Not Ridiculous At All.
Just when walking the dog past multi-million dollar mansions inside a gated country club has started to feel quasi-normal, one is reminded once again how very surreal the winter equestrian capital of the world really is. And it’s not because of the pet zebra that my horse stares at every morning while hacking around Wellington.
Well, not entirely.
Rumors about this have been swirling for months, but today the news broke publicly that On the Line’s newest “neighbor” is Bill Gates, who recently leased a farm with a price tag that’s outrageous for the other 99.9% of the world to consider (come on, before you click the link, just take a guess.) Bill Gates and co. and will be coming into town for the winter to support his extremely blessed daughter’s riding career. Fifteen-year-old Jennifer trains with Jack Towell and showed at WEF last season, too. So far she’s flown beneath the radar of public scrutiny, but it’s safe to say that will be a-changing this season! The Gates family’s new four-acre property in Mallet Hill sits on the same street as Anne Kursinski’s palatial winter base, and is one of the closest barns to the PBIEC showgrounds. Georgina Bloomberg’s Gotham Hill South is within the same enclave, also. I don’t remember there being a guard, or even a gate code, at the gatehouse to the entrance of Mallet Hill when I interviewed Anne Kursinski for Sidelines a few seasons ago, but it’s a safe bet that that will also be changing.
In full stalkage mode, On the Line snapped this pic of the future Chateau Gates in 2010.
People can ooh and aah all they want, but let’s face it. $600,000 for a six-month rental is a drop in the bucket for the richest man in the United States world universe??? and as someone who has donated the vast majority of his fortune to fight global poverty and the spread of infectious diseases, you can’t really knock Mr. Gates for dropping over half a mil on a place for his daughter to ride. But Jennifer had better milk it while she still can – Bill recently said that one day she’ll have to get a job, for there will be no dynasties in the Gates family!
However, there is still no logical explanation for the zebra. Once again, Wellington is simply over the top.
These are the archived posts of former Sidelines web editor Erin Gilmore's On the Line blog. This blog is no longer active.
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Just to clarify – Bill Gates is no longest the richest man in the world – Carlos Slim is. Gates is a somewhat distant #2 (largely because he funded his foundation with much of his capital a few years ago.)
Haha, I love the zebra!!!! That is not ridiculous at all! Great story!! Keep up the good work!
The word “ridiculous” -as many semantic debaters may argue- is relative to the word it’s describing or the community the word is being presented in. Is this “semantic relativism”? …well… yes.
Is it ridiculous that the… eh hem, 2nd richest person in the world, has a daughter showing at WEF? Not really. Is it ridiculous that this family supports their daughter’s equestrian passion by moving from the dreary Pacific northwest to beautiful, sunny south Florida for the winter? No, not really.
Is it ridiculous to have a baby zebra as lawn art? YES. I don’t care if you are some low-income redneck out in Idaho or a super-elite WASP living in New York, having an actual living zebra as lawn art is simply trite at best and ostentatious at worst. Bad form.
This is our sport. Show jumping and horses make us tick. Does it come from birth? I think so. And while most of us can only hope to work extremely hard and have the right luck to get to a competitive level that quenches our thirst, others are bankrolled into it. We can’t hate them for that, but the horse world definitely is divided between the have and have-nots. But remember, what makes us similar is what’s most important. Love for and pride in our horses, the chill we get when we hear them nicker, and the welling in our hearts when we watch them run at liberty.
Good luck Jennifer Gates during your season at WEF 2012! And Mr. and Mrs. Gates, call the zoo and on the way home pick up a mini-horse or a sheep or a llama or something, anything else besides a zebra.
That house was supposed to have been bought by Madonna two years ago…lots of rumors. And yes there is a code at the gatehouse.