Carl Bessette, who died Sunday in Wellington, Fla. at the age of 89, was always the picture of equestrian elegance; tall, slender and impeccably turned out.
A horseman who emphasized the classical approach with no shortcuts, he took his last ride on Father’s Day in June, wearing his usual polished boots and spurs, according to M. Douglas (Dougie) Mutch, who noted he was still able to demonstrate the skills that made him such a wonderful horseman and teacher.
Creigh Duncan, who took lessons from him when he was based at Tewksbury Farms in Pottersville during the 1970s, remembered, “He was tough on us, yet we all adored him. He was widely known for being a very good equitation trainer.”
His dressage background was part of the fabric of his teaching.
“You did a turn on the haunches when you were asked to reverse, we did shoulder-in and shoulder-out,” she recalled. Carl’s students had to show up for lessons in polished boots, breeches and a shirt or sweater—but never a jacket, because he wanted to see his riders’ form in the saddle. He insisted on practice making perfect, “you did it until you could do it,” said Creigh.
The riders were expected to listen to what he told them. “It wasn’t a dialogue,” she pointed out.
At the same time, when something unexpected happened in the ring, “he’d end up laughing at us and with us” to defuse a situation. As an example, she remembered the time her horse ran off with her after completing the outside course at the old Junior Essex Troop Farm in West Orange, heading downhill and galloping across the brook. “The only thing that stopped my horse was the fence around the jumper ring.”
She said Carl left Tewksbury to teach at Southern Seminary in Virginia. He also taught at the Champlain Riding School in Vermont and eventually wound up in Wellington, as so many trainers do.
Dougie advised that there will be a celebration of life for Carl there next year after the Winter Equestrian Festival gets under way, and suggested that people can remember him by making a contribution in his name to the charity of their choice. “He would love that,” she said.