by Nancy Jaffer | Mar 13, 2018
By Nancy Jaffer
March 13, 2008
Spring Thaw may have started out as a troublemaker, but the Appaloosa gelding went on to be a long-serving guide and inspiration for those seeking help.
Until his death in January, shortly before his 31st birthday, he was the herd leader at Spring Reins of Life (SROL), which provides therapy through its horses to veterans with PTSD and others in need, such as bereaved children or at-risk teens.
Spring Thaw specialized in helping veterans or others in need.
On March 20, Spring will be one of 15 animals nationwide—and the only one in New Jersey–to be awarded the Planetree Service Animal Medal of Honor 2017. It is being presented by the New Jersey Veterans Administration Healthcare System and the Veterans of New Jersey.
The public is invited to attend the 10:30 a.m. ceremony at Hunt Cap Farm, 401 Main St. in the Three Bridges section of Readington, where SROL is based. Fittingly, it will be the first day of Spring.
As a rental horse for Manhattan’s old Claremont Riding Academy in 1996, Spring Thaw proved after six months on the job to be too much of a challenge. The last straw was the time he dumped his rider in Central Park, convinced another horse on the trail ride to do the same and wound up scampering through the streets of the city before he and his pal made their way back to the stable. It became the subject of a TV news report, prompting the stable’s owner to decide it was time for Spring to go.
Christiana “CC” Capra had been working at the stable as a groom and spent time exploring the city aboard Spring before his final transgression. She stepped up to take the horse and enjoyed eventing with him at novice level until he got Lyme disease.
He was treated holistically by Dr. Judith Shoemaker, a Pennsylvania veterinarian who specializes in complementary medicine and holistic therapy. She introduced CC to the concept of EAGALA, and that was a life-changer both for Spring and his owner.
Explaining the Equine-Assisted Growth and Learning Association precepts, CC noted, “All the work is done on the ground.” The basis is working on emotional and mental health.
Veterans working with Spring T.haw
“The idea is that when you’re on the horse, it’s a different skill set and you’re more in control of the horse’s body. When you’re on the ground, all bets are off and you’re on equal footing. The horses are able to act out and interact, sort of a barometer of the internal language that’s going on from the client.”
SROL works with trauma survivors in a group.
“Most of the war vets, whether it’s Iraq, Afghanistan or Vietnam, don’t want to talk about their PTSD, the war or where they’re at with that,” said CC.
“With the horses, we don’t have to talk; we just sort of `be’ and `experience.’ We set up scenarios; we ask clients to build something with props from the arena; we have some things that are combat-related, like flags and plastic guns and things like that they can reference if they want. It becomes a metaphorical exploration of where they’re at,” she continued.
The situation enables them to focus in the moment.
“It’s hard not to be present when you have four 1,000-pound creatures wandering around,” CC observed.
Spring Thaw taking a break from his job.
“We also work on establishing trust and confidence, the ability to be able to explore things and not worry about whether you’re doing it right or wrong. We’re not teaching horsemanship. We’re teaching how to handle life.”
She pointed out that the horses display what’s going on, either for a member in the group or the whole group themselves.
“We’re able to ask the clients, `What do you think is happening with the horses right now?’ Through their interpretation of what they see in the horses, it usually comes out pretty honest about their understanding of what the horses are doing and how they’re acting. Then later, they’re able to reflect and see how that may be how they are themselves.
“Trying something different with their horse, in their approach to gather the horse or get close to the horse, becomes metaphors for them in their own lives of what they can do with their marriage or home life or depression, or whatever may be going on. We don’t need to know what their story is, as long as they know and can relate to what the horses are showing them.”
CC said Spring was a mastermind, realizing just what he was doing with clients and his herd, exhibiting a sixth sense that linked him to the people participating.
She recalled an instance with an at-risk youth group that was part of a gang prevention program.
“One kid looked back at me and said, `Is this horse some kind of Jedi horse?’ noting how Spring anticipated what he was doing.
“After a while, he started to reference that kid, and I thought, `Maybe he is a Jedi horse,’ ” CC chuckled.
“He was an emotional surgeon. He just went right to it. It is our honor to keep this legacy alive. Spring Thaw gave all he had into our arena and he dedicated the last 10 years of his life to this mission.
