But then … [record scratch].

Wait—did I pack extra gloves? Are my biceps any match for the hireling who pulls like a freight train? Does my coat fit the dress code, or am I about to commit a sartorial sin that’ll have the master side-eyeing me all day? Are we really jumping that ditch?

Suddenly, you’re spiraling into a mental checklist the length of a hunt whip, wondering how anyone manages to pull off this kind of adventure without losing their minds (or their stirrups).

Hunting abroad is the trip of a lifetime. But the fantasy comes with its complexities. Every hunt, every country, every culture has its own rules and rituals, and planning such a trip is a labyrinth of logistics. So where do you begin?

With the right knowledge, resources and a bit of planning, that dream of hunting abroad can become your reality.

The DIY Hunting Abroad Experience

Before you picture yourself thundering across a field of frostbitten four-leaf clovers, let’s rewind to the elemental first step: finding a hunt.

If you’ve got international hunting connections, great—maybe they can point you in the right direction. If not, don’t despair. The internet is a treasure trove for aspiring globe-trotting foxhunters. Start with “Baily’s Hunting Directory” (the “red-backed bible of hunting” since 1897), browse social media for hunts of interest, and reach out to hunt secretaries.

Some hunts are famously welcoming, rolling out the red carpet for guests with special events and hearty hospitality. Others are more exclusive, or even exclusionary—you might fork over your capping fee only to be left for dead in a mud puddle when your hireling decides to bugger off. Still other hunts are so discreet you might never even know they exist.

Virginia-based foxhunting couple Rosemarie (“Rosie”) and Grosvenor Merle-Smith began riding to hounds in 1983 and never looked back, spending decades pursuing the sport throughout the U.S. and beyond. Together, they’ve traveled the globe from England, Ireland and France to Mongolia and Australia, fueled by a wanderlust and a passion for the chase. For all its romance, Rosie is quick to point out that huntingabroad, particularly if you’re planning the trip yourself, requires preparation—and a bit of grit.

Depending on where you go, hunting is not for the faint of heart—or the less-than-sticky seat. “You better be a darn good rider in England and Ireland,” she said. “The horses are strong. It’s run-and-jump. If you love being in a mini steeplechase, great, but that also raises your risk of getting hurt. Be honest with your riding skills because it’s going to be longer and harder than you think.”

Every hunt has its own personality, quirks and speed.

“It’s like here: You have packs that are basically a social trail ride, and everyone loves it. Then there are packs where you’re flying through the woods, and it’s dangerous. You have to know what kind of rider you are and decide what you want,” Rosie said.

Hunting abroad is as much about adapting to the differences as it is about enjoying the similarities. Learn and be

respectful of traditions. Know insurance requirements. Do some extra push-ups before you go. Make a contingency plan for if things go sideways. The very best thing you can do, Rosie said, is observe—perhaps even following the hunt in a vehicle in advance to scope out the terrain, pace and culture.

Rosie is candid about the things they don’t tell you in lawyer’s office paintings. Like how hunt saboteurs in England might show up by the jeepful to, as she puts it, “make your day unpleasant.” The glare you’re liable to receive if you accidentally flub some etiquette. Or the misery of sopping wet leather boots when you should have worn rubber. And it’s true that hunting abroad comes with costs; capping fees, hirelings and other expenses add up quickly, in addition to the usual travel costs.

But for those willing to do the work, the payoff is an adventure you’ll never forget. You can’t expect to grasp the nuances of another country’s hunting traditions in a single weekend, but if you do your homework, find the right fit, and set realistic expectations, you’ll have an experience that’s absolutely worth it.

The Concierge Hunting Abroad Experience

If the thought of coordinating it all yourself has you clutching your stock tie in panic, a concierge hunting experience might be your saving grace. Enter Adrienne Rubin, founder of Equescapes Equestrian Adventures, who makes foxhunting holidays in Ireland, England, France and South Africa feel effortless. Her company takes care of the logistics, so you can focus on enjoying the ride.

“We start with figuring out where people want to go,” Rubin said. “Even if they’re just saying, ‘I want to foxhunt in Ireland,’ or, ‘I’ve always wanted to hunt in France,’ we help them identify the best options for their riding level and timeline.”

To Rosie’s earlier point—that discovering you’re in over your head can be a day- or even trip-ruiner—Rubin’s expertise is invaluable. Her team knows the personality of every hunt they recommend, having experienced them firsthand.

“We try to steer people toward hunts that will suit their riding level,” Rubin explained. “For example, the hunt we work with in South Africa has options specifically tailored to newer riders. It’s a much slower hunt compared to some that are known for being really hard, fast rides. Making sure people are riding at an appropriate level for the activity they want to do, and setting them up with the right horses and a guide who can cater to that level, is key.”

A critical aspect of Rubin’s service is preparing clients for the cultural and ethical nuances of their chosen destination. Foxes aren’t the only quarry; depending on where you are, you might find yourself hunting stag, wild boar, hare, or even nothing at all.

“It’s important to know whether the hunt is a live hunt or a drag hunt,” Rubin said. In France, nearly every hunt is live, and they’ll go until

they get something. England’s trail hunting, on the other hand, is more manufactured. Ireland is a mix of both. “So if you’re very anti-killing animals in any way, shape or form, then going somewhere that’s doing a live hunt is not going to be for you,” she said. “And if you are a big hunter, you probably aren’t going to fully enjoy a drag hunt.”

Traditions and etiquette also play a starring role, and they vary widely by region. “There are some things they all have in common, like basic riding etiquette,” Rubin said, “but different hunts have funny little traditions.” In France, for instance, you can’t mount or dismount until the master does, and in South Africa, no one dares remove their coat until the master sheds theirs first.

Speaking of attire, know before you go. “You don’t want to show up with a borrowed coat that has colors or buttons you haven’t earned,” Rubin warned. “Some hunts won’t even let you wear your own colors.” Honoring these customs, Rubin emphasizes, is part of the experience.

Rubin’s itineraries include more than just booking a day of hunting. “We often recommend spending a few days getting to know the horse you’ll be riding. That gives clients time to get comfortable with their mount and the hosts, which really sets them up for a better experience on the hunt day,” she said.

The experience of riding an unfamiliar horse can surprise even seasoned riders.

“A lot of people are very advanced riders on their horse at home under the supervision of their trainer, but riding somewhere else on an unfamiliar horse can be really tricky,” Rubin said.

Getting to know your horse isn’t just a nicety; it’s a safeguard.

“We encourage people to keep an open mind,” she said. “If your host says you shouldn’t be riding in the first field or jumping, you need to trust their judgment.”

Hunts often take place in rural pockets of the world, adding to the charm but requiring careful planning. Rubin suggests building in extra time to acclimate and explore. “Spend enough time there that you feel prepared for the hunt—being able to ride those horses ahead of time, getting to know your hosts, understanding the local hunt traditions and etiquette and history—but at the same time giving yourself enough time to do some other things,” she said.

And, since most hunting trips leave riders with plenty of free time, there’s room to embrace the local flavor—whether that means indulging your inner history buff, exploring the countryside, or asking for directions to the nearest pub.

Tradition And Thinking ‘Outside The Fox’ 

Hunting on horseback has always been about more than just the ride. It’s a shared history that stretches across continents and centuries.

The truth is, people have been chasing prey on horseback for just about as long as they’ve been riding horses.

Take the ancient Middle East, for example: over 2,600 years ago, stone carvings show kings galloping after lions (talk about pressure to keep up). Iranian royalty took it a step further in the fourth century AD, setting up game parks where hunters on horseback stalked leopards, wild boars and other deadly animals. Across the Atlantic, Native American tribes embraced horses after European settlers introduced them, using them to hunt buffalo with extraordinary precision.

What we tend to think of as foxhunting, with its origin story of English noblemen chasing foxes off farmland, is just one of many hunting-on-horseback themes. But that variation became widespread and lives on today.

Foxhunting doesn’t get much more quintessentially “classic” than in Ireland, where established outfitters share the experience with guests from around the world.

If Flowerhill Equestrian Centre in County Galway looks like a scene from a period drama, with its ivy-draped stone buildings and pastoral charm, that’s because it has been. Tailored for everyone from novices to seasoned hunters, Flowerhill has 60 horses and ponies, a cross-country course and its very own private registered pack, the Flowerhill Hounds, kenneled on-site.

With your logistics sorted by recommended agents and close connections with local hunts like Grallagh Harriers Hunt Club, East Galway Hunt Club and The Galway Blazers, owner Oliver Walsh makes everyone feel at home. And his passion for the sport is infectious: “I believe it’s somehow built into our Irish genes—the sporadic gallop, and the thrill of the unorganized and the unexpected.”

The Dunraven in County Limerick is another popular destination for overhunting guests. Known as a go-to hub for foxhunters in the region, the hotel caters specifically to riders, with services like boot polishing and coat pressing. Owner Louis Murphy can arrange hirelings and connect guests to neighboring packs like the Limerick and Stonehall Harriers, ensuring every detail is covered.

The Dunraven works closely with Clonshire Equestrian Center, located nearby on 120 acres of rolling parkland. A sample itinerary includes hacks, jumping lessons, a kennel visit and a hunt with the County Limerick Foxhounds. Each day’s thrills end back at the hotel, where a roaring fire and a pint of Guinness await. “Clonshire and Dunraven offer a really nice holiday,” said Clonshire manager Sue Foley, “including a session at Clonshire to try out different horses and jump scary things and an Old World-style hotel.”

But not all horseback hunting involves the manicured field and tweed coats. Travel a little further afield—say, to Mongolia—and you’ll find a whole new way of thinking about the sport.

With Erik Cooper Adventures, you can gallop across the Altai Mountains with golden eagles instead of hounds. Yes, you read that right: eagles. It’s foxhunting, Mongolian-style, where you’ll work alongside Kazakh eagle hunters to chase prey through some of the world’s most dramatic landscapes.

“You’re not here to watch,” said Erik Cooper. “You’re here to be an active participant.” Guests are paired with their own eagle hunter and bird, learning the art of falconry and joining a team effort to flush out foxes, hares or even wolves (if they’re lucky enough to spot one). The hunt isn’t just about the thrill of the chase; it’s also steeped in ritual.

“When a fox is caught, there’s a whole ceremony,” Cooper explained. “The hunter whose eagle made the final kill gets the fur, and pieces of the fox are offered to the other eagles that contributed.”

The experience trades polished tradition for something raw and immersive, though there’s still room for a bit of flair.

