A devotion to horses inspires Heather Mason

Heather Mason is no dressage queen.

That’s not to say she isn’t successful in her chosen discipline—an impressive collection of ribbons and trophies on display in her Lebanon, N.J., home speaks to expertise in training and riding. But for Heather, it’s not about the prizes or the frills. At Flying Change Farm, it’s all about the horses.

“She loves them,” was the simple assessment offered by her friend, Christina Aharoni, who noted that these days, Heather keeps her horses forever.

Heather trains Christina and her daughter, eventer Arielle Aharoni, but offers assistance beyond dressage. Christina calls it “troubleshooting,” whether it’s advice on jumping or bitting.

“That’s an all-around great horseperson that uses a ton of common sense and great basic horsemanship. That’s always what prevails in the end,” Christina asserted.

Heather’s mere presence offers reassurance to her students, and the good results flow from that as well as expert coaching.

Amateur rider Christina Morin Graham was concerned about competing with the professionals in the FEI ranks at the 2024 edition of Dressage at Devon. She wasn’t sure she’d even be able to produce a Grand Prix ride that would qualify her for the show’s feature, the Saturday night freestyle under the lights. Maybe instead she should try the Grand Prix for Special? Morin Graham wondered…

However, Heather was there for support and guidance, which not only got her student qualified, but it gave the amateur a boost that enabled a third-place finish in the freestyle, with a personal best of 74.785 on DSP Dauphin.

“Heather is a master and it’s a privilege to work with her – she has advanced my riding and enabled me to achieve results that I didn’t think were possible,” said Morin Graham.

She characterized Heather as “hard working, dedicated, professional, and resourceful — customizing the approach for each horse and rider to bring out their best. Her depth of dressage experience, training and competing through the levels is extraordinary.  She has worked with hundreds of horses, many of which were not necessarily naturally talented, athletic — or sane, for that matter.”

Morin Graham pointed out that at Region 8’s championships, “I think she was the trainer of roughly half the riders in the Open Division Grand prix championship class.”

Over Heather’s career, she’s had nearly 2,200 rides in licensed competition as recorded by the U.S. Dressage Federation. She owns more than half of the 30 horses at her farm, where the herd includes young horses in training, competition mounts and her retired senior citizens. She doesn’t sell her horses any longer because “I hear too many stories about them ending up in bad places and I don’t want to take that chance. I bought some of these as resale horses, but they’ll never be sold.”

As she cheerfully admitted, “I get a little too attached to my horses.”

At her barn, there are a few longtime boarders and people who ship in for lessons. Others take “virtual” lessons, and Heather gives clinics in the tri-state area. On Mondays and Fridays, the trainer spends a few afternoon hours at Red Tail Farm in nearby Bedminster.

Heather was drawn early to teaching. She started giving lessons at age 13 when she belonged to the Spring Valley Hounds Pony Club in New Vernon, where she was an H-A.

“Pony Club was huge, it taught me so much about horse management and care,” said the trainer, who stays in touch with her instructors from those years, Sharon Weidmann, Marilyn Payne and Peggy Hipple.

She graduated from New York’s Skidmore College after majoring in biology and playing polo, but had only one career in mind.

“I always knew I would be doing this as a business,” Heather said matter-of-factly.

Her first acquaintance with horses came when her father was transferred to England by American Express and the family looked at a little farm there which had a pony.

“I fell off him when I tried him, and I still wanted him. The saddle and I slid down his neck—the tack didn’t fit,” she chuckled.

Her parents bought the farm and seven-year-old Heather wound up with Jason, that little Welsh cross who came with the property. The family lived in England for five years, a time when Heather was part of the British culture so strong in riding and hunting,

“I grew up as a little farm kid,” she commented.

Competing in the hunters in England while she “dabbled in everything” over there, Heather discovered when her family moved back to the U.S. that the hunter pony ring was a different place on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. In England, she recalled, she had ridden her pony in a double bridle, and at some shows, the judge rode the pony.

She enjoyed eventing when she was in Pony Club. Then she bought her first warmblood, Limerick, a Polish Trakehner, as a two-year-old. The mare wasn’t much for jumping but turned into Heather’s first total dressage horse. She got lessons from Irma Hotz as well as her other trainers and did a lot of clinics. In 1984, her pony True Story, a British import, was national champion at First Level, and from that point on, Heather focused on dressage, taking True story to Fourth Level.

She competed at the North American Young Riders Championships with Limerick, who was her first Grand Prix horse, training the horse all the way up to Grand Prix in 1990. Asked how things went with that effort, Heather laughed and reported, “that was back in the days when it was me and Marilyn Payne and I think, Jim Kofford, doing Grand Prix, and we were just trying to break 60 (percent). That was a whole different world of Grand Prix; there were very few Grand Prix horses in the area. We were all struggling. But you learn how to train that way.”