“One of the last things I said to him before his great heart stopped was `I promise my boy, Jedi horse, we will make you proud of us.’ He was my confidant, my rock, my guide, my lifetime horse for the last 21 years.”
CC and Spring Thaw communing.
The Open Group under Operation Horse, linked with the Lyons campus of the Veterans Administration New Jersey Health Care System in Basking Ridge, is available to any combat veteran with PTSD.
“We have seen some incredible success with the fact that repeated and longer-term exposure and reflection is creating solutions for these veterans,” said CC.
It was the veterans who nominated Spring for the Planetree award, which speaks volumes about the horse’s impact.
After coming into the program in November 2016, a retired 1SG (first sergeant) named Angel (last name withheld) who served in Iraq, was particularly fond of Spring and nicknamed him “Grandpa.”
He noted that Spring could build confidence in people, most of whom had no experience with horses, citing the case of a petite female client in her late 50s.
“She was terrified of horses,” Angel recalled, but when she went up to Spring and started petting him as he stood quietly, she relaxed immediately.
“He makes you feel comfortable,” Angel said about Spring.
Angel, who called Operation Horse “a great program,” noted the connection that develops between the equines and the participants.
As a veteran, he said, “it’s hard to take the wall down, the barriers; these horses kind of do it for us. You can’t lie to the horse. The horse can sense if you’re tense and will go away from you.”
He had the chance through a contact to ride a horse at another farm and understood because of his background with the program, “It’s a privilege for that horse to let me get on his back.”
Angel recalled that when he came back from his second tour in Iraq, there was a chaplain standing by in the airport who said, “ `I’m going to shake every soldier’s hand who comes off the airplane.’ That’s kind of like Grandpa—how many veterans have touched him, and how many has he touched. It’s amazing, the things that he’s done without even realizing.”
Jennifer Snell, a recreation therapist out of the Lyons facility, noted that Spring had arthritis and had to wear special shoes.
“It was kind of interesting, because a lot of the veterans have physical limitations too, so they could relate to him when he was getting out of his stall, taking his time starting to move. The veterans also could definitely relate to him as the old man, the head of the herd.”
She cited “amazing results” with the program, “how the horses end up mirroring a lot of the things that happen. We have veterans do different things with the horses, like obstacle courses. Building trust is one of the things we work on. They develop a form of trust with the horses and the horses trust the veterans.”
Like Angel, she emphasized the importance of “being able to connect with something.” Breathing exercises, “a relaxation, calming thing” the veterans do with their arms over the horses’ backs and being belly to belly, breathing together, “is a cool thing to see. Grooming also is calming for the veterans, who like making the horses feel better because they’re getting groomed.”
Spring Thaw working on healing. (Photo by CMC Photography)
Finding the money to keep SROL going is always a challenge, but CC has vowed in memory of Spring Thaw to “keep this program funded and saving lives.”
Those wishing to learn more about donating to this 501c3 charitable organization can go to www.springreinsoflife.org .
by Nancy Jaffer | Mar 2, 2018
By Nancy Jaffer
March 2, 2018
While suffering through a winter of gray skies, rain and way too much mud in the paddocks and pastures up North, you doubtless have a personal understanding of why so many horse owners flee to Florida during the bleak months.
Beautiful farms are part of the Wellington scene. (Photo by Nancy Jaffer)
If you’re in New Jersey today, or for that matter, much of the Northeast and mid-Atlantic area, just look out the window at the “wintry mix” from the nor’easter.
They don’t call Wellington, Fla., “The Winter Capital of the Equestrian World” for nothing. Although the municipality of more than 56,000 looks like an ordinary suburban town in many ways, with an abundance of development homes, it is the equestrian element that sets Wellington apart.
The Winter Equestrian Festival is its biggest claim to equine fame, with riders from all over the world and more than 5,000 horses coming for 12 weeks of show jumping, hunters and equitation from January through March. (Less glamorous shows are held at other times of year).
World-class riders such as Laura Graves with Verdades always draw a crowd at Global. (Photo by Nancy Jaffer)
WEF’s sibling down the street, the Adequan Global Dressage Festival, is the place to be for world class dressage riders from the U.S. and elsewhere. The “Friday Night Stars” freestyles under the lights always attract a packed house, in both the VIP area that runs along two sides of the arena, and the grandstands on the second long side.
