Hunterdon County dressage riders are tops at national championships

Heading west from Oldwick to Illinois for the Dressage Festival of Champions last week, Alice Tarjan had her own little wagon train. She was hauling four horses herself, while two were shipped commercially.

Asked about the challenge of dealing with half a dozen mounts at the six-day U.S. Equestrian Federation national championship, she acknowledged, “It was exhausting.”

But worth it. Her string came home with two championships and three reserves in an all-hands-on deck effort.

“It was a lot of work,” she acknowledged in a masterpiece of understatement, noting how her husband, Dennis Sargenti, pitched in, along with friend and fellow competitor, Lauren Chumley of Pittstown, groom Debbie Altland; trainer Marcus Orlob and his crew, as well as various other people who stepped up when needed.

Alice, Marcus and Abby Fodor of Bloomsbury made a mark for New Jersey at HITS’ Lamplight Equestrian Center with standout championship and reserve performances during the competition, which drew 175 entries from across the country.

With the Covid situation, Alice initially wasn’t sure about making the trek, but Marcus talked her into it, saying, “You need to go, the horses need the ring time.”

A mark of 88.400 percent won the first four-year-old class for Alice’s homebred mare Gjenganger, followed by Marcus second and third on Flambeau (88.220) and Alice’s stallion Glory Day (81.400). She’s handed Glory over to Marcus because “he’s more horse than I want to ride. It’s a fun horse to watch.”

Glory, who like Gjenganger is by 2014 Danish Warmblood Society champion stallion Grand Galaxy Win, was first with an 88.400 in the second class, where the mare was second on 85.400. But Gjenganger’s cumulative score took the tricolor for the division’s championship honors, leaving Glory as reserve.

Commenting on her chestnut protege, Alice said, “She’s been very easy to bring along, she’s naturally talented.”

Although the mare was sent out to get started under saddle, Alice has done all the work on her since then. It’s unusual for her to be riding a homebred; she buys most of her horses after watching them on videos, and her competition record makes it obvious she knows what she’s looking at.

Donatella M won the Developing Grand Prix for Alice with a score of 71.708 on the final day, while her stallion, Harvest, took the reserve honors in that section with 70.208.

That mare is a 9-year-old, “a little further along than Harvest,” said Alice, noting she put in basically a clean test on both days at the Festival.

“The changes took a long time for her to understand. I think I brought her to four different trainers to help me get the changes on her. It’s a credit to her rideability that she actually figured it out. She really works for you, she really tries.

“Harvest is really, really green. He’s only eight. We just brought him for ring experience,” Alice continued, noting he was focused on breeding duties in the spring.

“I’m thrilled with the result. It’s not what we were expecting. He doesn’t get worried about the work, but he can be a little spooky and the environment can be a little bit of an issue sometimes, so we really did want to get him some exposure. Once he goes down centerline now, he’s been very workmanlike about it. I love training horses, you have to figure out how to explain to the horse what you want. That’s the fun of it.”

Summersby II, second in the Five-Year-Old Young Horse division, was second in the Four-Year-Old section last year.

“I was happy to repeat. She’s going to be a fantastic Grand Prix horse, fun to bring along,” Alice predicted about the Oldenburg mare, who earned 80.400 percent in the final.

Alice won the FEI Grand Prix on Candescent (71.478 percent), but didn’t get a shot at the championship because the mare was eliminated under the blood rule from both the Special and Freestyle after she bit her tongue and a little blood showed. It was especially a shame because Candescent, who can be challenging at times was “fantastic. She was fighting on my side,” said Alice.

While the eliminations were disappointing, the rider noted, “I’m a big proponent of the blood rule.

“Zero tolerance is the way to go,” added Alice, who is a lawyer. If the rule isn’t zero tolerance, she asked, “where do you draw the line?”

