Takoda: Not a “Friend to All,” But a Friend to Me

By Lorraine Martin

It was an unlikely pairing no one could have ever seen coming. Takoda was originally purchased as a weanling for my mother, an avid horsewoman herself. They (my mother and Takoda) didn’t get along for several reasons, and so, when he was a green-broke three-year-old, she decided to list him for sale. 

Much to my mother’s dismay, the only interest we got in Takoda was from people who were also not good matches. We had advertised him as extremely green, with only 60 days under saddle, and potentially gaited, but not at all solid in his running walk. Several people inquired about him, but they were ultimately looking for a much more seasoned partner. I remember begging my mom to let me ride him just once before selling him. Little did I know that that first ride on him was to be the first of many. 

So, because only unsuitable buyers inquired, Takoda stayed. I was thrilled because, as a 12-year-old, all I wanted to do was ride the horse I had grown up with. It only took one ride, and I knew I was his person. 

Takoda had taken a liking to me since we had brought him home as a tiny weanling, and to be able to ride him was the most exciting part of the whole experience for me. 

As a kid, I was a very nervous rider, and I remember that he was the first horse I truly felt confident on. Usually, I had to be pushed to canter (one of my first coaches had to chase me on the horse with a lunge whip because I was so afraid of cantering), but when the trainer who started Takoda under saddle asked if I wanted to try cantering him, I said yes, without hesitation. 

From that day on, we did everything together. I took Takoda on trail rides, to his first show, and to a local obstacle course. We never really thought about dressage, though, until 2020. In the summer of 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, I started taking dressage lessons. I grew up as a hunter/jumper kid but switched over to dressage after having my left knee surgically reconstructed from a non-horse-related incident. My knee was no longer holding up to the stress of short stirrups and jumping, so I switched gears. After a few lessons with Olivia Knight Dressage, I started applying the basic dressage principles to Takoda, and he took to it like a fish to water. 

We’ve been busy over the last couple of years! 2023 was our big year of showing; we competed at several local schooling shows, bringing home several blue ribbons, along with First Level Champion and First Level Reserve Champion titles at a couple of different shows in the open division. It was our first year showing against professionals, and I was over the moon. We also won the Equitation Seat high point award through the All Dressage Association for 2023. 

We also went out to a local pleasure show where we traded our dressage saddle for a western saddle, and I showed Takoda as a gaited pleasure and hunter/pleasure horse.

We’ve been incredibly lucky to have the support of Olivia Knight Dressage and Kelly Day from Kensington Sport Horses. Both Kelly and Olivia have been incredibly helpful in learning how to navigate the dressage world with a non-traditional horse. While neither has experience specific to a gaited horse in the classical dressage world, both of them have been incredibly willing to work with us to figure out how to make things work. It has been so helpful to have a team of knowledgeable trainers who specialize in correct biomechanics to help us out!

Since then, I haven’t been able to get out to any shows while I’m finishing up my nursing degree, but we’ve been lucky enough to ride in several clinics over the past couple of years. It has been so fun to learn from so many different trainers, and see the culture shift from a bias against non-traditional dressage breeds to becoming more open and accepting. 

We have been kindly invited to ride in several clinics by some of the local dressage barns in the area, and it has been so fun to see the clinician’s reaction when I bring Takoda out. He’s very obviously a non-traditional dressage horse, being a fairly splashy red roan, and he usually comes out a little hot and excited. It’s rare that dressage trainers anticipate a splashy, gaited horse to come out to play in the sandbox! 

As far as goals for this upcoming year go, I hope to get Takoda out at Second Level by the end of the season at a local schooling show. We’ve been working hard at cleaning up our lateral work, which will always be a struggle for him since he is a laterally gaited horse. Ultimately, I would love to get him out to a USDF-recognized show to work on earning my First and Second Level scores toward a USDF Bronze Medal. A girl can dream! 

Besides dressage, we also dabble in Western disciplines, including ranch riding. Hopefully, we’ll be able to make it out to a couple of ranch riding shows this summer, and even get out to our local Tennessee Walking Horse show, too. 

My biggest obstacle with Takoda has been just figuring out how to keep our gaits from getting mixed up. It’s super easy for him to accidentally break from the trot into a running walk or a pace when he’s doing lateral work, so figuring out how to keep his traditional gaits clean has been the biggest challenge for us. 