Streets are named in an equestrian vein after shows such as Aachen and Hickstead. There’s also an Idle Dice Road, Gem Twist Court and other byways with names you’ll recognize, such as Calypso or Stroller.
Even the streets have horsey names in Wellington. (Photo by Nancy Jaffer)
If you’re a horse person, you’ll feel at home. The question is, can you afford to live there, or even rent for the season?
Realtors keep emailing me with their listings. My favorite was 80 acres for $25 million. There’s a nice barn with apartments upstairs, but no house. I’m a little short this month—can you lend me a few bucks for a downpayment?
Many properties are in gated communities, such as Palm Beach Polo and Palm Beach Point. Their often-artistic wrought iron gates are worth a look, but you’ll only be able to get inside if you know the passcode.
You can’t get in unless you know the code. (Photo by Nancy Jaffer)
It all adds up to quite a lifestyle that has flourished in less than a half-century. Long before the horse shows were conceived, Wellington was the world’s biggest strawberry patch, the Flying Cow Ranch, owned by C. Oliver Wellington.
It became a Planned Unit Development in 1972, 23 years before it would be incorporated as a municipality, but the turning point for equestrians came in 1977. Developer Bill Ylvisaker took horse show entrepreneur Gene Mische to see a rather desolate tract and outlined his plans for a polo club and hunter/jumper show facility on the site.
“It was dunes and palm trees and woods. I asked, `What are you smoking?'” Gene chuckled a few years later, recalling his skepticism at Bill’s presentation. But he went for it.
Soon enough, the property became very valuable real estate as the Palm Beach Polo Club. The gated community, which once hosted the type of polo matches that drew Prince Charles and Princess Diana, gave a venue to Stadium Jumping Inc.’s Winter Equestrian Festival. Prior to that, the Florida Sunshine Circuit had traipsed from showground to showground around the state; Wellington provided a home base not only for the shows, but as time went on, for the people involved with them, who built their estates in the area.
A few years later, the WEF moved from the Polo Club over to its own facility, the Palm Beach Polo Equestrian Club, a half-mile or so away. That facility changed ownership in 2007, when entrepreneur Mark Bellisimo, head of the Wellington Equestrian Partners group of investors, took over management under the mantle of Equestrian Sport Productions and started pumping millions of dollars into such badly needed improvements as all-weather footing in the tired grass International Arena at the venue, which was renamed the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center.
The big arena developed into a mini-stadium; restaurants and hospitality facilities sprouted and prize money increased to the $9 million being offered this year.
VIPs have a close-up view of the show jumping action at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center. (Photo by Nancy Jaffer)
At dressage, the 2018 prize money is $600,000, a figure unheard for that discipline just a few years ago. In a moment reminiscent of that Ylvisaker/Mische meeting among the scrub palmetto several decades previously, Adequan’s Allyn Mann embraced Mark Bellisimo’s vision for Global from atop a mountain of dirt on the site of the old polo fields, where a stadium and three other dressage rings would soon spring up.
Kim Tudor, who got her start with Gene doing sponsorship, once observed, “Years ago, we used to say `Palm Beach’ and not Wellington, because no one knew where Wellington existed on the map. Now, most people within the equestrian industry know exactly where Wellington is, and they rarely say `Palm Beach.’ ”
One measure of Wellington’s equestrian well-being is that WEF is no longer the only game in town. The Jacobs family has a series of shows, including the prestigious Palm Beach Masters World Cup qualifier, at Deeridge Farm near Global. Nona Garson, who runs the Ridge show series in New Jersey with partner George D’Ambrosio, has a popular series of competitions in Wellington as well.
The VIP area at the Palm Beach Masters, the Jacobs family’s show at their Deeridge Farm. (Photo by Nancy Jaffer)
It’s a kick to see the big name riders, often still in their breeches and boots, wheeling shopping carts in the supermarket or visiting the sprawling Wellington Green mall. Despite the size of Wellington, among equestrians, it has a small town feel where everybody knows your name.
“Our community is a good community,” said grand prix show jumper Lauren Hough. “When you’re down and out or things are rough, there’s a lot of people you can count on to help you.”
Dressage rider/trainer Katherine Bateson Chandler agrees.
“You always feel very supported here in Wellington,” she observed.