Cooper is known for kitting guests out in custom Game of Thrones-style capes, complete with Mongolian cashmere and wolf pelts. He points out that Western foxhunting is very much about the outfit, too. “But dressing properly for an adventure of this magnitude looks a bit different,” Cooper says. “You’re wearing a different kind of wool and checking into more of a fantasy mindset, a fantasy world. You’re galloping across ancient lands channeling your inner warrior.”

The experience is rugged but comfortable—you might be sleeping in a ger, but there are real beds, coal-burning stoves, and a chef who serves a mix of local and international cuisine.

“You’re out riding seven to eight hours a day, but everything else is bougie,” Cooper said with a laugh.

The Global Connection

For Equiventures’ Rubin, the magic of foxhunting abroad is as much about camaraderie as it is about the thrill of the chase.

“Foxhunting is kind of one big community around the world,” she said. “If you foxhunt in one place and then go somewhere else, you’re automatically already a part of that community. Even if you’re new to foxhunting, it’s such a warm and welcoming environment.”

It’s a scene that plays out time and again: A rider arrives feeling out of their depth—nervous about their skills and unsure about the etiquette—but they leave with so much more than just miles in the saddle, Rubin said.

“Even if you show up, and you don’t know anybody, and you’re unsure of your riding, and maybe you haven’t hunted before, you end up making these wonderful friends and just leaving with these amazing memories—not just of the ride, but of the people that you spend it with, because it is such a community event.”

For other equestrian experiences, even on trail rides and treks, you’re riding single-file or spending such a long amount of time in the saddle that you stop talking to each other.

“Hunting is different,” Rubin explained. “The riding can be very serious, but it’s also a very social activity, and it really gives you a lot of opportunity to connect with riders, locals and whoever it is that you’re visiting.”

While many adventurers use foxhunting as a springboard to explore other activities—maybe guests foxhunt in South Africa, then head out on a horseback safari for a week—it’s often the hunt itself that steals the show.

“The feedback we get is often that the hunting is the best part of their trip. You don’t just check a box and move on,” Rubin said. “You leave with people inviting you to come back and visit or saying they want to come hunt with you at home. You leave feeling like you’ve truly been a part of the community.”

The post A Foxhunter’s Guide To The World appeared first on The Chronicle of the Horse.

Sometimes when you look at a weanling, you can imagine him accomplishing great feats in his future—competing at the FEI World Equestrian Games, maybe.

Sometimes you can’t.

“We were not even remotely pleased with him,” said Laura Graves of her first sighting of Verdades, whom she purchased from a video with the help of her mother, Patricia “Freddie” Graves, and then imported as a 6-month-old. “I think we were kind of shocked because it was our first time picking up a horse from quarantine. They’re leading out gorgeous warmblood after gorgeous warmblood, and my mom and I were thinking, ‘This one must be him. No, this one must be him!’ Then they brought out this one; he was covered in vinegar from being sanitized, and it took three people to manhandle this wild little foal. They called his name, and we were like, ‘I guess that one’s ours.’ ”

That wild little Dutch Warmblood foal (Florett AS—Liwilarda, Goya) would grow up—eventually—and become the top-placed U.S. horse at the 2014 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games (France) this year.

But Verdades’ first few months in the United States didn’t make anyone think he’d later set the world on fire. He was sick after his journey, and because he hadn’t been handled much prior to import, the Graves family couldn’t treat him at their Vermont farm. He stayed at a veterinary hospital until he recovered. Once “Diddy” returned, he lived out with a group of horses, and Laura, just a teenager, worked with him after school.

“He was afraid of the saddle pad and the bridle, afraid of being taken from the barn,” she said. “He took off and broke probably five snaffle bridles, for no apparent reason. He’d be standing quietly, and then he’d panic and take off. But once I was riding him, he was still very sensitive, but he was always really kind.”

When the gelding was 4 or 5, Laura competed him at training level for the first time.

“He almost took the judge’s head off,” said Laura, 26. “He kicked so high at C that he left dirt on the judge’s table. I didn’t show him again until he was going about third level. There was no point.”

What made training level difficult for Diddy, namely his hot temperament and sensitivity, helped him excel as he moved up, to third level in 2010—around the time Laura moved from Vermont to Florida to work with Anne Gribbons—and to the small tour at CDIs in 2012.

Diddy won the open Intermediaire II at the U.S. Dressage Finals (Kentucky) in 2013, but the next step was a big one.

“My feeling was that I needed help. I’d done a lot of the Intermediaire II work myself. I had the one-tempis, and the pretend piaffe and passage,” Laura said. “You know, what you play with at home, and you think it’s piaffe and passage, and then you go to a show, and the judges are like, ‘Oh, that’s not a real piaffe and passage.’ Luckily I found that help.”

By the time Diddy was doing Grand Prix in early 2014, people were taking note of him—not everyone yet, but the right people, notably U.S. Dressage Chef d’Equipe Robert Dover and USEF Developing Coach Debbie McDonald, with whom Laura started training full time this year.

“I always knew the horse had an amazing ability,” said McDonald. “I said to her several times, ‘I think he’s honestly one of the most talented horses in the world as far as what he can do with his body.’ He’s almost a freak at certain things, and yet, with her on him, he’s a pretty cool competitor. They have a longstanding relationship, and he has one hundred percent trust in her.”

Diddy’s Grand Prix work was developing throughout the season, and when they left for the U.S. Dressage Festival of Champions in Gladstone, New Jersey, as one of the last pairs qualified, Laura and her horse had only once scored above 70% in a CDI Grand Prix test, and that was a freestyle. But they earned a spot on the U.S. Team after taking the national reserve title.

“I didn’t think it was possible at all,” Laura said. “I knew we had to bust our butts to be in the top eight. But when I looked around, I said, ‘I have a great horse.’ ”

In France, Laura relied on her hard-earned knowledge of her mount—allowing him to walk all the way around the outside of the arena, only picking up a canter right before entering at A—and the dressage world noticed him in a big way. A few people weren’t shocked by Diddy’s fifth-placed finish in the Grand Prix freestyle at the World Games—and one of those was sitting on him. Laura had felt him improving through all the years of training and months of fine-tuning.

“My horse stepped up to the plate,” Laura said. “These things pay off. I know if I’d pushed him two years ago, it would have blown his mind. Someone greater than all of us had this planned. There was no way these things could have just come together like that.”

Laura isn’t sure what 2015 holds for Diddy—maybe the Pan American Games in Toronto, most likely some CDIs, and she’s aiming for that elusive 80% in the Grand Prix. She’s also facing a new challenge, one she never expected based on her first meeting with Diddy more than a decade ago.

“Before we went to Gladstone, I was sitting with Debbie, and she said, ‘I want you to be prepared. There will be people offering you large amounts of money for this horse,’ ” said Laura. “I said, ‘I don’t even want to know what kind of numbers.’

“I’ve still never heard a number,” she added. “There is not an amount of money that would fill the hole in my heart if this horse were gone.”

The post Remembering Verdades, The Chronicle’s 2014 Dressage Horse Of The Year appeared first on The Chronicle of the Horse.

Pierre competed at the top levels of eventing for nearly 30 years, and along the way picked up a passion for designing cross-country courses, as well as helping his family develop the Le Grand Complet event, which was held at Haras du Pin in Normandy for many years. He was the course designer for the 2023 Santiago Pan American Games and for last year’s Paris Olympic Games.

Today, Pierre, 63, is based in France, but he spends plenty of time on the road, working at events across Europe, Asia, and now the United States. This year he’s designing the cross-country track at the Mars Maryland 5 Star at Fair Hill for the first year, taking over the reins from previous designer Ian Stark.

How would you describe your course designing style?

Where I grew up riding ponies, we had foxhunting not far from home, and to be part of that, and the countryside where it happens, was just amazing.

[There were] big hills, and they were covered with sheep grass, and then there were pine woods, and the sea of course. We used to go there with the ponies first, and later with horses, and so it was ups and downs and ups and downs all the time. It was a roller coaster.

I would say that it has given me a certain sense of balance, where you learn to attack the hill, galloping up the hill, then cool down and let the horse carefully find his balance and everything, and then go down, and then rush down, and then go up.

I’m always learning to follow the level lines to find the best way for the horse, because when you’re galloping in a pack of 50 horses, you can’t always see what you have in front of you, and you have to rely on your horse. When you go up the dunes, you don’t know what is behind them.

That was very influential, because this is what I try to do when I design: I try to read the terrain and the ground.

What was the experience of designing for the Olympics in your home country?

I’ve been very lucky. I was not necessarily the one on paper who was going to do it. When I was nominated, I’d never [designed at] the Europeans. I haven’t done a five-star. I wasn’t a big name as a rider myself.

But the context of Paris, with the publicity and having the competition in Versailles, was in favor of my nomination. It was an advantage to be French.

I know I was respected as a designer; I’ve been designing four-stars for almost 20 years—successfully, I would say. And I have the experience of working with different teams, and that played in my favor.

In the end, it was a fantastic experience working with all the teams.

What was your vision for this first year designing at Maryland?

Working with [course builder] Tyson Rementer and the team over there is the dream. Tyson is a real character, and it’s really enjoyable.

I like working with them because they can help transform your ideas. You can discuss, and you come with ideas, and through the discussion it develops and brings you more ideas. The different meetings I had with the team made me more confident and comfortable.

This year the weather is a little better than last year. At the moment it’s completely green there. The ground has been good because they’ve had regular rain.

We discussed [the course] a lot with Ian last year, and he’s going to be in Maryland to mentor me and help make the final adjustments, because it’s my first one, and it’s good to have someone of his caliber make sure it’s right.

I have in mind the idea of sending a message to the riders—so that they have a goal to go there—that the course is achievable in terms of fitness, technicality and everything. I hope we will achieve that this year. We are used to having many more starters in European events, and we would like to attract more starters in Maryland this year, create envy [from people who aren’t there], and make sure the riders are not worried or thinking it’s too much for themselves or their horse. But we want to do that without downgrading the level of the five-star. I want to make sure people enjoy it and have fun, while still having the highest quality of event.

I certainly wouldn’t want my comments to be interpreted as: Last year the course was too hard, it wasn’t good, and now I want to fix it. For me, the first challenge is stepping into Ian’s shoes properly and ensuring a transition that isn’t a revolution—because that wouldn’t make sense. The work my predecessor has done is tremendous, and he has shaped a venue that, of course, will continue to evolve, just as it would with any course designer, even Ian himself if he had stayed on. He gave the event a style that needs to be preserved and built upon, and that’s the standard I want to live up to.