What appealed to her about dressage was the fact that “there was no dead end” to her efforts in the discipline.

“I always knew I was never going to jump grand prix jumps, and I was never going to event advanced, but the dressage I could do all the way.”

Over the years, she has made her mark, named to the short list for the 2011 Pan American Games with Warsteiner and earning the prestigious $25,000 Carol Lavell Prize to continue her training. She used the money to go to Florida and up her game there, but aside from that, she doesn’t head south because she has “too many horses, too many clients to leave them all winter. Plus, I like to have the winter to train and play with the babies.

“I’ve always gone where the horse will take me, but (making) the (U.S.) team was never like a goal, it’s more about my horses,” she said.

“I never set my life on it because anything can happen. I was told a few times coming up that I’d have to sell these horses and get one good young horse to make the team. I was never interested to give up the horses I had.”

Her inspiration and aspiration involved the training and making the horses the best they could be while building a relationship with each one.

In her view, “it’s more about the horses than the competing. And I like the teaching and I like watching the students move up to the grand prix,” said Heather who has had students earn the U.S. Dressage Federation gold medal, just as she did.

Heather has showed some memorable animals over the years, including Respekt and Zar, but she is most closely associated today with RTF Lincoln, who retired from the top ranks of the sport after winning the Open Grand Prix honors at the USDF’s national championships in Kentucky for the third straight year in 2023. Now 20, in 2024, he dropped down to Small Tour with Heather’s friend and student, amateur rider Alexandra Krossen, after Heather retired him from the Grand Prix ranks. Alex and Lincoln were in the ribbons in their adult amateur classes at the national championships last fall.

Offering an insight into Heather, Alex said, “I think her love of the animals really helps her get to know them and bring out the best in them. Then she can kind of transfer that to help the riders have success. I did some dressage prior to working with Heather but she’s really just good foundation and understanding the horse and that every horse is not the same. Sometimes you have to think outside the box, which definitely helps my approach to riding in general with multiple horses.”

Alex, who works in the business side of the pharmaceutical industry, has ridden with Heather since 2010.

“Being supportive and having shown a lot herself, Heather understands the pressures so you can ride better,” said Alex who had never been to a recognized dressage show prior to working with Heather.

Heather has enjoyed success with American-bred horses. Lincoln came from a Cornell University program. Heather would break some of the babies from the program and either sell them young or raise them and sell them. It was an affordable way to pick up a warmblood. She got Lincoln as a foal and then Meredith Whaley bought him as a just-broke three-year-old. Both Meredith and Heather showed him up to Fourth Level.

Then things started going wrong. Lincoln got hurt and was two years out of the show circuit. Meredith underwent double hip surgery, and finally, “She decided rehabbing him she didn’t want to ride and compete him anymore,” said Heather, who bought him in 2016 for a dollar.  When he got over his suspensory problems, she started him at Prix St. Georges/Intermediate I.

“He’s a tricky horse; he had a wicked spook spin,” Heather pointed out.

“He’d get really hot and started cranking his legs up and down. That actually was useful for the passage work, once he learned to slow it down.”

So there were some issues, but as Heather pointed out, “He does love to show. At home, he likes to be rubbed and scratched and he’s very pushy about it. He goes out every night, unless it’s absolutely awful weather.’

Where does the next horse of Lincoln’s capability come from for Heather?

Heather, who won the 2024 Adequan/USDF professional Vintage Cup titles (for riders 50 and older) at both Prix St. Georges and Fourth Level, pursues many avenues with the goal of replenishing her string.

She has bred her own horses, bought babies and even purchased foals in utero. Starting them from the ground up, she often has someone with her for that; Arielle Aharoni helped last year. But Rock It P, the 2024 Adequan/USDF Materiale Horse of the Year (colt/gelding), was one she handled alone “because he’s my huge, big boy. I did him from the ground up with nobody helping me,” she explained proudly.

Manuskript SCF was 2024 Adequan/USDF Horse of the Year at both Fourth Level and Prix St. Georges, while also winning the Fourth Level Freestyle and Freestyle Challenge honors.

For 2025, Heather has horses between levels, so the USDF championships where she has excelled so often “won’t be a serious goal this year. We have a lot of four-year-olds going to go out to show this year, so I’ll be babysitting.”

Heather’s team includes her mother, Phyllis, who has always been involved with her business. She doesn’t do the braiding anymore, but she keeps her daughter and company well-fed. Alex Krossen lends a hand when needed, while Wendi Freedman manages the business as Lydia Varga and Moises Vega “keep the place running when I’m out showing,” as Heather puts it.

Asked if there’s anything else in her life that she makes time for, Heather smiled and replied, not unexpectedly, “It’s pretty much horses.”