The experience is serene at Summer Days dressage

Even without spectators in the grandstand, the U.S. Equestrian Team Foundation’s arena has character. The towering backdrop of the historic stables in Gladstone, N.J., offers a reminder that this is where so many of the country’s most famous riders trained during another era.

That ambience is among the reasons the Summer Days dressage show always is such a good schooling opportunity, whether for a veteran mount’s tune-up or to provide mileage for young prospects and horses switching disciplines.

After the buzz of the Essex Horse Trials on July Fourth weekend, it was quite a change in mood to see horses performing their tests surrounded by silence this week. This is not what you’d call a spectator event, but it means a lot to those taking part.

“I love to ride at the Team. It’s great, the footing is great,” said Marilyn Payne, who was aboard Maestro LFS, a five-year-old gelding who punctuated his respectable Training Level 2 test with a series of inquiring, high-pitched whinnies.

“What’s going on?” the Dutch warmblood seemed to ask. “Where am I?”

Coming up the hill from the indoor ring, horses enter the big arena and suddenly, they catch sight of the (empty) grandstands and the stable.

“It’s hard for a young horse. For a lot of horses, it’s a real eye-opener,” explained Marilyn, a respected trainer and judge who has officiated at two Olympics.

“There’s a lot to look at,” she noted.

Then she laughed and said, “We stayed in the ring, that was good. A couple of times, I thought he was going to take off and jump out of the ring.”

But he didn’t, and was marked at 64.828 percent, third in his Training Level 2 class of five.

Maestro loves Marilyn’s husband Dick, and when he’s driving the tractor, follows him around. They have the same birthday, April 16; Dick is just a little older than Maestro. So don’t ask if he’s for sale.

Arielle Aharoni’s Furst Queen is “not a hot weather horse,” so she was taking a little break from eventing to compete at Gladstone. The Danish warmblood by Furstenball is a half-sister to Arielle’s well-known eventing mount, Dutch Times.

“One day, she’s going to say `no more’ to eventing and this is going to be her full-time career,” the rider revealed about the mare.

Furst Queen won her Second Level Test 3 class with 63.33 percent.

“She is just happy to do whatever we say. She’s a really sweet, sweet mare,” Arielle said of the 8-year-old she bought six years ago. Before the mare, bred in Pennsylvania. came to Arielle, she had undergone surgery as a two-year-old for an OCD lesion, so she was nervous when she arrived at the farm of her new owner. No problem.

“Three days of sitting in the field and giving her treats fixed that,” advised Arielle, who uses that technique often.

She’s hoping to qualify Furst Queen for the U.S. Dressage Federation’s national championships in Kentucky this November. Gladstone was a step along the way.

“I do love this place. I think it’s a great environment, especially for the spooky horses that are just learning to take in a big scenery,” said Arielle.
“They have to get used to that if they want to go do big stuff.”

Kimberly Herslow, who has gotten into PRE horses, rode Spanish import Holgazan in Fourth Level Test 1, earning 61.53 percent.

“He’s just starting to learn his changes and get a feel for what’s going on,” she said.

“I was really happy because it’s an atmosphere here, and the last two shows he went into the ring and cantered off the halt and did silly stuff.”

“He just needs to go in and do a nice solid ride and do his job,” said Kim, whose test was marked at 61.53 percent.

Last fall, Kim said goodbye to her 2015 Pan American Games team gold medal mount Rosmarin, better known as Reno. He had a nice retirement on her farm in Stockton, N.J., then had to be put down due to worsening suspensory problems. She’s still emotional about that, of course, but Kim is one who keeps busy and looks ahead, focusing on careful training with a series of up-and-coming mounts.

Glenna Gray had a memorable day at her first show back after a two-year absence from competition. She fractured her right heel when she fell from a ladder, which made it hard to do heels down. Riding Alpine Getaway, a lovely thoroughbred ex-racehorse, she earned 66.923 percent in her first dressage show to finish ahead of four other entries in Training Level Test One. I was so impressed by the mare; as I was passing by the ring, she caught my eye immediately for her willing performance and pleasant appearance in the ring.

An English as a Second Language teacher in Manville, N.J., Glenna grew up in Peapack-Gladstone and visited the USET as a child but never rode at the facility.

“It’s a wonderful experience,” she said.

Glenna took lessons with trainer Rachel Rosenthal Bellard of Bedminster, N.J., when she was 12, and the two reconnected recently. Rachel thought Glenna and the 17-year-old mare, whose barn name is Harley, would be a good match, and they were.

“I really wanted to prove to myself I could get back in the show ring,” said Glenna, who is hoping to enter the mare in jumper classes.

The USET Foundation is a familiar venue for Lauren Sammis, who won a team gold medal in the  2007 Pan American Games. Although she’s a trainer based in Pittstown, N.J., Lauren has what amounts to a pleasure horse in Daisy van Wittenstein P, who earned 70 percent in the Grand Prix.

Enjoying horse who amounts to a pet is an unaccustomed luxury for a professional.

“She’s on her own schedule,” noted Lauren.

“It’s been a joy to have my own horse. I can do whatever I want to. It’s no pressure, it’s just going in and riding the test.”

Daisy came to Lauren as a sales horse.

“I wasn’t able to sell her, because her X-rays were awful. Awful. And she’s been sound ever since.”

Of course, right?

Having her has enabled Lauren to try different techniques.

She’s not “a leg flinger,” so she competes nationally, rather than in CDIs. Lauren doesn’t see any reason to push her to become something she’s not.

“I didn’t care about scores whatsoever. She’s why you own a horse. She doesn’t ever do anything wrong,” said Lauren.

She has plenty of other horses to ride in competition.

They include the Danish warmblood Heiline’s Oh Land, who got 74.8 percent for a win in the Prix St. Georges, and the Hanoverian Baccara B.

Also competing at Grand Prix was Catherine Haddad Staller, who selected Hazel ASK off a video. The mare had been a 1.30-meter jumper in Denmark, until the rider’s wife decided to try her in dressage.

“I have to have that one,” Catherine said, recalling her reaction to what she saw in the video.

“The greatest part about this horse–I can get her off the horse trailer, throw my right leg over her,  and walk her around the grounds on the buckle. She’s totally cool,” commented Catherine, whose groom rides the 11-year-old mare bareback. She earned 69.239 percent in the Grand Prix early on the first day of the show. Catherine is hoping to enter her at Dressage at Devon this fall.

“It’s so wonderful to have a horse who wants to work with you. She’s totally inspired by the dressage arena.”

The mare belongs to a new company, NorCordia, that Catherine formed last year with three Danish partners. Another NorCordia horse, the 7-year-old Hanoverian Sola Diva, was marked at 78.6 percent in the young horse test.

Explaining how her business works, Catherine said “We’re buying and selling hand-picked horses, and put them with trainers in Europe and the USA. We don’t keep them in one stable.”

Catherine decides where they should go, matching top trainers to top horses, and when it comes to sales, “we look for the right partner for the horse.”

The company is also an investment firm. All the horses they buy go into portfolios of 10 to 12 horses, which is a way of managing risk for investors, as opposed to buying a single horse.