Now, I think Ian would be the first to want to see the cross-country phase evolve, because last year the scores were a bit high, and we need to temper that level of difficulty, so it doesn’t work against the event. [Editor’s note: At last year’s Maryland, eight of the 22 starters finished cross-country.]

Riders shouldn’t view this competition as too demanding—either for themselves or for their horses—especially when there is a real pool of potential five-star competitors in North America. Just look at the Kentucky Three-Day Event, which has gradually grown over the years and now has reached maturity. That kind of maturity takes time to build, but maybe also requires some steady fine-tuning, so the event remains attractive.

There’s a clear “fitness factor” at Maryland that can’t be denied, and we can’t change that; it comes with the terrain. From Point A to Point B it goes up, down, up again, down again. It’s demanding for the horses. The challenge is to try to smooth it out and make it a bit more accessible.

The new elements in this year’s cross-country design came from a convergence of interests: I wanted to use the terrain earlier in the course—bringing in some elevation gains right at the start, making more use of the area usually favored for young horse classes. That way, riders get straight into a cross-country rhythm I find interesting before heading into a closed arena.

Coincidentally, the organizers welcomed this idea because it also solved some logistical challenges with the flow of people, equipment and safety management between the east wing and north wing, which the course used to cut across.

The smooth communication and collaboration I’m enjoying with the organizers can only help foster creativity and lead to the best result. For course designers, the line between “not enough” and “too much” is very thin.

Ian, with his knowledge of the site and of the North American competitor pool, is an incredibly invaluable ally. Fine-tuning those details often comes down to very little—and it’s an incredible privilege, and really a great compliment, to have someone like Ian Stark, who has nothing left to prove, agree so enthusiastically to work alongside me.

What are your favorite places you’ve gotten to visit as a course designer?

They are all interesting and exceptional. I’ve been in many different places in Europe, and they’re not always the easiest to work in. I went to Bulgaria, Belarus, Hungary. I was even in Russia, in Moscow, before the war. It was a wonderful venue in Moscow, and we had big projects in place with the owner, and I was delighted to work there, because these people were starting to be part of the sport. It was a very impressive place. I could compare it—on a slightly different scale—to the World Equestrian Center in Ocala (Florida).

Then Japan, I really love that place. Where I’ve been working, Yamanashi, is a small venue for lovely competitions, and it’s a gorgeous place. If you look at the cross-country, you’ll see the mountains and pine trees in the background. I like the people there, and the food.

There are still many, many places to discover. The places with the biggest possibilities are the most memorable, [especially] if you deal with people that want to do something and be part of it and want to learn it. That’s always enjoyable.

Tell me about your first horse or pony.

Because we lived in Cherbourg, where there was intense ferry traffic with England, we were sometimes asked by the customs veterinary services to host some horses.

One day a huge lorry full of ponies arrived that were meant to go to some merchants. They ended up staying [at our farm] longer than expected, and after two weeks my father bought three of them. I fell in love with a little mare, completely black, that I called Flicka, like “My Friend Flicka.”

The problem was that we didn’t know how old they were, and they weren’t even broken, but we did it. We used to go and gallop around with no saddle, and after two weeks the mare went lame. Our vet came and discovered that she had some issues with feet and that she was 2 years old, so then she had a break, and the year after we started the same with her—playing around in the woods, from morning to evening, and then I became too big for her. But she lived to be 39.

What characteristic do you value most in a horse?

The expression, the way the horse looks at you. I say, “The way the horse looks at you,” but you could also say, “The way the horse looks after you.” So when you go to the field or in the stables, the way the horse looks at you, and the harmony of your connection that takes you as far as you can.

You have some horses that have fantastic ability and quality, but for some reason they don’t have the same heart. They do not have the same ability to connect with you. It goes both ways, but it’s easier with some horses than other ones.

What characteristic do you value most in a human?

Loyalty, because it’s not always there.

What horse, past or present, would you most like to ride?

My junior mare, Farah. I would love to ride her again.

My wife started to do some breeding, and we started to breed with the grand-daughter of that mare, and it’s very promising. When I told you that one of the most important things is the way the horse looks at you, when you look at that mare, she has a personality. She looks at you; she keeps the head straight, and the eyes follow you. That’s unique.

She never looks like she’s dominated. She’s always taking you. She has a big heart, and it comes from her grandmother, that was my junior mare.

What would you consider to be your biggest accomplishment?

My two daughters. My wife, Yannick, and my daughters, Zara and Camille, for sure. I’m a happy man with a beautiful family. I lost both my parents within two years—my dad before the Olympics, and my mom quickly after the Olympics—so I really know that family is very important, and I’m very proud of my wife and my daughters. 

If you weren’t working with horses, what would you do?

I’m a really big fan of sailing. I’ve done it a bit when I was younger, and when I have the occasion, I love to go with friends.

What three items are always found in your refrigerator?
Cheese, beer and cider, water with lemon juice.

Editor’s note: This conversation has been edited for clarity and space.

This article originally appeared in the October 2025 issue of The Chronicle of the Horse. You can subscribe and get online access to a digital version and then enjoy a year of The Chronicle of the Horse. 

The post Pierre Le Goupil: ‘The Line Between “Not Enough” And “Too Much” Is Very Thin’ appeared first on The Chronicle of the Horse.

I just returned from a week serving as a chef d’equipe at the FEI North American Youth Championships in Michigan. This is one of my favorite events of the year. Why? Well, when I’m not trudging back and forth between the barn and the dressage complex at Traverse City (which I swear is uphill both ways), or explaining to the kids for the 57th time why they cannot go on a trail ride, or coaxing a terrified parent out from behind a tent flap so they can actually see their child compete—I get to talk. A lot.

Throughout the week, I spoke with dozens of kids and their parents about how they got started and what helped them reach this level. Because, let’s be honest, it’s rare for a young dressage rider to make it this far. As we chatted, a truth became very clear: Finding dressage isn’t easy for kids in this country. In fact, it’s downright discouraging at times.

Which brings me back to a question I’ve seen debated again and again: Where are all the dressage kids?

The Real Reason Dressage Isn’t Kid-Friendly

Let me paint you a picture. You are a non-horsey parent with a 6-year-old girl that loves horses. You type “horseback riding lessons near me” into a search engine and start investigating. Ninety percent of the programs that show up offer instruction in “hunt seat equitation.” Must be popular. You see that the highest-rated barn offers a summer camp, and you decide to send your child. She loves it and starts making friends with the kids who ride at the barn. She begs for weekly riding lessons, and after a while, her trainer mentions that she is really getting quite good. She should start to compete.

She does the leadline division and gets exposed to an environment like the Devon Horse Show (Pennsylvania). Dreams ablaze in her heart, she asks if she can have a pony of her own, but your family isn’t ready for that type of commitment. “No worries,” says the trainer. “You can lease our small pony.” Then she ages out, and you lease the medium pony or the large pony or the junior hunter.

But at some point you realize it’s time to take the plunge, and your trainer helps you buy a competitive A-circuit equitation horse. Your daughter goes on to place well at several big championships, catching the attention of a noted trainer who offers to take her on as a rider. She goes on to become an assistant trainer or to cruise happily around the amateur divisions. The end.

Now, let’s say your first call was to a dressage barn. Nine times out of 10, that conversation is going to go like this:

“Hello, I’m inquiring about riding lessons for my 6-year-old daughter.”

“Hi! Does she have her own horse?”

“No, we don’t.”

“Sorry, can’t help you.”

But maybe by some miracle you call one of the 10% of dressage barns that can accommodate beginner children.

Your kid takes riding lessons there for two years. In her third year she might do some dressage schooling shows at introductory level. Your trainer may even take her to some unrated hunter/jumper shows because the format is easier, cheaper, and she can get more ring time. Next year, your kid begs to show recognized at training level. At only 10 years old, she really does quite well on the barn’s lesson pony. She qualifies for the Great American/USDF Regional Dressage Championships.

When you arrive in the warm-up for your first class, you see your child’s eyes widen to saucers. She rides over to her trainer and asks in hushed tones, “Is she in my class?” Yes, my dear, she is. Your eyes slide over to the 21-year-old rising professional riding her client’s young horse, who appears to be the second coming of Glamourdale.

The class commences. Your kid rides her heart out on her lesson pony (you had tried to find something nice for her to lease for this year but no luck finding a seasoned dressage pony for lease). Still, even with her best test of the year, she places third-to-last with a 62%. The young pro wins with a 73%. It’s not because your kid isn’t great and skilled for her age, but because there is a chasm in terms of experience and physical ability between a 10-year-old and a 21-year-old.

This is what it is going to look like for the next few years until you buck up and buy a pony for her to do the FEI children’s or pony classes, probably from Europe because it’s the easiest place to find a competitive pony that’s actually been proven with a kid.

Sure, you could aim at Dressage Seat Equitation Medal Finals, which has a 13 and under division—if you have one of the few 10-year-olds in the country who can ride first level inside out and backwards, and you can find a size-appropriate mount for her to do it on.

Getting To The Root Of The Problem

In general, we do not provide the Disney experience to families like other equestrian disciplines do. We do not structure our divisions to give kids appropriate milestones. For example, why not have an equitation class that is just walk/trot? Why can’t we get out of our own way and reward correct basics without making the kids do leg-yield zigzags and counter-canter and three changes of lead through trot on the diagonal?

Because the way our youth divisions are structured is so challenging, no trainer really wants to structure their business around it. It’s a bad gamble that will almost assuredly result in a ticked off parent and a disappointed kid. Much easier to help adult amateurs who already know they want to keep all four feet on the ground pursue their USDF medals.

We want to see more kids riding dressage. We want to see better horsemanship and depth at every level of the sport.

So here are my counter-questions: Where is the space for younger riders to compete, learn and connect with their peers? Where are the milestones for them to aim towards?

Until we have an outlet for these young kids to showcase their skills and test their ability in classes that are structured fairly, I think we are going to continue scratching our heads and wondering, where are all the dressage kids?

10 Way To Build A Better Pipeline

So where are these kids? They’re out eventing. They’re going to USEF Pony Finals (Kentucky). They’re doing Interscholastic Equestrian Association and 4-H. They’re doing junior rodeo. They’re showing horses in American Quarter Horse Association competitions. And unless we change the way youth dressage is structured, that’s where they’ll stay.