“You’re surrounded by your peers and they understand the struggle is real, in show jumping, dressage, polo and the whole horse community.”
New Jersey dressage breeder/trainer Bridget Hay, who endured several weeks of cold misery riding at home in during January, was glad to bring her horses to rented quarters in Wellington at the end of that month.
Even with an indoor ring at her farm in Hunterdon County, she said, “I couldn’t get everyone ridden in a warm enough time of day where it was healthy for them.”
During the New Jersey winter, “There was no showing up there, and I need training,” said Bridget, who is able to ride with Olympian Adrienne Lyle in Wellington, where their stables are only a few minutes apart.
“We all need to work with people,” noted Bridget, who also benefits from watching some of the world’s greatest riders in the big competitions at Global. “I need to come down here to better myself.”
Iowa dressage professional Missy Fladland noted that in Wellington, “No matter where you go, there’s a horse person there. We all save up to get here, just to make it happen.”
She’s been coming for four years, at the urging of her former trainer. He told her, “When you’re ready, you’ve got to go to Florida. That’s where you get the most Europeans, that’s where you get the stiffest competition and the most number of shows in a small space in a 12-week period. That’s where it’s at.”
by Nancy Jaffer | Jan 15, 2018
By Nancy Jaffer
January 15, 2018
Kelly DeSaye nearly hung up on the person who notified her that she had won the U.S. Hunter Jumper Association’s Amateur Sportsmanship award.
“She said, `Hi Kelly, this is Cheryl Rubenstein from the awards program,’” Kelly recalled.
“I was having a crazy day and you’re thinking, `the hotel points, a free resort vacation’, you know, the calls you get. I was just saying to her, `Listen, I’m really not interested’ and she said, `Kelly, don’t hang up. I’m from USHJA.’ I was laughing so hard, but when she told me, I literally cried,” the Farmingdale resident recalled.
“I was so shocked. There were people out there who recognized what I did.
Kelly DeSaye, center, receiving her USHJA amateur sportsmanship award from Marla Holt and Marianne Kutner. (Photo by Nancy Jaffer)
“I love horse showing,” said Kelly, who competes in the adult amateur hunters and rides six days a week. But the award wasn’t given because she’s an enthusiastic participant. It was about the way she treats people, and animals.
“In Kelly’s world, there are no strangers—just people she hasn’t met,” said her trainer, Mary Babick.
And Kelly is always up for making new friends.
“I love meeting people. I want to know what they’re about,” said Kelly, whose engaging approach puts people at ease and helped earn her the award.
“She is always ready to lend a hand, a listening ear or a shoulder to lean on. She’s someone that you want to have on your team,” observed Mary. Although Mary is president of USHJA, she noted Kelly’s award was a “pleasant surprise” to her and she did not even know of the nomination until she saw the materials from the awards committee.
One of the stories that defines what Kelly is about involves the time she handed over her down coat and gloves to a chilly concierge at HITS Ocala on an unseasonably cold day.
“Please stay warm,” she told the woman.
Kelly explained, “Everybody in this world struggles for something. I had no idea if this person had everything or anything, or if she was just unprepared.” Whatever it was,Kelly wanted to help.
Her inspiration in the show world is Betty Oare, the wonderful hunter rider and consummate volunteer who is still going strong at age 76.
Kelly and Betty met when they were both riding thoroughbreds at a show and compared notes.
“She’s a lot of fun and really has a good heart,” Betty said of Kelly.
“She’s a very generous kind of lady with an upbeat kind of manner.”
Off-the-track thoroughbreds are Kelly’s mount of choice. “I love that second chance,” she explained.
A determined Kelly in action.
Kelly, who characterizes herself as “an animal person” is into rescue, with pigs a specialty.
“There’s no such thing as a micro-pig,” said Kelly, but unfortunately, people who buy a piglet as a pet don’t necessarily realize that, she pointed out. When the animal gets too big, they often don’t want anything to do with it.
Kelly rents a farm in Colts Neck where she keeps rescue pigs.
“Some were abused, some were abandoned, some were just dropped off,” said Kelly, who also has two pigs living in her house.”
“It’s just like having a dog,” she maintains about the pigs she nurtures and loves. “They are so smart.”
Kelly at home with one of her adopted pigs.