Although the “no spectators” mandate was in effect, as it has been at all USEF competitions since they resumed in June after a Covid break, Alice said there were so many divisions at the show “it had a championship feel to it.” Marcus noted for the young horses, however, relatively quiet surroundings were a plus.

Marcus, after being a reserve champion at the Festival twice, finally got his blue cooler for the Six-Year-Old championship on Spirit of Joy by Sir Calypso. Owned by Jeanette Pinard, who also owns the four-year-old Flambeau, he earned 86.800 percent in the final with the only horse in the class to break the 80 percent mark.

After the class, Christine Traurig, the U.S. dressage young horse coach, suggested he take Spirit of Joy to Germany in December for the World Championship for Young Dressage Horses. The competition was moved from August to the end of the year because of Covid.

“It’s so hard to make plans with this whole situation, especially for the young horses,” said Marcus about the pandemic, noting he had competed the horse only three times before the championship.

“I feel like he’s doing everything right,” Marcus said about the Westfalen gelding.

During his first season in Florida, Marcus came to the attention of Steffen Peters when the Olympic medalist worked with him in a demonstration clinic at the Global Dressage Forum North America in West Palm Beach seven years ago. Steffen urged him to become a U.S. citizen, thinking he could have a future with the team.

Marcus wants to ride with the U.S. squad in an international championship, and emphasized Spirit’s owner has been very supportive.

“Jeannette would love to be part of the dream to go to an international event,” said Marcus, calling her “fantastic,” and noting she already turned down an offer for the horse.

“At the moment, I feel he’s doing everything right,” Marcus said of Spirit.

“The main goal is to bring him up to the Grand Prix. I just started with baby half-steps, the beginning of passage. Now it’s just a question of how well he will do it. At the moment, he does everything I hope for. The long-term goal would be the Olympics and World Championships.”

Marcus was thrilled by Alice’s invitation to ride Glory in the Four-Year-Old division. He admires what she has done.

“She can fill a whole U.S. team herself. She has so many fantastic horses coming up right now. She has a very good eye and is really good with the young horses.”

Of their collaboration he said, “I feel like we have a very good partnership going on. I give her credit, she’s so focused and tries 120 percent. At the moment, it works really great with us.”

He is a fan of Gjenganger.

“You can already see the power and swing in the trot and canter. Later on, the passage work will be huge for that horse and on top of that, she’s a beautiful mare. Wow, that she bred the horse, it’s like hitting the jackpot.”

Speaking of Jeannette and Alice he noted, “It’s great to have those two backing me up.”

Marcus and his wife, Shannon, met at Warendorf, the German national training center, when Marcus was getting his rider/trainer certification. The couple runs Elite Expression in Annandale.

While Marcus went to college for interior design and thought he would end up working in his family’s funeral home business, he wound up opting for horses. He rode with German trainer Hubertus Schmidt and Johan Zagers, coach of the Brazilian Olympic team.

Abby Fodor, who trains with Heather Mason, marked her last year in the pony division by taking the Pony Rider championship after finishing first in the team test on Slip and Slide with a score of 70.238. She was third in the individual test with 66.216, but topped the charts with her overall score. Since Heather didn’t come to Illinois, Abby worked at the show with former U.S. Dressage Federation President George Williams.

Her 14.2-hand quarter horse/Halflinger cross was a Canadian western reining pony she bought sight unseen from someone who got him at an auction and started him in dressage.

When he arrived in New Jersey, the first time Abby laid eyes on him she saw a “fat little hairy pony, we didn’t know how he was going to work. Then I rode him, then I loved him.”

This was the pony’s third time competing at the Festival, where the duo won  the children’s championship in 2017. In 2018, Abby and “Slide” picked up the reserve championship in the pony division.

The pony ranks aren’t the last stop for the 16-year-old chestnut. Abby, a 16-year-old junior at Immaculata High School in Somerville, has shown him at Prix St. Georges, and thinks PSG/I-1 “is his max.”

Whatever happens, he has a home forever at Abby’s family farm, where she takes care of him herself.