But we don’t have to sit here wringing our hands, and we also don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Every organization listed above is doing something right because they have very active youth programs that have tapped into the multitudes of horse-crazy kids in America. We have to stop operating from a mindset of scarcity. Right now there are hundreds of kids out there itching to ride a musical freestyle to Taylor Swift—they just don’t know it yet.

So, with that in mind, here are 10 things we can do to make space for those kids in dressage.

1. Age-Appropriate Divisions At Lower Levels

We need to restructure youth classes at second level and below. How about:

• 12 and under
• 13 to 16
• 17 to 21

This simple change would make classes more equitable and developmentally appropriate, offering kids a fair chance to shine.

2. Redesign Dressage Seat Equitation

Break it into:

• Walk-trot equitation (intro level)
• Walk-trot-canter equitation (training level)
• Dressage Seat Medal (first level and up)

We do not need to make an 8-year-old ride counter-canter to prove they’re learning correctly. Let’s reward proper basics at an early age and give them a pathway to build from there.

3. Bring On The Ponies

Borrowing from hunter and European dressage models, let’s create three separate pony divisions:

• Small pony (12.2 hands and under): training level, riders 12 and under
• Medium pony (over 12.2 hands to 13.2 hands): first level, riders 14 and under
• Large pony (over 13.2 hands and under 14.2 hands): second level, riders 16 and under

Pony divisions create age-appropriate pathways and help breeders and trainers create markets for dressage ponies.

4. Revive The USDF Regional Youth Team Challenge

This used to be a thing, and now, I think we have only three similar competitions in the whole country. Imagine a team competition for younger, grassroots dressage riders to showcase their skills and test their ability in classes that are structured fairly by age and experience. It offers a jumping off point that gives kids the confidence to reach for bigger and bigger goals.

5. Appoint Regional Youth Advisors

Each USDF region needs a youth development advisor to:

• Identify talent early
• Work with the national youth coach to mentor kids and their trainers
• Work with show managers and event organizers to develop more opportunities for kids

Why? The United States is 27 times the size of Germany. One national coach can’t cover it all. We need a boots-on-the-ground approach to outreach and mentorship.

6. Support Youth Trainers

In a survey I conducted, the No. 1 thing youth-oriented lesson barns asked for was mentorship.

Trainers said things like, “I want to be better for my kids, but I feel isolated and overwhelmed.” Create a mentorship program just for youth dressage instructors. Help them learn, grow and thrive.

7. Offer A Badge Through The USDF Instructor Certification Program

Some of the best, most passionate, most effective, most innovative teachers I know will never ride down centerline at the FEI level. We need a way to identify them, mentor them, and recognize their unique skillset. They are out there right now doing God’s work, teaching our future USDF president to post and dying quietly inside as our next Olympic medalist does her whole training level canter tour on the wrong lead. It is a hard, often thankless job, which they do as a labor of love, and they are so darn important.

8. Rebuild The USDF Youth Executive Board

Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I volunteer for a lot of dressage organizations, and boy, are we all looking old. Our sport needs young leaders. A youth executive board gives teens experience in governance, communication and project management—and ensures we’re building a sport that speaks to the next generation. Because some of us are already tired and would like to retire someday.

9. Revamp The USDF FEI Youth, Youth Outreach And

USEF Developing Clinics I’ve participated in these clinics as both an athlete and a trainer, and I always leave a little frustrated. To me, it seems sort of silly to expend resources sending our coaches around the country to teach these clinics, only to deny them the time to gather information from the riders and their teams. 

I get it, we like to be efficient. We put everyone in one room and try to listen and educate all at once. But I don’t think that is in-depth enough. We have some of the best young and developing riders in the country as a captive audience—many times we even have their trainers and parents. We should add another day to these clinics so we can sit down for 30 minutes with each team, review their goals, and ask some questions. For example:

• What is keeping you from achieving your goals?
• What do you think you are really good at? What are you struggling with?
• Looking to the future, what excites you? What worries you?
• What is instrumental to your success? What can you not live without?
• How can we help you?

Imagine how much we would learn. We have to create feedback loops. It will be pivotal to our ability to identify and solve problems quickly. And I fear we don’t have a lot of time.

10. Encourage Horsemanship

As a sport, we tend to get very caught up in teaching the intricacies of dressage. It’s a complex art that takes a long time to learn, so I get it. But our educational programming and awards should also emphasize basic horse management skills. Some things to consider: awards for youth who have the best turnout at a show, youth challenges that combine riding with sport horse handling, horse bowls at prominent dressage shows, horsemanship skill assessment sheets to be completed by all riders applying for FEI Youth or Youth Outreach Clinics, and unmounted weekend horsemanship seminars.

Final Thoughts

In case you missed it, our numbers in dressage are declining rapidly at every level. The lack of depth in our U.S. program is scary. There are many reasons for this, but one of the most stated is the social barrier to entry. In short, we are unwelcoming, unforgiving and, at times, downright cruel to newcomers.

We need to cultivate a system that engages kids and families—and then supports them in reaching their goals. We need to make dressage feel like an exciting, accessible journey instead of an uphill climb with no map.

I don’t think the kids are missing. They’re just out there waiting for us to make room.

Nicole DelGiorno is a USDF gold medalist as well as a bronze and silver medalist with distinction. She’s also an ‘L’ program graduate with distinction, four-time FEI North American Youth Championships medalist, and board member of The Dressage Foundation and Dressage at Devon (Pennsylvania). Her passion for horses began at an early age, and her commitment to their proper care and handling was fostered by the U.S. Pony Clubs, where she earned her B rating in dressage. Today she specializes in developing youth riders to the elite levels of the sport as the head instructor at The Dressage Academy in Cream Ridge, New Jersey. Her students include USDF bronze and silver medalists, USEF dressage program clinic participants, as well as Festival of Champions competitors and NAYC medalists.

In The Forum, people are invited to express their views and offer constructive criticism on any topic relevant to working with and enjoying horses. The opinions expressed by the writers are entirely their own and not necessarily those of The Chronicle of the Horse.

This article originally appeared in the September 2025 issue of The Chronicle of the Horse. You can subscribe and get online access to a digital version and then enjoy a year of The Chronicle of the Horse. If you’re just following COTH online, you’re missing so much great unique content. Each print issue of the Chronicle is full of in-depth competition news, fascinating features, probing looks at issues within the sports of hunter/jumper, eventing and dressage, and stunning photography.

The post Where Have All The Dressage Kids Gone? appeared first on The Chronicle of the Horse.

“I sent a text to Tommy, and I said, ‘What do you think of this?’ ” Pfeiffer said of sending Greengard the horse’s photo. “And he was like, ‘Oh, my God, I saw it too. I was going to call you.’ I said, ‘Well, we already bought it.’ ”

Pfeiffer had already had a busy morning, calling her friend Matt Flynn, who’d only just acquired the sale horse from the photo named That’s Me Z. She asked a few questions about the Zangersheide (Take A Chance On Me Z—Veneita, VDL Indoctro) before she told Flynn, “Send me the X-rays; we’re ready to go.”

Knowing the horse from just his photo and then a few follow-up videos, they had little idea of his personality. The gelding that finally stepped off the plane in the U.S. was much more than a picture-perfect face; he was full of charisma and not a few quirks. “Z” was a stall walker, picky about his trusted people, and “worried by nature,” Greengard said.

“He’s a weirdo” Pfeiffer said with a laugh. “He is not for everybody; Z is weird. But we do weird well.”

Even with his emerging eccentricities, there were no regrets about buying the horse off a photo and a gut feeling.

“He captured both of our imaginations from Day 1,” Greengard said.

At their eventing program Chocolate Horse Farm in Petaluma, California, the coach and rider began getting to know the green gelding. Greengard remembers their first competition as symbolic of Z’s nervous early days with the team.

“At his first show in California, he spent the entire day in a halter with Andrea coaching,” Greengard said. “So it was Andrea on her golf cart coaching 30 people at Woodside Horse Park—literally 30. It was Andrea, her golf cart, a hay net, and Z in a halter. That pretty much sums up the relationship.”

But the spark that made Z “weird” also made him remarkable. Within a few weeks of arriving in the U.S., he qualified for—and won—the USEA Young Event Horse West Coast 5-Year-Old Championship, posting the highest score in the country. The horse who captured their imaginations was now realizing his potential, and that bit of success had the trainers dreaming of more possibilities.

“In the coming days, we hatched that sort of long-range plan that maybe this could be a 7-year-old that’s good enough to go to [Le] Lion,” Pfeiffer said. “So we just had kind of a little slow burn for two years, just plodding along, just carefully curating a program to see if we could get there.

“We did believe in him,” she added. “But we were very cautious in the beginning not to go too far.”

In 2023, Greengard planned to take Z overseas, where they trained with Tim and Jonelle Price in England to prepare for the FEI WBFSH Eventing World Breeding Championships for Young Horses in Le Lion-d’Angers, France, to contest the CCI3*-L.

As plans for the trip took shape, Pfeiffer realized that there were more Chocolate Horse horses who would benefit from spending the season abroad. “We ended up from one horse to five in quick succession,” Pfeiffer said.

“We had an incredible group of horses,” she continued. “For four months, [Greengard] showed all across England. So by the time Z went to France, he was very well-versed, very settled. Tommy’s confidence was at an all-time high. What a success.”

They finished 16th in the CCI3*-L at Le Lion, and Greengard returned to California certain of how much their partnership had matured.

“You know, one of the things that I’m most proud about is we were very clear-headed on what that trip was about, and it was about education and learning more,” Greengard said. “I left on that trip, and I was like, ‘I don’t care how we do. I don’t care about any of the stats. I want to come home, and I want to have learned more, and I want to have happy, sound horses that are more educated.’ I feel like we did that in spades, and that has been a huge catalyst for our success this year.”

That catalyst propelled the pair to finish second in the CCI4*-S at Galway Downs in April and third in the CCI4*-S at The Event at Rebecca Farm (Montana) in July. The pair also earned 17th in the competitive Cosequin Lexington CCI4*-S, held alongside the Defender Kentucky Three-Day Event, in April.

“He’s very much always had a very good meter for where he was at in terms of what was an appropriate ask,” Greengard said. “I think we’ve seen that this year; he’s really stepped up to the advanced level with loads of confidence, and it’s gotten better every time out. That was the mark of making good decisions for the horse.”

At the USEA American Eventing Championships held in late August, Greengard felt they’d reached a milestone in Z’s confidence. The pair led the $60,000 Adequan Advanced Final for all three phases, finishing on a score of 44.8—more than 14 penalties ahead of second-placed Karen O’Neal on Clooney 14.