As a shelter volunteer, she also raises money for animals that need rescue, getting particularly involved with canine refugees who came north after Hurricane Irma.
She also raises money for a variety of causes in the horse world and beyond. Whether it’s running a raffle or donating for a charity auction, she’s all in.
Kelly’s equestrian involvement began when she was growing up in Colts Neck, where she rode western in 4H. Then she discovered boys, went to college, had a daughter, Brittany, now 30, and didn’t begin riding again until she was 45. After her daughter went to college, the empty nest syndrome hit her and she decided to get involved with horses to fill the void.
She said her husband, Michael, “supports me 100 percent,” and notes he also has been part of the horse world. Polo was his game, and he also has been a successful racehorse breeder.
All was going well for Kelly on the show circuit until three years ago, when her horse started bucking wildly after finishing a round. “He catapulted me 30 feet out of the ring,” remembers Kelly, who broke her neck when she fell.
She stopped riding for six months, then started taking lessons with Mary. Kelly returned to the ring with a titanium neck and a determination to improve herself and continue competing.
“Mary opened my eyes to a new world,” said Kelly, who is still jumping at age 54 and enjoys competing those thoroughbreds.
“If I have the worst round in the world, I still come out of the ring smiling,” she said. “Now I know what to do next time.”
by Nancy Jaffer | Dec 23, 2017
By Nancy Jaffer
December 23, 2017
She’s done it all, from winning Olympic team show jumping medals and writing a book, to victories in the world’s major grands prix, as well as earning spot in the Show Jumping Hall of Fame. Her mounts have included such famous names as Starman, Livius and Eros.
But now Anne Kursinski has something else on her resume, the title of U.S. assistant show jumping coach and development technical advisor, which she assumed this fall. Anne, who operates the Market Street training stable in Frenchtown, is working with U.S. team coach Robert Ridland.
Robert Ridland and Anne Kursinski. (Photo by Nancy Jaffer)
It’s a perfect relationship, since the two go way back together.
They’re both Olympians, native Californians who trained at the Flintridge Riding Club with Jimmy Williams and later with U.S. Equestrian Team coach Bert de Nemethy.
Anne, who at 58 is younger than Robert, 67, recalled she looked up to him when she was a kid. Anne remembers Robert returning to Flintridge after he rode on the 1976 Olympic team, which made an impression on her. Anne’s ambition was also to ride in the Olympics, which she did three times, earning two silver medals in the process, and was an alternate twice.
“It’s a fun camaraderie with him,” she said of Robert, noting he has had quite a career, running the World Cup finals, having his own training barn, being a course designer and a technical delegate. Meanwhile, she has been a selector for the team, so their paths have crossed often.
“We have a rapport and get along very well,” said Anne.
“We’re very, very comfortable with each other. I have a passion for the team, I always have, and if I can’t do it myself, then I want to help other people do it.”
For his part, Robert said, “I feel Anne is essential to the program.” After spending a year shadowing former coach George Morris before taking on the job himself after the 2012 Olympics, Robert said, “It was hard for me to imagine that he was able to do all he could do as a one-man show.
“Our country is too large,” he observed, noting Anne “is an invaluable asset to the team and myself as the development coach and my assistant.” For 2018, he noted, show jumping involves “two parallel programs, one focusing on the WEG (World Equestrian Games in Tryon, N.C.) and then all the rest, including qualifying for the Nations’ Cup final.” And don’t forget the Longines FEI World Cup finals in Paris.
Robert also is a believer in putting younger, less-experienced riders on squads to bring them along. He and Anne are part of a larger team that includes DiAnn Langer, the Young Rider coach, and Lizzy Chesson, the U.S. Equestrian Federation’s director of show jumping.
Before taking the job, Anne said, “My concern was, I still have a business and I’m still actively competing.”
Anne is known for her classic form over fences, no matter how high they are. (Photo by Nancy Jaffer)
But she was reassured by Robert and Lizzy that she could still be involved with her other pursuits, which cleared the way for her to move into the position.
“I love the team,” she noted. “The Nations’ Cup and the tours were my favorite part of competing, I was passionate about that. I do love to teach and share my experience. To have done it from a little kid all the way up through the Olympics is helpful.” And she mentioned that when she is working with less-experienced team riders and “helping them up the pathway,” she’s giving a boost to many more people than she could by working on her own.
