Rumor Has It

We are celebrating the hardworking Haflinger as our March Breed of the Month on YourDressage! 

Did you know that dressage riders who choose a Haflinger as their dressage mount are eligible for special awards through the Adequan®/USDF All-Breeds Awards program, as the American Haflinger Registry is a participating organization?

Here, a Region 1 rider shares her unplanned partnership with a talented Haflinger, and how this people-pleasing pony helped her venture up the levels and achieve her USDF Silver Medal.

By Becky Kuc

I have been working with Rumor Has It (Mawby) since 2015, but he was part of the family for longer than that! Mawby was originally my sister’s horse, but took some time off due to my sister needing a partner that wasn’t so wide after having some hip and knee issues. We tried Mawby as a lesson horse in our program, but he was too enthusiastic for most of the lesson kids and found that it was much more fun to do what HE wanted to do – which was often not what the lesson kids wanted to do! 

In 2015, I had the opportunity to compete with my friend’s off-the-track Thoroughbred (OTTB) and earn my USDF Silver Medal. This was at the same time that my current pony needed to be retired due to degenerative bone issues, which were causing lameness. I wanted more horses to ride, and Mawby was a pasture potato, so I tacked him up, and the rest is history! We didn’t do much that summer when I started with him, especially as my main focus was earning my Silver Medal. Once the show season ended, however, Mawby became my main focus, and we started forming an incredible bond. 

I planned to compete with him in 2016, the same year I was to graduate from college. My sister ended up surprising me, though, and she transferred his ownership to me, formally giving me Mawby as a graduation present! He even posed with my graduation cap on! We competed at USDF-recognized shows that year at First Level, while competing at Second Level at schooling shows. Despite always being in HUGE classes at First Level against many fancy Warmbloods, Mawby always placed in the top half, and even won an Adequan®/USDF All-Breeds Award from the American Haflinger Registry that year. 

I went straight into graduate school, and unfortunately, my riding took a back seat during my next year’s summer internship in New York City. The following summer, I moved to Philadelphia for my first “real world” job. Given that my family owns an equestrian center, I opted to keep Mawby at home and would drive home to ride after work every weekend. We did a few shows that first summer, just to test the waters in Third Level Test 1, but the time commitment was a struggle we couldn’t overcome. The two of us adjusted to our crazy schedule of two-ish rides a week for the first few years, but have since stuck mostly to local schooling shows. 

In 2020, when COVID hit, I had to take a 10-week hiatus from the barn. Once we were back to riding, we entered Fourth Level Test 1 a few weeks later, and he showed that he was stronger and better than ever after the time off. We ended up competing at Fourth Level that entire summer, and at the same show the following year, we made our Prix St. Georges debut together! The feeling of making it to Prix St. Georges with Mawby was incredible, especially with only riding two to three days a week. 

We quickly learned that Mawby does best with the harder movements. If you don’t have his focus at all times, he enjoys leaping; therefore, the harder tests keep his mind busy, and he’s able to focus and excel. We were VERY green at that level the first year, but in 2022, we decided to stay at Prix St. Georges, while also competing a Fourth Level Musical Freestyle. For both 2021 and 2022, he was named Champion for the FEI Levels in the USDF Schooling Show Awards Programs, as well as for a few local Group Member Organizations (GMOs) that we participate in. We’re most proud that his median score for his Fourth Level Freestyle at schooling shows was 75% for one of the organizations!!!

It only made natural sense to try to rip off the band-aid and move up to Intermediate 1 in 2023. We certainly had our share of hiccups in the Intermediate 1 test, but we figured we’d give it a go and realized that it’s only one or two movements that we struggle with, so why not make up for them elsewhere? This mindset is exactly what we needed because it allowed us to focus on the test as a whole rather than fixate on the one move we’d likely mess up in the test. We just had to do what we could do extra well and make up for it. We competed at I1 twice last summer, and scored over 60% both times (without ever actually having our two-tempis confirmed in public yet!). Still, Intermediate 1 was proving to be a little challenging, as I was simultaneously dealing with first-trimester nausea, so we opted to focus most of last summer on training rather than competing. This decision allowed us to focus on our weak points and school them, rather than trying to rush through them in the tests. 

Through last summer, Mawby grew significantly in his confidence. He’s a very sensitive horse, so if his mind gets “blown,” there’s no coming back. That often happens in the two-tempis, which has been hard for him. He wants to please SOOOO badly, but it is a fast-paced series of movements! On the other hand, he has made the most improvement in his canter pirouettes and trot half-passes. He can now do a beautiful trot half-pass across the full ring in only half the length of the long side. Overall, though, I think his incredible work ethic has been the biggest asset in helping us move up the levels and develop our relationship. 

He has taught me how to handle a horse to whom things don’t come as naturally, but still gives me their all every single ride. He also has taught me to leave it outside the ring – if you have any tension at all, he enjoys leaping to let you know (he has a sense of humor!). That forces me to leave outside stresses out of the saddle, and truly just enjoy my time with him. We always laugh because he is all business when being ridden, and even if he’s scared of something, the second he’s in his dressage ring, he feels safe and happy, and goes to work – as if the little six-inch fence will protect him. 

This “all business” mentality is only in the ring, though; he is the complete opposite outside! He is very nudgy, and everyone says he has one of the biggest personalities in the entire barn. He is playful, loves attention, and is larger than life in wanting to have fun. He’s pretty much a giant puppy dog who transforms under saddle. His favorite thing is a broom head that we attached to his stall as his own personal itching post – he LOVES it! He also loves wrestling with my dad and, of course, getting his favorite treats! 

I have no idea if we’ll make it further up the levels, or even to the same level once I come back from having the baby, as he’s gotten some time off while I haven’t been able to ride. But he is truly the most fun horse to ride, and although our journey might be harder at times, he gives me 100% every ride, and I give him 100% every ride, and that’s all we can ask of each other. He’s my therapy and my break from real-world stresses, and he always makes sure to keep life fun!