Every Stride, Every Horse

Greengard, 26, was ready for a horse like Z because of the work he’s been doing with Pfeiffer since 2020. He grew up in Malibu, California, riding with Robyn Fisher, and landed at Pfeiffer’s Chocolate Horse while studying sustainability at University of California, Berkeley. Pfeiffer says that when she first met the young rider, he was talented with a great foundation but was often a little too self-disciplined.

“When he arrived, he was young,” she said. “He was a good rider. He was really methodical. It was almost to the point he was so methodical, I’m like, ‘OK, it’s time to get off that 20-meter circle.’ And he goes, ‘Ah, did you see those two steps?’ And I’m like, ‘No, I think my eyes were closed, sleeping. Two steps isn’t going to do it. We’ve got to move on!’ ”

But Pfeiffer appreciated the level of care that Greengard put into every stride and every horse—and she could also see that he was exceptionally smart. She helped the young eventer learn to zoom out from the granular details and think big picture.

“Where he’s really gained the knowledge is in the creativity of riding,” Pfeiffer said of Greengard. “He came to me very correct. I said, ‘You always color inside the lines; the sky is blue, and the grass is green, and the sun is yellow.’ I said, ‘Now is the time we’re going to paint outside the lines, and we’re going to use colors that don’t make sense. You need to learn now to be an artist and not so regimented.’ ”

When Z came along, he was a horse that required a balance of both the granular—he thrived with a routine—and a creative approach. The pair carefully strategized a program that ensured he had lots of turn-out and time off. And when it came to competitions, they had one goal: to make Z feel good about himself.

“We’ve been super careful not to exploit his generosity,” Pfeiffer said. “You know, if anybody looks up Z’s record, he goes up a level, he drops back a level or two—not because it went wrong, because it went so well. So any time he’s done something big, he comes home, and then we’ll drop him down a level. We’ll let him do something easy. So the goal is that he always feels mighty every time he goes out, but every time he goes out, he’s not asked to do the hardest thing he’s ever seen.”

After their AEC win, Greengard said it was clear that they had met their goal, and he joked that Z was “beaming” the next morning.

And, true to their word, for Z’s next outing after the AEC, he dropped down to intermediate at the Aspen Farms Horse Trials and USEA Area VII Championships, held Sept. 12-14 in Yelm, Washington, where he finished second to Balladeer Kilbrickens Lad, who Greengard rode for owner Patricia Culleton. The back-and-forth keeps Z feeling confident in himself, and that confidence shows to the world around him.

“He’s not a big horse, but he walks incredibly tall,” Pfeiffer said. “He has this little funny swing to his head; he twirls it as he walks, and then he has the walk that the dressage judges hate where he really flings his feet. It just makes me laugh. We work really hard in the dressage ring for him not to do that. But I mean, he really will come out of his stall and strut around. He knows he owns the world.”

Even if the dressage judges frown on Z’s exaggerated, toe-flicking walk, Pfeiffer said she treasures this little flaw, knowing it’s Z’s way of saying that he feels good in his skin.

She’s happy to see that their program is making the young horse braver and braver.

“It’s all about keeping Z’s confidence so he feels like Superman,” she said. “He wears a cape, and away we go, you know? I mean, that horse really does: He wears a cape every day.”

This article originally appeared in the September 2025 issue of The Chronicle of the Horse. You can subscribe and get online access to a digital version and then enjoy a year of The Chronicle of the Horse. If you’re just following COTH online, you’re missing so much great unique content. Each print issue of the Chronicle is full of in-depth competition news, fascinating features, probing looks at issues within the sports of hunter/jumper, eventing and dressage, and stunning photography.

The post Tommy Greengard Has Found A ‘Superman’ In That’s Me Z appeared first on The Chronicle of the Horse.

Peters returned with a videotape of several that fit the bill, but at the end was a bright red 3-year-old with three white feet and a blaze. The tape had been overwritten so many times that it’d lost its crispness, but beneath the visual noise, what Richardson could see was quality.

“He’s under saddle three months, and he’s carrying himself around like a Prix St. Georges horse,” Richardson recalled. “I went, ‘OK that’s the one I want.’ He said, ‘No, Donna, it’s a 3-year-old stallion. You don’t want it.’ I said, ‘No, I do.’ ”

She had to rely on her instinct and faith that it would work out, as she couldn’t try him due to a broken foot. Little did she know that the flashy chestnut with a natural upper-level carriage would take her to championship podiums and on the adventure of a lifetime.

Straight To The Top

When Richardson first got “Jazz,” a Dutch Warmblood (Amethist—Eronica, Wilhelmus) bred by J. Mulder, she was working as an emergency medicine physician and riding in the amateur ranks. And while she loved him from first ride, making him a top-level competitor was going to take work.

“I trotted him, and I went, ‘Oh my God. How am I ever going to sit this trot?’ It was so big and bouncy,” she said. “That’s just the way he was. And his canter was so big, he couldn’t really stay in a 20-meter circle, so we just sort of cantered out of the ring a couple times.”

She gelded him, and in their first year together he earned the U.S. Dressage Federation Horse of the Year award at training level. With his success, Richardson decided that she should start riding him in the open divisions. Despite some naysayers telling her she’d never win against professionals, she and Jazz kept collecting year-end awards—more than a dozen USDF and California Dressage Society titles in his lifetime—as they moved up the levels. In 1998 they competed at fourth level while dabbling in Prix St. Georges, and as Jazz kept winning, Richardson started dreaming of representing the U.S.

“Every little kid dreams of riding for their country, and I always had that dream too,” she said. 

With the Pan American Games in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on the horizon in the summer of 1999, she started pointing him towards selection trials. At that time, the top 12 horses earned a trip to Gladstone, New Jersey, for a head-to-head competition to decide the team. Heading into the final trial before Gladstone, Richardson and Jazz sat near the bottom of that list. She entered a show at DG Bar Ranch (California), and she decided to really ask for more. It worked, pushing their scores to a new level and launching them up the standings.

The only problem? Though she was now classed as a professional, she was still working in the emergency room to support her horses, and she hadn’t asked for time off.

“At our next meeting, I said to my colleagues, ‘Well, guys, you know, I’ve got a really good chance of making the team here, I think, but I need 10 days off, so I can go back and do this,’ ” she said. “And they kind of moaned and groaned, and I said, ‘Look, I’ll take all your overnights’—and that’s all it took.”

In Gladstone they were among the top-placing combinations, earning them a spot on the U.S. dressage team for the Pan American Games. But with that honor came another problem: She’d need more time off. When she told her coworkers she would be representing the U.S., they again agreed to cover for her. And with that, their Canadian adventure began.

A Podium Moment

While many of the team horses showed up in Manitoba in air-conditioned rigs, Jazz hauled up loose in a three-horse stock trailer. While it might not have been the most glamourous method of transportation, Richardson said it kept him feeling good in his body because he hadn’t been restrained.

On arena familiarization day, she and Jazz headed up to do their schooling, and a few minutes in, he pulled a shoe.

Unfamiliar with team protocols, Richardson thought it would be as simple as tacking the shoe back on and returning to the task at hand. Instead it required a trip back to the barn with the team veterinarian and farrier, including a foot soak. Though Jazz was totally fine, the time it took to evaluate him and put the shoe back on meant they never got to practice in the main ring.

The experience left Richardson nervous. To calm herself, she walked down to the barn late that night to see Jazz, who was very unenthused to see her. Though he would do anything for her in the arena, she said he wasn’t the in-your-pocket type of horse.

“For some reason, I went in there, and I started rubbing on his neck,” she said. “He put his neck around me, and he basically gave me a hug. And it was like, ‘OK, we can do this. I know we can do this.’ ”

The following day competition commenced. The United States had drawn third in the order, and Chef d’Equipe Jessica Ransehousen chose Richardson to be the team’s lead rider. With her nerves settled by her late-night barn trip, Richardson resolved to think of it as just another horse show. They had one bobble, where Jazz lifted his head in the walk pirouettes to observe the crowd, but a little inside hand and leg got him back on task.

The U.S. team of Debbie McDonald (Brentina), Betsy Rebar Sell (Wonderful Walden), Lynda Alicki (Impressario) and Richardson with Jazz proved unbeatable for the gold medal. In the Intermediaire I, they finished seventh in what Richardson felt was an even better test.

“One of the highlights of my life is walking into the arena and seeing the flag go up, knowing that I helped put it there,” she said. “[It was] special.”

Following the Pan American Games, Richardson started getting big offers—enough to pay off her farm—to purchase Jazz, but she knew she’d never be able to find another like him. Jazz was a once-in-a-lifetime horse, and she wasn’t willing to cut their journey short.

Dreams Deferred

In October 1999, Richardson was boarding Jazz temporarily while she moved to a new property. She was working an emergency room shift when she got a call that he was colicking. After arranging to ship him to the equine hospital at Helen Woodward Animal Center in Rancho Santa Fe, California, she looked at her colleagues in the ER and told them frankly that she couldn’t keep working. If she had to finish her shift, she was likely to make a major medical error because her mind was not on the job.

At Helen Woodward, Jazz was quickly prepped for surgery.

“I pretty much lived with him for three days afterwards,” she said. “And he was really friendly; he kept looking at me. One day I went into, ‘Oh, poor Jazzy.’ And he bit me, [and I thought], ‘OK, you’re gonna live. You’re back to your normal self.’ ”

Following his surgery, Jazz took a while to return to full fitness. In 2000 they did a few Intermediaire II tests before making their Grand Prix debut the following year. After that season learning and building strength, in 2002, his scores exploded, and Richardson started wondering whether they could make an Olympic bid for the 2004 Athens Games. But on May 14, those dreams were dashed completely.

Jazz came in from the pasture lame and was diagnosed with a significant right hind suspensory injury. There would be no Olympic bid; in fact, her veterinary team wasn’t sure he’d ever come back. To go from being a fit, active Grand Prix horse to stall-bound was tough on the gelding.

Handwalks were always tricky, but on Jan. 1, 2003, as they made their second circuit around the ring, Jazz bucked and cow-kicked Richardson, breaking three ribs and leaving a permanent hoof-sized dent on her right side.

Though she feared he’d re-injured himself, Jazz was no worse for the wear, but Richardson required six weeks to recover. The horse was cleared to resume work, and though she started to make progress, every time they reintroduced cantering, he’d go off again. In 2004, she decided her veterinarians were right: He was never going to be sound enough to work again, and stall rest wasn’t sustainable. She decided it was time to retire Jazz.