Anne, who has been a chef d’equipe in the past with Young Rider teams, now relies on information from DiAnn about those who have been in the Young Rider program and are moving up.
The group she deals with primarily “is different than the Young Riders, in that they need more structure in a way.” While they may have been on one or two Nations’ Cup teams, she mentioned, “These guys have already been over there, but they still need guidance.”
She went to Samorin, Slovakia, with a team during the autumn.
“When they had to ride in the Nations’ Cup, they were nervous. To be able to help them with that, I enjoy it. I’ve been in that situation myself.”
In fact, said Anne, “I was in high school when I went to my first Nations’ Cup at Spruce Meadows,” which helps her empathize with members of her squads. There’s no doubt that the mission is clear: “The bottom line is to get the next generation on the podium, doing what Beezie and McLain are doing,” she pointed out.
by Nancy Jaffer | Nov 16, 2017
By Nancy Jaffer
November 23, 2017
It’s a traditionn that began when Jacqueline Kennedy, then the charismatic First Lady of the U.S., would ride out with New Jersey’s Essex Foxhounds on Thanksgiving. The interest in her and her family was intense. As one Essex veteran told me, “photographers were hanging from the trees” when she appeared on the scene.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis at the Essex Foxhounds’ Thanksgiving hunt. To the left in black is her son, John F. Kennedy Jr. (Photo by Nancy Jaffer)
Word got around. Eager to catch a glimpse of Jackie, people started coming to the Thanksgiving hunt to gawk. While Jackie stopped riding with Essex decades ago and died in 1994, the custom continues.
Today, as always, hundreds converged on the elegant Ellistan estate in Peapack, N.J., to watch the hunt gather before it headed out across the green fields of Somerset County.
The scene at Ellistan on Thanksgiving 2017. (Photo by Nancy Jaffer)
Those who come to the property take photos and videos, tailgate, toss a football and generally enjoy an hour or two out in the country before heading off to their dinner.
Tailgating on Thanksgiving at Ellistan. (Photo by Lawrence J. Nagy)
Some have never been close to a horse, and are fascinated by watching sleek mounts and their well-turned out riders.
Eager kids reach out to touch a horse. (Photo by Nancy Jaffer)
For horse-savvy locals, it’s a time to see old friends, chat with pillars of the equestrian community and discuss who’s riding which horse.
Drs. Brendan Furlong and Wendy Leitch. (Photo by Nancy Jaffer)
It’s also a time to appreciate open space in the most densely populated state in the union. Essex is part of the community, an example of countryside sport, and how closely riding and horses are involved with land preservation.
Essex Hunt Committee Chairman Sally Ike and treasurer Jim Gordon. (Photo by Nancy Jaffer)
Taking a fence on Thanksgiving. (Photo by Lawrence J. Nagy)
by Nancy Jaffer | Nov 1, 2017
By Nancy Jaffer
November 1, 2017
The horses who were part of the U.S. Equestrian Federation’s development dressage training and evaluation session in Gladstone someday may be on an American team at a major championship—or they may never rise to that level.
But the help their riders got during the October sessions from U.S. Development Dressage Coach Debbie McDonald and other key professionals was geared to giving them a leg up, not only with their current mounts, but also with the horses they may ride and train in the future.
Development dressage coach Debbie McDonald instructing Allison Kavey, who rode Cacharel in the clinic, said, “It was a great opportunity for this horse and me to get this level of instruction before we went to Florida.” (Photo by Nancy Jaffer)
It was, as always, fascinating to watch Debbie work with the riders in her gentle but effective way, counseling here on improving a pirouette canter along the way to making a pirouette better, or there, on improving the contact through positioning, rather than pushing the horse into it.
The four-day workshop at U.S. Equestrian Team Foundation headquarters, where so many Olympians have trained over the decades, offered an important step for those aspiring to represent their country someday. The program, which also runs in other regions, is part of a revamped effort to link the elite horse/rider combinations competing at the Olympics, World Equestrian Games, World Cup finals and Pan American Games with those on the rise at lower levels. The greatest pairings cannot go on forever, and the U.S. needs a pipeline for cultivating talent able to proceed through the ranks.
Emily Donaldson of Pennsylvania was thrilled she and her two horses could participate. One is a 12-year-old who just started Prix St. Georges/I-1. The other is an eight-year-old still working on flying changes. Being involved with the clinic made a difference for her and her mounts.
