We are closing out our celebration of 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 6 tells us about her unlikely Grand Prix partner – a quirky Arabian gelding with scoliosis.
By Brianna York
I met “Marc My Wordz” (aka Bounce) nearly six years ago when I was on the hunt for a new hunter pleasure show horse. He was actually in the foreground of an image that a friend sent me of one of her other horses. “What horse is that?” I asked, and a week later, Bounce was in the barn.
To say that Bounce has been a challenge would be an understatement. He had a bit of a delayed start in life and was also struggling with some severe health issues that took some time to figure out. We finally discovered that he had scoliosis – and a host of other small injuries to his neck – after I had owned him for almost two years. “This isn’t going to be a riding horse,” the vet told me.
I shrugged and said, “Well, he’s a bay gelding who doesn’t stand well in a stall, so I hope that he can at least do something for me.”
Over the next six months, I religiously did horse Pilates with him and rode him as gently as I could while also trying to build his strength and flexibility. Our efforts paid off when he started to seem happier and more willing to do the things that were asked of him. Excited by his progress, I sent him to my good friends and long-term trainers, Brett and Marjie Becker, to get him ready to show as a hunter pleasure horse.
While we enjoyed lots of success in the hunter ring, from two national top tens in tough classes to a Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show Reserve Championship, Bounce just wasn’t thriving as a hunter. He was scared of the traffic in the arena during the classes, frightened of his ribbons, and just generally not that excited by his job.
I actually grew up riding jumpers and dressage horses, so I thought to myself, “What if I made a switch and we tried something new?”
My current trainer, Tracy Pierce, happened to be coming to our home barn the next month, and I went ahead and took a lesson with her. I still remember cantering across the diagonal and just asking for a lead change to see if he would do it. He gave me a flawless change every single time I asked, started working on half pass, and was willing to do some baby half steps – all in that first day of just playing with the idea of dressage.
Realizing that he loved this new job, I leaned in and decided we would embark on the journey together. We started out at Second and Third Level that first year, and I quickly earned my USDF Bronze Medal with him. Inspired by this bit of success, I moved him up the next year, aiming for my Silver Medal. We also earned this milestone, and I thought, “Well, what the heck. Let’s try for the rest of the levels.”
Tracy had told me all along that she just knew that he could do the Grand Prix, and while I didn’t doubt the talent of my horse, I doubted myself. After all, I had never ridden above Second Level before choosing to focus on Bounce’s sporthorse career. I hadn’t even ridden piaffe and passage, or really even watched the entirety of a Grand Prix test be ridden by anyone. How was I going to train my own horse to Grand Prix?
Thankfully, Tracy and a long-time client, Marian O’Brien, offered me the chance to come out to the Chicago area and ride Marian’s delightful, gifted schoolmaster, “Rudy.” It was truly incredible to ride the piaffe and passage for the first time, and to experience true tempi changes on a horse who already knew the ropes and was happy to teach me. I am so grateful to them for allowing me the opportunity, which gave me some idea of what to aim for when I was back home working with Bounce.
Over the course of the winter and into the beginning of the show season, I used my Pivo camera to take lessons with Tracy long-distance. When we thought that Bounce had enough of the test cobbled together, I decided to go for it. We started the year off with an open dressage show at Devonwood, against all the “big kids,” and we actually did pretty well. I even got a qualifying score toward my Gold Medal! I earned the second score for my Gold Medal at my next show, as well as a Pacific Slopes Championship.
Heartened by these early results, I knuckled under, planning to go to the Arabian Horse Association (AHA) Sport Horse Nationals in September, and gear up together for a really great ride in both the Intermediate-2 (I-2) and the Grand Prix. Sport Horse Nationals is a 40-hour drive away from us here in Oregon, but thankfully, I was invited to stop over for the week before the show at Alice Acres and get daily lessons with Tracy. Being able to actually work together in person was such a huge help, and it made a big difference in the results of my national show.
The I-2 was earlier in the show, and we were lucky enough to be Reserve National Champion in this tough class. The Grand Prix class was the next day, and I hoped that Bounce would have enough left in the tank to put in the ride I had hoped for. It’s always exciting to ride the Grand Prix, as everyone at the show turns up to watch. Being able to deliver the winning ride, earning an exciting 66.304% from the judge at C and a 63.152% from the judge at B, was beyond thrilling.
We don’t split this class by type at nationals, or even by pro and non-pro, so everyone at the show who has a Grand Prix horse rides in the same class. It means so much to take a purebred Arabian through the levels, and then to be competitive against the half-Arabians and all the trainers is even more special. Perhaps most exciting of all is having trained Bounce almost entirely on my own, from Second Level to Grand Prix, all in a matter of about three years.
I have learned so much from Bounce: patience, perseverance, the willingness to understand and try to solve problems in a way that a horse can understand, and also to believe in myself. The FEI tests are incredibly challenging and demand so much of the horse and the rider, so it is always a privilege to even be attempting to complete them, no matter what happens in the ring.
Committing to training a Grand Prix horse has been incredibly inspiring to me as an athlete, and also as a horse lover. I had been told for years that Arabians didn’t have the strength or heart to produce the Grand Prix test, and proving this belief incorrect over and over again feels amazing.
My advice to anyone who is on the fence about moving up the levels is that you should go for it. The process of developing your horse, even if you are making mistakes along the way, is so rewarding and teaches you so much as a horseman or horsewoman. My Arabian with scoliosis, an excitable personality, and an amateur rider/trainer went up the levels and became the Grand Prix horse I had always dreamed of getting to show. Arabians can do this, and they can do it with beauty and grace. Take the risk, ride the test, learn from your mistakes, and most of all, believe in yourself!