She pulled his wraps and turned him out, at peace with the fact that there was little she could do to prevent him from further injuring himself. But one day several months later, she watched as he passaged up and down the fence line and resolved to try one more time.

She made an agreement with one of her students, Skyler Evans: If Evans put in the work to bring him back slowly, she could ride him in the FEI Young Rider classes. Thus began a new fitness plan, starting with hours of walking. Evans and Jazz made the Region 7 team for the 2005 North American Young Riders Championships in Lexington, Virginia, that year, where they were part of the silver-medal winning team.

After that, Richardson reclaimed the ride, with the aim of getting Jazz back to Grand Prix. In February, they returned to the show ring, where they topped a national Grand Prix test. But in the freestyle, she knew he was truly back.

“At night under the lights, that horse just came awake,” she said. “He was a freestyle specialist. [That night] he stood up on his hind legs when they started playing the music, and I’m like, ‘No, Jazz!’ But somehow, I got him into the arena, and once he was back in a little box, it was like, OK, business as usual.”

They continued at Grand Prix until early 2008, when Jazz was 17. She planned his retirement ceremony for the Flintridge National (California), where they performed a freestyle at night under the lights—Jazz’s favorite thing. “I changed the music to ‘Time To Say Goodbye’ [at the end], and we did a little piaffe pirouette, and then we did a walk pirouette one-handed, waving to the crowd, and oh, God, I was in tears. I couldn’t believe how many people showed up for this.”

One Last Dance

When Jazz was 21, Richardson got a call from her friend Cauleen Glass. Her student, Barbara Adside, was a double amputee and had made a Make-A-Wish Foundation wish to ride in a CPEDI. Could Adside ride Jazz?

Though Jazz had embraced his retirement, Richardson felt that if he was sound, he could handle the walk-trot movements required in the Grade II test. It wasn’t an instant match though. Because Adside was amputated mid-femur down, she rode with a whip in each hand, which Jazz associated with training piaffe work. It took a few weeks to get the pair acquainted before they headed to the 2012 Rancho Valencia Dressage Affaire CPEDI3* (California) to compete, where they topped the team test.

Afterwards there was talk of possibly letting him make a run for the Paralympics in London later that year, but Richardson didn’t think it would be fair to put him on a plane at his age. He returned to retirement, and she got to enjoy spending time with the horse who taught her so much, especially resilience.

“When things are going well and we’re on the top of the world, I learned to listen to that little inner voice that said, ‘Hey, enjoy this, for this will not always be so,’ ” Richardson said. “And in the dark times, when the dreams were crushed and hope seemed pretty dim, I heard it again, saying, ‘Endure, for this will not always be so.’ Jazz just made me a better person.”

When Richardson got divorced and moved to Tennessee, Jazz came with her, where he lived on a two-acre farm with another horse, Modeo. In 2021 Jazz was a week shy of his 30th birthday when he died in his pasture. When it happened, Richardson was in Georgia teaching some students at a show, and she said it was an emotional drive home. The following morning, three of her neighbors arrived at her door and helped bury him.

Though she’s ridden other horses to Grand Prix before and since him, she said there’s never been one like him.

“I felt like I could ride him down the centerline of hell, screaming demons on either side. He would just think that they were there to cheer him on,” she said. “And in the most magical moments, I would simply think, and he would do. We were one body. We danced, not for a score, but just the sheer joy of moving to the music together. I’ve never had that feeling with another horse, and I suspect I never will again.”

This article originally appeared in the August 2025 issue of The Chronicle of the Horse. You can subscribe and get online access to a digital version and then enjoy a year of The Chronicle of the Horse. If you’re just following COTH online, you’re missing so much great unique content. Each print issue of the Chronicle is full of in-depth competition news, fascinating features, probing looks at issues within the sports of hunter/jumper, eventing and dressage, and stunning photography.

The post Horse Of A Lifetime: Jazzman appeared first on The Chronicle of the Horse.

I know I am not alone in my unending desire to learn more, see more and experience more with my horses. It’s a common theme that seems to speak to us all, proven to me in the hours we work to facilitate our relationships with our horses and friends in the equine world.

Most of us have the disease, if you will, and as life goes on, we constantly evolve in both our understanding of horses as well as our approach to them and the life around us, but we never seem to change the core force of what drives us.

We watch as the sport changes, even though our love for horses always stays the same, but I wonder if we truly realize how much we change in that same process, and if we are even aware of the sport’s evolution. Most of us in the industry start talking in terms of decades instead of years or seasons at a certain point, and it is without a doubt that over decades, things change. Within a season or a year or two, some of the changes don’t seem to be that noticeable, especially the small ones; they’re adapted to quickly, often passing by unnoticed, but sometimes insidiously becoming a new trend that everyone takes up, sometimes purposefully and sometimes completely unaware of that new adaptation.

A few weeks ago, I saw an advertisement with a rider in a top hat, and I was thinking how much uproar there was when the “look” was going to change as helmets became requirements. Fast-forward 10 years, and now a photo with a top hat-clad rider seems ancient, grainy and very outdated.

That was one of the noticeable changes, but there have been many small, seemingly insignificant ones that have also occurred. I wonder if we ever stop to think about how these changes have affected our sport and art, or are we just rolling with the punches, adapting and absorbing, dodging and swinging as needed, but nonetheless accepting them in the end for good or for bad?

A friend recently sent me an ad her trainer published of a young horse that she is selling, and I was taken aback at the photos used for the ad itself. The horse was clearly behind the vertical, low in the poll and high in the croup in all the photos, with a very poorly adjusted, low-fitting drop noseband. But at the same time, the horse looked gorgeous: muscled and shiny, with a nicely dressed rider who was decked out in sparkles and matching-colored show clothes.

It has become so incredibly commonplace to see horses in this condition, and the younger trainer, I am assuming, thinks the photos are great.

When did that evolution happen—the one where we look at a bad photo and think it’s great because it’s pretty? I know the age-old argument of, “One photo is just a moment in time,” but in this case it was multiple photos. It always seems to be the same group of people who hide behind that statement, and they’re the same people that always want to say that our new technology is so much better than the old: The breeding is better; the saddles are better, and the clothing is better. But I would be remiss if I didn’t point out: The cameras and the photographers are also better.

I have book after book in my library with extensive photos, some newer, some older, some dating back to the 1920s, all with absolutely stunning images of correct work and movement. We could still use them today as how-to images of what is correct. Back in those days, shutter speed and film development were very limiting factors in the amount of pictures a photographer could take at home or at a show. Why is it so easy to go back to the days of old and find such beautiful photos and classic examples of what is correct, and today they are few and far between?

How can we say it is a bad moment when that is the best moment the photographer can get with a rapid-fire shutter?

Or is it that the rider just keeps producing those bad moments—telling themselves it was just a moment in time and trying to get us to believe that as well? I don’t think any photographer is out to snap a bad photo of a horse. Those don’t sell, and no one wants them, so it is never in a photographer’s interest to keep catching the bad moment. Those bad moments are just extremely commonplace, so they are very easy to catch.

These days there is a lot of outcry on photos like that, with people saying the rider is abusive based on a photo, which is a fallacy but can be a truth at the same time. If we look at it as a way of life and a style of riding and see photo after photo, show after show, of similar images of a particular rider reproducing the same image on horseback, that argument can in fact stand. Not to mention, if that is the best they can produce in public, what are they producing and how are they riding at home?

Horse welfare is on everyone’s mind these days; it is unavoidable and everywhere. Using photos like the ones in this sale ad do not do our sport any justice or give us a leg to stand on in defense of our practices. Our sport is in turmoil right now, and there is a shift taking place, whether welcomed or objected to from those in the sport. The problem is the evolution has shifted, skewed and adjusted our ways of thinking and viewing the sport and the horses to such an extent we don’t always see, or want to see, the endemic problems that are here at our doorstep.

One recent example is that a very well-known bridle company from Germany started making a crank version of a drop noseband. Much like the old, studded cavesson nosebands that one can still purchase, they really have no place in our industry. If the bridle maker had horse welfare in mind, they wouldn’t make a crank drop noseband, since they would understand the purpose of that kind of noseband, and the pain that a tight drop noseband can produce, and they’d understand the damage that can be done when misused. This company is adding to the welfare issues seen by the public in production of a noseband like this. Shame on them for making one, and shame on us for buying them, and in turn letting them become part of this insidious evolutionary change.

Welfare And Art

These changes are again going on right under our noses, no pun intended, while we just keep talking about how great the sport is, how much we love our horses, and all the while, trying to silence the critics. We keep getting told by the royalty of the sport that they know better than the novice riders, and they love their horses. The public keeps hearing from the stars of the horse sports that these things are being blown out of proportion, and the public just isn’t educated. I very much beg to differ.

It has become so commonplace to have extremely tight nosebands as a way of life and training that these star riders, who are supposed to be the best and biggest advocates in our sport for equine welfare, are up in arms over having a device that can measure the tightness with a standardized gauge to tell us what common sense should really be telling us. I don’t understand the objection to the idea of a measuring device, and why people can’t get behind standardization, especially when they love the horses so much.

But just to be clear, tight nosebands are not actually the enemy here; not understanding that the tight noseband, blue tongue or strong contact isn’t fair to the horse is. This is a rider accountability issue. If welfare was a foremost concern to these riders, why aren’t they coming up with ways to better work with the higher-ups to be compliant and transparent with their practices? Why don’t they desire to better the sport with kindness toward their steeds and common sense to their approach? Where has the empathy gone, if it ever did exist, and how can some of these riders look at their own horses, or the horses of some of the other riders, and think, as the Fédération Equestre Internationale so daftly puts it, that those are “happy athletes”? 

I am reminded of the fable, “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” with the basic moral being it’s important to speak the truth and not be afraid to challenge authority, even when it’s uncomfortable or unpopular. The story shows how people are often afraid to speak the truth, even when they see something is clearly wrong, because they fear being judged or ostracized. It demonstrates how vanity and a desire to maintain appearances can lead to deception and blind people to the truth. The little boy’s honest declaration that the emperor is wearing no clothes exposes the charade and reveals the emperor’s true state, demonstrating the power of truth. In the end, it is a cautionary tale about blindly following the authority or group thinking, and the importance of independent thinking and critical evaluation. The story sums up the way gaslighting works, which is a modern-day word used to basically describe the entire fable.

When lines of welfare start becoming blurred, the art gets lost, and in that loss, the correctness of form goes with it. Welfare and art go hand in hand, so if we lose the welfare, we lose the art, and we seem to be losing the welfare to the evolution that is taking place right in front of us. 

