We are celebrating the Adaptable Arabian as our September Breed of the Month on YourDressage!
Did you know that dressage riders who partner with a member of this ancient breed are eligible for special awards through the Adequan®/USDF All-Breeds Awards program, as the Arabian Horse Association is a participating organization?
Here, a rider from Region 7 shares how she ended up with the exact horse she wasn’t looking for, but also how she wouldn’t have it any other way!
By Sam Gioia
“Just anything but an Arabian…” Now that I’ve been riding my trainer’s beloved chestnut Arabian mare for the past year and a half, this has become the punchline in a now often-retold story.
After a few months of taking lessons with Sarahbell, she asked me what my riding goals were. What the dream was. She thinks I took a few weeks to think about it. What I was actually doing was working up the courage to share the goals that I thought were completely crazy: finish my USDF Bronze Medal, find another horse, and maybe one day reach Grand Prix.
But there was one caveat: Just anything but an Arabian.
A few weeks later, Sarahbell told me she had the perfect plan. I could go for my Bronze Medal by showing her Arabian mare, Stella, whom she had shown through Prix St. Georges (PSG). Internally panicking, I said, “Oh no, I couldn’t possibly.” I had taken one lesson on her and could barely pick up the canter.
But then, the plan got even crazier! To develop a relationship with Stella, Sarahbell wanted me to take her to an Arabian Horse Association (AHA) Sport Horse show and enter in-hand and under saddle classes that I had never even heard of before – in three weeks!
Still internally panicking, I said yes. I thought about all the reasons I had found to say “no” to getting back into riding, and all the ways those reasons became irrelevant once I set my heart on it:
- There’s no way I’ll find somewhere close enough. I found an amazing trainer at a barn less than twenty minutes away.
- I’ll never fit it in around work. Sarahbell was happy to teach me at 7:30 on Friday mornings.
- No one will have an upper-level lesson horse. Walk-trot lessons on Nutter Butter, the rescue Paint horse, taught me so much more.
I had plenty of proof to keep an open mind. So, I said yes to the crazy plan.
Why no Arabians? After all, the horse I grew up with, the horse who was there for me through thick and thin, my heart horse, is an Anglo-Arabian. Zoom is now an incredible 29 years old, but in his prime, he took me down centerline nearly 100 times. Sometimes, at a dead gallop.
I will always love my Zoomster and be thankful for all we learned together, but I didn’t want to repeat our journey. Now in my 30s, I didn’t fancy a spook that took me halfway across the ring every time we went past the letter B. Like so many others, I assumed all Arabians and Arabian crosses were too hot, too spooky, and universally looked down upon in our sport.
But here was everything I wanted: the opportunity to finish my Bronze Medal; the chance to take lessons on an FEI horse; my first horse show in ten years! I just had to do it on an Arabian. How could I say no?
Learning to ride Stella was not easy. In the weeks leading up to that first show, I could barely ride her on the bit. Sarahbell had to get on multiple times. She told me not to be discouraged, that taking over someone else’s FEI mount was hard. It didn’t matter that I had ridden for over 20 years. It was like I had never ridden a day in my life.
On a chilly weekend in April, we trailered out to Galway Downs in Temecula, California. I bumbled my way through my first-ever in-hand class (the judge was so patient but could barely contain a slightly exasperated smile). And then Stella and I spent a lot of quality time together in the warm-up between the under saddle classes.
In the dressage world, we are blessed with ride times like 9:18 AM. In the Arabian world, there’s a class list, and you just have to keep track of which class is in the ring and how many classes are ahead of you. And somewhere in that warmup ring between those classes, Stella and I started to click. It was a small thing, where I just knew she had my back. We even came out with a blue ribbon in the Sport Horse Show Hack class, where you exhibit collected, extended, and “normal” gaits around the ring, in a group.
Since that first show, it’s been a whirlwind. Less than two months later, we became Reserve Champion in the Open Sport Horse Show Hack at a regional Arabian championship, made our Third Level debut and earned the last scores for the Bronze Medal, competed at the 2024 Great American/USDF Region 7 Championships, finishing fourth in the Third Level Adult Amateur division, made our Fourth Level debut earlier this year, earning two scores towards my Silver Medal, and even broke 70% at Third Level Test 3…
All on an Arabian.
But the ribbons and the scores are nothing compared to what Stella teaches me every time I’m in the saddle. In dressage, we always strive for those invisible, weighted aids. An Arabian like Stella demands them. She’s so sensitive and light that it’s easy for me to throw her off balance if I lose focus.
But that sensitivity and intelligence are exactly what make Arabians such wonderful partners to learn from and grow with. Stella’s teaching me to be even quieter and clearer with my aids (something I am still and will forever be learning), how to be more consistent and more patient (with her and with myself), and how to ride Prix St. Georges with both finesse and strength (because Arabians have the talent to shine in the dressage ring, even at the upper levels).
And, on top of all that, she’s become a best friend. She sticks her head out of her stall to greet you, bats her eyelashes until you scratch behind her ear, and loves being the center of attention. When you get it right, she gives you the world. There’s just something a little extra to this special breed. And Stella is one in a million.
The morning of that first Arabian show at Galway Downs, I stood in the barn aisle, just soaking it all in. As the story goes, Sarahbell caught me totally glazed over, smiling like a starry-eyed kid. She jokingly asked if I was ok, and I said I was just so happy to be there.
It was the honest truth. I hadn’t realized how much I had missed the whole experience of being at a horse show, and now that I was back, it was like finding a piece of myself again.
I chuckled and said, “Hey, remember when I said anything but an Arabian?”
Sarahbell had no memory of it whatsoever, and I thank my lucky stars that just anything but an Arabian had gone in one ear and out the other.
