to take things in instead of just running. So it works in my favor and he loved it. I could feel him going around just like 'Oh my God, all these people are here for me.'"
While many young horses can shrink in major atmospheres, Conner seemed to grow into it. Isabelle described him calmly taking in the atmosphere during the warm-up and feeding off the crowd once out on course. The result was a polished top-10 finish at one of the biggest and most prestigious venues in the sport.
Isabelle & Conner show jumping clear with 0.8 time penalties at the Cosequin Lexington CCI4*-S
Still Only Nine
What stands out most about Isabelle's approach is how patient she remains despite the success. Conner is producing elite-level performances already, but she still frames the season as part of a bigger development process rather than a finished product.
"I just remind myself he's just a nine-year-old and he's still such a baby. Each event we're just learning something new and I do think every event we've gotten better and better."
That mindset may be one of the biggest reasons this partnership has progressed so quickly without feeling rushed.
And while the results already place Conner among the most exciting young horses in the country, Isabelle's focus is firmly on the future. The current plan is to head to the US Equestrian Open Final at Morven Park. It is already a meaningful venue for Isabelle, having been the only four-star long she has successfully completed before. This time, though, she returns with a very different kind of horse underneath her.
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