Somewhere in the performance and in the work, there has to be a willingness on a horse’s part to be our partner. The art of the sport is both in bettering the horse’s natural way of going and preserving and showcasing their character. Dressage that doesn’t do this simply isn’t dressage on a level that we should be striving for, agreeing with or believing in.

Every few years someone seems to have a new revolutionary idea on how to blend art and sport together, but unfortunately those ideas always seem to lean heavily on gaslighting, crowd approval, TV ratings, excitement or dilution to make the sport more appealing to a larger audience. This also ends up feeding the bad and incorrect evolutionary change.

As one simple example: The Grand Prix test lengths have been shortened over the years, so the audience doesn’t get bored, and we can fit more riders into a day. We make the tests easier and lean more heavily on the excitement and drama far more than the harmony and training, which can now be added to the list of welfare issues for the horse.

It isn’t a new argument or a new problem. But there does seem to be a battle that is creating polarization all the way down to the grassroot levels. This battle is raging, and each team and side keeps pushing their beliefs and defending their own way of life. Some are more science-based and fact-driven, others speak purely from the heart, and then there are some from the side of human stubbornness—just not wanting change. The judges believe they are right in what they are scoring; the riders believe they are right in how they are training, and the people at home have yet another core value of beliefs that they hold strongly. No one wants to give in, since that either means a change in your sport, or a change in your art, and either way in the end, a change in our way of life with horses.

We often point a finger at the people at home or on the internet and say they don’t know since they are not out there doing, but they are not always wrong, and their opinion cannot always be invalidated because they haven’t cantered into a stadium at an Olympic Games. It is extremely naïve of us riders, trainers and judges to think we are the only ones with eyes, and sadly for that argument, we as a group often wear rose-colored glasses talking of the queens and kings of the sport, unwilling to see the big picture and go against the popular crowd.

We’ve all seen an uptick in the amount of comments and posts online, on both social media accounts and various websites, speaking out about welfare-related issues.

Everyone is fast to condemn someone speaking up or speaking out as crazy or vindictive, uneducated or stupid, often saying, “We haven’t seen you ride or compete at that level,” and in turn trying to invalidate what the commenters are saying. If the argument of, “You must have competed at a level to judge,” holds value, why do we have some upper-level judges that have not competed at the Olympics or World Equestrian Games? I don’t understand the hypocrisy there.

I am in the minority in the belief that you do not have to have ridden to that level to see what is correct and what isn’t—or at least I can respect someone’s educated opinion on why they think something is right or wrong.

To me, the only caveat to having an opinion on a subject is having an education on that subject, and I have to say, I am hearing a lot of educated opinions on the internet these days that we just can’t keep ignoring or blowing off because we haven’t seen these people ride horses. Not all these people are wrong.

Being in the sport for a long time, you see these changes taking place, and they will continue to do so. Much like the tide at the beach, it ebbs and flows, and with each wave, you see the landscape changing before your eyes. Slowly, steadily, it changes. We can get on board with these changes, or we can leave it up to the current and the weather to make these changes for us, later trying in vain to redirect the erosion.

It will be interesting to see where the future of our sport heads with welfare on the forefront. There’s a vocal majority acting like the changes are egregiously pushed upon them, and then what seems like a minority feeling they’re a welcomed relief, since we all want to see horse sports stay relevant and included in a world where we can all continue to ride, love and hedonistically enjoy our equine partners.

Grand Prix trainer and competitor Jeremy Steinberg was the U.S. Equestrian Federation national dressage youth coach from 2010 to 2014. A 1996 FEI North American Young Rider Championships individual dressage medalist, he is a former U.S. Dressage Federation Junior/Young Rider Clinic Series clinician. He credits much of his dressage education to the late Dietrich von Hopffgarten, his longtime friend and mentor. Today Steinberg runs a boutique-style training business in Aiken, South Carolina, and travels the country giving clinics. Learn more at steinbergdressage.com.

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Fylicia Barr may be a five-star eventer now, but she got her start in the sport aboard the most unlikely of mounts. Her first event horse was a gray Arabian gelding named Zanzibar, with whom she did a bit of everything: 4-H, barrel racing, English and western pleasure, and even a little reining. A painting of him—dished nose, delicate ears and kind eyes, standing in a field of flowers—graces the cover of this month’s issue of the Chronicle. 

When Barr, 30, first met “Z,” he was an emaciated, rough-looking youngster at a low-end auction in western New York. Barr was just 10 years old, and she had a total of three riding lessons under her belt. Barr’s mother, Shannon Barr, bought Z on an impulse, despite the fact that neither she nor her young daughter had the requisite skills or experience at that time to manage an unknown horse from auction.

However, in the years to come, Z (named by Fylicia in honor of the main equine character in the “Phantom Stallion” series) would pay back his rescuers in dividends. Not only did Fylicia ultimately event him through training level, he carried multiple young riders to 4-H competitions, and later came out of retirement to become the first event horse for Chronicle cover artist Josie Buller, who took him all the way to the 2021 USEA American Eventing Championships.

“It felt like he just wanted to do right by us,” Fylicia, of Unionville, Pennsylvania, said. “We saved him, and I think he knew that, and he always tried to do everything he could for us. There were definitely moments where he could have said no, but he gave us everything he had. We both did a lot for each other.”

We Meant To Buy A Saddle…

On the day Shannon and Fylicia met Z, they had gone to the auction with a friend, intending to buy a saddle. Instead, they bought a horse with an unknown past, paying just $800 for the gelding—one dollar a pound.

“We saw him, and he was so sad, and so thin—he just looked at us, and we knew we had to try to make something happen,” Fylicia said. “It was truly the blind leading the blind. At auction, you don’t get much info on them, and we saw him with a saddle on and assumed he was saddle broke.”

But when they got him home—to a facility Fylicia describes as a “backyard barn sort of set up,” they found out Z was perhaps only 2 or 3 years old.

“He was young, and not really broke at all,” Fylicia said. “It was a bit of a set up for disaster. I didn’t know what I was doing, he didn’t know what he was doing, but we found our way, together.”

Nursing Z back to health required nothing more than correct, basic care. Over the next several years, Fylicia slowly got him started under saddle. Although she took occasional lessons on other horses, she didn’t have much help with Z; looking back, Fylicia admits she made many mistakes.

“Now, as an equestrian professional, I’m horrified at some of the things he put up with,” Fylicia said. “But he never complained. He used to buck me off for sport, but he gave me a really good seat that I still have to this day, and it was always with a smile on his face. It was a game for him, more than him wanting to hurt me. He’d just sit and wait for me to get back on.

“He made me fearless,” she continued. “He made me feel like I could ride anything. He was always a really, really good boy.”

When Fylicia learned about eventing, she was instantly hooked. She and Z debuted in U.S. Eventing Association competition in August 2011 at the Erie Hunt and Saddle Club Horse Trials (Pennsylvania), where they ran beginner novice. At the same competition a year later, they competed at training level. By then, Fylicia was 17 years old and had acquired a mare named Galloway Sunrise, whom she purchased off Craigslist as a semi-feral 2-year-old. Fylicia began thinking it might be time for Z to step down a level as she continued her own progress forward.

“At training level, the jumps got a little big for him,” Fylicia said. “So we leased him to a couple of young riders that did 4-H shows with him. He was the perfect babysitter.”

Although he was sound and in good health, when his final 4-H lease ended, the Barrs took advantage of an opportunity to retire Z to a farm in western New York. For several years, he lived “his best horsey life” there, while Fylicia continued her own eventing journey with “Sunny,” eventually making it all the way to the five-star level. She attributes her tenacity in working with the quirky mare, and other challenging mounts, to the lessons she initially learned from Z.

“He taught me not to give up on the difficult ones,” Fylicia said. “If you put enough time and effort into trying to understand the tricky horses, you can come out the other side with a really quality partner—if you’re patient, and take the time to understand where they’re coming from.”

It was after Fylicia relocated to Unionville and established her business that she met 12-year-old Buller, who wanted to get started in eventing—but who didn’t have a horse. Fylicia immediately thought of Z.

“When Josie came into my program and needed something to ride, I thought, ‘Let me see if the old man has got a little bit left in the tank,’” Fylicia said. “And he absolutely gave her everything.”

From Starter To The Bluegrass

Buller is now an 18-year-old freshman at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, but she still vividly remembers the day six years ago when Z and his friends moved into the new home of Fylicia Barr Eventing.

“People were putting up white boards by the stalls with the horse’s and owner’s names, and Z’s little white board had my name listed below his, even though I was not the owner,” Buller, of Coatesville, Pennsylvania, remembered. “Fylicia very generously let me do a free lease on him, and act like he was my own horse. The stars kind of aligned, and Fylicia knew Z would be the best teacher for me—and he really was.”

Buller had gotten her start taking lessons a local hunter/jumper program, but when she learned about eventing, decided to shift her focus. Working with Fylicia and Z, she went from being a “rusty” crossrail rider to competing at novice. After gaining mileage at the starter level in schooling horse trials and learning the basics of dressage, the pair moved up fairly quickly. In June 2020, after eight years away from sanctioned competition, Z returned to the sport at the Plantation Field Horse Trials (Pennsylvania) at beginner novice —with Buller in the irons.

“I made a lot of mistakes—I got left behind plenty of times—but he was so, so tolerant,” Buller said. “I always felt untouchable on Z. He’s just the best partner, and we had lots of fun. I’d never really shown, so I did all my ‘firsts’ on Z.”

When Buller was 15, she decided to set a big goal: to qualify for and compete at the 2021 AEC.

“It can get pretty competitive in Area II, and Z, being an Arabian, would stick his head up in dressage, and I didn’t always quite know what to do,” Buller said with a laugh. “But we got a second place at Bucks County [Pennsylvania], and we got to go to AEC.”

Buller describes the experience of competing Z at the AEC, held that year in Lexington, Kentucky, as “magical.” She admits he even was “a little wild” on cross-country after being stalled for so many days. The pair finished 31^st of 38 in the junior novice, 15 and under, championship—and earned the best-scoring Arabian award.

“He was the only Arabian in the class,” Buller laughed. “Some people would say, ‘Oh, you ride an Arabian?’ Well, he’s the best cross-country horse you’ll ever find. A horse you truly care about will always give 110% to you.”

Watching her first horse gallop over the Kentucky bluegrass with Buller made Fylicia feel as if Z’s story had come full circle.