We got a lot of advice on how to prevent it, with most trainers telling me that if I wanted to ride the classical dressage tests, I should just not let him gait at all. I absolutely disagree with that advice, and instead, I found a different solution: we only do the running walk in our western tack. 

It’s super easy for Takoda to break gait from the trot when he doesn’t have enough impulsion and isn’t soft enough, so a lot of our time is spent on maintaining softness, relaxation, and impulsion. 

We are very lucky that Takoda is nearly as strong in his gaits as he is in his trot, making him kind of a unicorn. A lot of gaited horses show an innate preference toward one gait or the other, whereas Takoda doesn’t really have one. 

Right now, we spend the majority of our time focusing on our lateral work: shoulder-in, haunches-in, and leg yield. He’s just starting the first baby steps of half-pass, which is a huge deal for us, since I honestly never thought we’d get this far. He may not have the flashy gaits and natural ability of some horses, but our goal has always been correctly performing the movements over anything else. 

I think our greatest accomplishment occurred in 2022, which was simply getting out into the dressage ring. As a young rider, I was often told that Takoda would never be anything more than a “backyard trail horse” and that I would either ruin his trot by letting him gait, or ruin his running walk by letting him trot. We had a lot of people tell us we couldn’t compete in classical dressage because he was gaited, so just getting into the dressage arena has been a huge accomplishment. Not to mention, I’ve been the one who’s put all the training into him myself!

After 90 days under saddle, he became my project, while I was just 12 years old. To say that I’ve trained my own horse through First Level is a huge accomplishment, and being recognized with championships and scores in the 70s has also been incredible.  

Takoda has taught me to take every horse that I come across as an individual. He’s an extremely sensitive horse, which has forced me to become a quiet, kind, and understanding rider. I’m extremely grateful that he’s been such a huge influence on the way I ride. As a trainer, I have been able to take my experiences with Takoda into the saddle, no matter what horse I am on. I think having had to work just that much harder than those with non-gaited horses has given me a unique perspective in terms of training and showing, and I have been able to share my story on Instagram and TikTok to inspire other non-traditional horses into the dressage arena. 

Even outside of horses, my partnership with Takoda has given me a lot of appreciation for those who work against the odds and make do with what they’ve got. I appreciate the hard work that others put into their lives, and I can empathize with those who don’t have things as easy as others. 

I couldn’t afford another horse, and Takoda was who I ended up with when our partnership began. Now, I’m 22 and have an extremely versatile horse who I ride hunter/pleasure, gaited pleasure, ranch riding, and in classical dressage, and I get to say that I produced him myself. 

The most special thing about Takoda is that he is so careful. Even though he can seem “uncoordinated” as he tries to shift between a trot and a running walk, he has always been extremely careful to take care of me, or anyone else riding him. I have used him in a couple of riding lessons and when he notices his rider getting off balance or bouncing, he will switch from his trot to his running walk (a smoother gait) to make sure they stay safe. I love how concerned he is about his people. No matter what, he is always careful to take care of his passengers at all times, even if he’s uncertain or nervous. 

He’s special in other ways, too – he’s really kind of an odd horse at times. Curly horses are known to be super hardy to cold temperatures (they were some of the few horses that survived some of the harshest Dakota winters, which is why the Native Americans kept and bred them). but Takoda didn’t get that memo. He hates the snow (which is kind of a shame, since we are in Michigan) and loves his blankets. He gets very offended when I take his blankets off to tack him up or swap them out. 

I often get asked if I would like to make the push for Third Level and put flying changes on Takoda. My honest answer is no. This horse has given me more than I could have ever expected, and while I think he would be able to pull it off, he doesn’t need to. I love that we’ve made it this far, and if, some time down the road, he offers the opportunity to put changes on him, I would consider it.

But right now, I’m just beyond thrilled that we’ve made it this far. He’s got so much else going on for him in terms of versatility that I don’t feel the need to continue to push him up the dressage levels. I think it’s so fun to be able to ride him in the western tack one day as a gaited pleasure horse, and the next be doing shoulder-in and schooling the beginnings of a half-pass, and the day after that, hacking around like a hunter pleasure horse. I don’t need him to be a Grand Prix horse – I love him the way he is and wouldn’t trade him for the world.

Fun fact: the name “Takoda” means “friend to all” in Sioux!