“It’s just been amazing. You think, `If I could do this every week, gosh, what would happen with my training?’ You have to be a sponge and soak every bit of it in and sort of run with it when you go home,” said Emily, who is fighting breast cancer and undergoing chemotherapy, but pushed hard to make sure she could take advantage of the clinic.
Emily Donaldson and Audi honed their skills during the clinic. (Photo by Nancy Jaffer)
“The USEF is so generous. It’s amazing what they have provided us with. My goal is to be a team rider. As a pro, it’s hard to find time for yourself. Just being here…it’s been amazing.”
Debbie remembers when development programs often were under-funded, since money originally allotted “would get pulled because it was an Olympic or a WEG (World Equestrian Games) year.” While that was “totally understandable” as Debbie said, it also was frustrating.
But the game changed when the program got support from USET Foundation Trustee Akiko Yamazaki (best known as the sponsor of Steffen Peters) and the Red Husky Foundation. In addition, Elizabeth Juliano has contributed as the founding sponsor of a physiotherapy initiative, represented by Andy Thomas in Gladstone. The program also included a session with a sports psychologist, as well as evaluation of dressage tests by Olympian and judge Charlotte Bredahl.
“Every year I do this,” said Debbie, “I get a bigger vision of where this could go. I might still want to tweak it a little bit, but this year, I feel so much more engaged with the riders and I feel like I’m helping them set goals and future plans.”
Riders came from as far away as Iowa and Illinois to take advantage of the program. Not every region has an abundance of resources for dressage, so that makes the program doubly important.
“Finding some good eyes on the ground is difficult in some of these places that people live,” said Debbie, who also watched how the participants’ own trainers worked with them.
Former U.S. dressage chef d’equipe Jessica Ransehousen, who rode on Olympic teams during this country’s dawn of dressage consciousness, was on hand with Emily, who is her student. When Jessica was leading the U.S. squads, there was no program comparable to this, and it was hard for many people to find a pathway to the top.
Jessica appreciates the availability of such former top competitors as Debbie and Charlotte.
“I think what’s going to happen is these people (the riders in the development program) are going to talk to their friends who are then going to want to come into a program like this. It’s going to get bigger and bigger,” Jessica said.
“We want to encourage those riders who have already been to the top to put some time into it,” she continued, discussing the way veterans can reach out to those aspiring to achieve a higher level of performance.
Jessica noted that while she can tell Emily something in her weekly lessons, “Debbie can say it in a little bit of a different way, and suddenly it clicks.”
Missy Fladland, who is based in Iowa, called the clinic “top notch.”
Missy Fladland and Sundance 8 (Photo by Nancy Jaffer)
“The experience has been great. We’re meeting not only other professionals that we can connect and network with. Debbie and Charlotte both have an ability to fine-tune the little things in the rider and horse to make it look seamless,” she commented.
“Where the program is going to go for the U.S. and the future of dressage is just unstoppable. For me, this experience has been amazing, unbelievable.”
The revamped program includes evaluation as well as training. As the USEF’s managing director for dressage, Hallye Griffin explained it, after the session, some people may be selected for membership that will enable them to obtain grants. In the past, athletes applied for grants, but there wasn’t a lot of individual follow-up with those who were chosen.
Now, after they have been selected, the areas where they need more help are identified and they are put in touch with experts in those fields, whether it’s physiotherapy, statistical analysis or others. The process also calls for a six- month review to determine whether they have reached the targets set for them, perhaps moving up a level or getting a certain score.
The development clinic was preceded by a day-long Discover Dressage™ USEF/U.S. Dressage Federation Emerging Athlete Program for the under-25 group, directed by USEF Dressage Youth Coach Dressage George Williams and Charlotte, the assistant youth coach. Discover Dressage’s president, Kimberly Van Kampen, is a longtime supporter of the discipline.
The emerging athlete component is part of the same initiative that offers a clear road for getting to the top.
“The aim of a pathway is to make sure that there is education, coaching and competition support at every level, and a clear vision of what it takes to get to the next step, if that’s what people want to do,” said USEF Director of Sport Will Connell.
“You plant a tree and you watch it grow. This is about finding people that are starting out in their international career and helping them grow.”