“Obviously, Z and I did not make it to the Kentucky five-star,” Fylicia said with a laugh. “That was my dream growing up, even though I was a 10-year-old kid on an Arabian pony we’d bought for nothing. But watching him and Josie go down the ramp into Rolex stadium, and gallop through the Head of the Lake—that was so special. He made her dreams come true, and my childhood dreams came to life through them at that moment, too.”

Although Buller and Z competed one more time that season, the AEC proved to be their swan song together. 

“We don’t know his exact age, but he is 20-ish, and he had held himself together,” Buller said. “It felt like he was trying really hard, and he didn’t need to keep competing, where I wanted to keep moving up.”

Inspired by her trainer’s work in producing her own horses, Buller moved on to a former Thoroughbred race horse named Lee, whom she competed through training level. But Z remained in Fylicia’s barn, and Buller would still trail ride him once in a while just for fun.

“Most of the time, I didn’t even bother putting a saddle on him,” Buller said. “I’d just hop on, and we’d get going.”

Behind The Cover Painting

As Buller neared high school graduation, she knew that her time with Z was drawing to a close. Fylicia had made the decision to send him to enjoy a final, official retirement with her mother in western New York, and Buller was preparing to head to college. When she painted a watercolor and gouache portrait of him standing in a field of flowers, which she included in her senior gallery, it was intended as a dedication to the horse who changed her life. 

“He absolutely is my heart horse,” Buller said. “Middle school was a pretty rough time for me, and having Z … I went to the barn every day after school, and I felt like I had him in my corner all the time. If I had a really bad day, and I got off the bus in tears, we’d just go out for hours and hours on the great hacking trails around the barn. I kind of felt like every time I stepped into the saddle with him, I got to leave everything on the ground.”

Buller loves floriography, a tradition which looks at the symbolism of flowers and colors. In her tribute to Z, each flower she painted in the field he’s standing in was chosen specifically to convey Buller’s appreciation for all that he means to her—the sweet peas at the front mean “thank you for a lovely time,” the zinnias symbolize everlasting friendship, the heather is for protection, and the Queen Anne’s lace for sanctuary.

When the Chronicle put out a call for submission to its annual Junior Art Gallery (see more submissions from young artists here), she sent it in. Chronicle staff chose the piece to grace the cover of the 2025 Young Rider issue. 

“I’m so happy it got on the cover, because if any horse deserves to be on the cover of the Chronicle, it’s Z,” Buller said. “He has given so much, to so many people. He was Fylicia’s first horse, and now she’s a five-star rider. He helped me through so much in middle school and made me into the rider I am today.

“I think it is so important, on so many levels, for all people to know that every single horse deserves a second chance,” she continued. “Horses always seem to give back, especially those who get into a really good situation after having been in a not so great one. They give you their whole heart, and there is a lot of value in having a horse you’re just really close with. With the right people, no matter what their breed, a horse can do anything.”

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This article originally appeared in the August 2025 issue of The Chronicle of the Horse. You can subscribe and get online access to a digital version and then enjoy a year of The Chronicle of the Horse. If you’re just following COTH online, you’re missing so much great unique content. Each print issue of the Chronicle is full of in-depth competition news, fascinating features, probing looks at issues within the sports of hunter/jumper, eventing and dressage, and stunning photography.

The post 2025 Junior Art Gallery appeared first on The Chronicle of the Horse.

I’m helping people at a stage in their career where, in theory, they know how to ride. The technical basics of riding have been perhaps not mastered but definitely taught. I want to help them refine those skillsets to the highest levels that a particular rider can achieve. They also have to combine those technical skills with learning how to manage a competitive career, which are two quite different things.

The biggest challenge I see for riders making the leap from their young rider career to the top levels is in putting it all together. In all sports, it’s one thing to be talented; it’s another thing to be less talented and hardworking, gritty and determined. Those are all valuable qualities that will carry you so far, but now you have to combine those skillsets with abilities outside of riding that will help connect the dots to get you where you want to be. How do you create opportunities? How do you get mounted on good horses? How do you sell yourself to people so that they feel engaged and want to support your journey?

Those are the things that have a lot to do with who makes it to the top. I get frustrated when I hear a lot of rhetoric about the idea that if you’re not a billionaire, you can’t make it. And then I look at the top 10 riders in the FEI Longines World Rankings, and none of them come from that background. If you go down the world rankings, there are a few very wealthy people. I’ve had enough experience with people who come from very affluent backgrounds to know that that comes with a whole different set of challenges, which aren’t always that easy.

Riding well, being a better horseperson, and learning how to compete are all givens for getting to the next level. But there’s also the aspect of managing a career—finding sponsorship, finding owners, creating opportunities—that’s so essential.

Take Chances

Kent Farrington and I talk all the time about how for many years we never missed a five-star grand prix. That’s not because we always had the biggest sponsors or best horses of our lives in those moments. We made it a priority to be in those classes. At times, we bought horses ourselves to keep us at the top level, or we’ve talked to people and said, “Can you send me that horse, or let me work on that horse? I think I can make it better.” We scrapped to find a mount. A lot of people sit back and think, “I’m talented; people will give me horses to ride.” That’s not how it happens.

I can’t tell you how many riders I’ve had come to work for me whose main concern is their living accommodations and what brand of car they’ll be driving. I’ve been lucky enough that things have worked out very well for me, but that’s been 35-plus years of grinding at it and thanks to a lot of opportunities along the way from a lot of people. I never chased the economics of it. That comes with success, and that’s a nice perk. But the focus shouldn’t be on financial success; it should be on getting the opportunity to ride top horses.

You can’t have success if you’re not competing. I always wanted to know, “How am I going to be in the grand prix next week with a competitive horse?”

When you take a job as a second or third rider at a big stable, flatting horses, you get a nice paycheck every week, and that’s very safe. But people who take the risks are the ones who are going to create good opportunities for themselves. Sometimes that feels really unsafe, and it’s uneasy territory, right? But you need to be willing to take educated, smart risks if you want to really succeed. Some people say, “Oh, I’ll do anything for it,” but then actually find out they won’t really do anything for it.

Be Resilient

Our sport can be very difficult, challenging and heartbreaking, with horses getting injured or not performing, or getting injured yourself. But, to some degree, if this is going to be your career, you need to accept that the challenges are part of it. Sometimes it feels like the bad luck comes in runs, but you have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, looking for the next opportunity.

Frustration can come from anything, if you allow it to dominate your outlook. I happen to focus on thinking that one step sideways will maybe lead to three steps forward, and they’ll be steps that I probably wouldn’t have taken otherwise. Maybe that’s something that’s just a little bit internal in me. Maybe it’s a confidence that’s been built because things, to some degree, have worked out for me. But that mentality also probably played a role in things working out. When I missed getting a horse or a horse was injured or an opportunity didn’t come to fruition, I believe something else positive came about in its place.

I think that across the board, when you see people who have been successful in any walk of life, you notice that they don’t get overwhelmed by the setbacks. They just accept them as redirections. You have to digest them. You have to learn from them. And then you have to wake up the next day and go after the next opportunity.

Build A Village

There are some realities that have evolved as the sport has grown. I think a top rider has to have a knowledgeable, strong team in the barn backing them—barn manager, veterinarian, farrier, grooms and more. I look at other sports teams, and there was a time when the coach also played, in addition to being the strength trainer and the infield trainer and the first base coach and all the other different roles. And that’s evolved, right? Now there are experts supporting the team, from medical personnel to strength training to game logistics. Our sport is no different.

The growth of the sport at the highest level has made it somewhat impossible to be the well-rounded horsepeople that the generation before were. I cannot shoe my horses, feed my horses, groom my horses, train my horses, fundraise the sponsorship dollars, interact with the clientele and compete at the Olympic level. Something has to give. What you see in the very successful big operations now is riders who have a thorough understanding of horse care, but who then surround themselves with the best people for each expertise. The riders are engaged and involved with all the decisions, but they allow those experts to do what they know best.

The idea that the only way to be successful is if you start in the morning mucking stalls and drive the truck to the show and braid your horse isn’t realistic. There’s nothing wrong with any of that, but when riders are aiming for the very top level, they have to prioritize their time wisely. They need to manage their responsibilities, and, in turn, manage people around them. That’s what leadership is. I have often said that the generations that I learned from were better all-around horsemen than I am. They knew horses better.

That knowledge is enormously important and to be respected, but I choose to trust the experts on my team to have that expertise, leaving me the time to focus on other priorities.

Develop As A Human Being

I continue to learn through these experiences with young riders, as well as from my own experiences in the sport and in life. Being a successful rider is definitely one part of it, but living a rewarding life as a human also has a lot to do with success.

I’ve been privileged to work with young riders at an incredible time in their life. They can really focus on the sport, but they also should be really focused on developing who they are as a person. I very much respect that I get to be a large influence on a pretty influential period in their life. At the end of the day, most of these young riders are pretty exceptional. I’ve grown tremendously as a person by being around them, and probably also as a competitor.

Anybody that I’ve had influence over, I always push them to work on every single possible asset that could improve them as a competitor and as a person. As I push them to go after all of these things, I share with them very openly what my journey has been. I think most of them are very surprised that it’s not what they think it is from watching from the outside.

I am checkered by vulnerabilities, insecurities, missteps and mistakes, but yet I found a way to try to overcome most of them and live a successful life and have a successful career. I think that sharing that experience allows them to open up and say, “I’m in a tough spot here,” when they need to.

Vulnerability is really where you grow. I also try to open people’s eyes to the different tools that will help, like sports psychology, physical training, and finding some balance in your life.

A stalwart of the U.S. jumping team for decades, McLain Ward, 49, won team gold medals at the 2004 and 2008 Olympic Games and team silver at the 2016, 2021 and 2024 Games. He also earned team gold at the 2018 FEI World Equestrian Games (North Carolina), team silver at the 2006 WEG (Germany) and team bronze at the 2014 Alltech WEG (France). Ward also won the 2017 Longines FEI World Cup Final (Nebraska) and has spent time atop the Longines FEI World Show Jumping Rankings. He operates his family’s Castle Hill Farm in Brewster, New York.

This article originally appeared in the July 2025 issue of The Chronicle of the Horse. You can subscribe and get online access to a digital version and then enjoy a year of The Chronicle of the Horse. If you’re just following COTH online, you’re missing so much great unique content. Each print issue of the Chronicle is full of in-depth competition news, fascinating features, probing looks at issues within the sports of hunter/jumper, eventing and dressage, and stunning photography.

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