Mischief Managed

Heavy Hitters! Throughout the month of December, we are featuring heavy breeds and heavy breed crosses!

Did you know that dressage riders who choose a heavy hitter as their mounts are eligible for special awards through the Adequan®/USDF All-Breeds Awards program, as the Draft Cross Breeders & Owners Association (among several others!) is a participating organization?

Here, a rider residing in Region 1 tells us about the draft cross who stole her heart from the beginning, and how her goals have shaped their dressage – and eventing! – careers.

By Bree Jarvis

I still remember the day I met Magnum, which also happened to be the day I fell in love with him. 

I was working at a barn during college, and one cold Saturday morning, in February of 2017, I walked down the barn aisle, watching this little three-year-old pull his halter off the hook on the front of his stall, fling it around, and throw it on the ground. Of course, I did what any type A horse person would do – I hung it back up. He immediately picked it up and threw it again…and again…and again. 

He was such a riot, and his exuberant personality sucked me in instantly. From then on, I always made a point to greet him. Even at three, he had this captivating presence. He is a striking dark chestnut with four white socks reaching up to his knees and a fun blaze my mom would later point out looked like a foam finger “number one” (foreshadowing, anyone?). 

Eventually, Magnum’s owner took him home, but I knew I’d always remember the spunky little redhead who had stolen my heart. That summer, I was in Maine as a working student at a hunter/jumper barn and was scrolling Facebook one night when I saw Magnum’s cute little face again. This time, it was on an ad listing him for sale. I knew, immediately, that I had to make him mine. 

After a few months of working seven days a week, saving every penny, and with some help from my super supportive mom, Magnum became my horse. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I had no business buying a just-turned four-year-old. I was still in college, and while I had loved horses from a young age, had been involved in programs like 4H and FFA, considered making horses a career, and had ridden on and off for the majority of my life, I didn’t really have an education past horse management, especially when it came to a young horse. 

I was one of those people…the people who say, “Oh, we’ll grow and learn together!” Sure, I’d heard the old adage, “Green plus green equals black and blue,” and I was naive enough to think that didn’t apply to us. 

At the time, Magnum had been barrel racing and had some reining training, which seemed cool enough to me, but I didn’t know anything about it. Something I did know was that dressage is a good basis for all disciplines and all horses, and luckily for me, a friend at the barn was a member of my alma mater’s intercollegiate dressage team. 

I joined, too, wanting to learn a little from just being a club member, but I ended up trying out for the team. I made it on as an Introductory Level rider, having never ridden any dressage (except for the one lesson I had with one of the team coaches, Becky Reed) before tryouts. 

A couple of weeks and several lessons after that, I found myself showing in my first Intercollegiate Dressage Association (IDA) dressage show, where a little horse named Bay and I came in first for our Intro B ride. I was immediately hooked. 

For the rest of my college career, I continued competing on the team, riding in lessons, and bringing those lessons home to Magnum. When I first purchased Magnum, I always said we would just do whatever discipline he wanted to, and it didn’t matter to me, as long as it was with him. 

After starting my dressage journey, I was pleasantly surprised he had an aptitude for it too. Magnum is an American Warmblood, essentially a registered mutt. His dam, Leo’s Sassy Lady, was a registered Paint, and his sire, Bold Mischief, was a Thoroughbred/Belgian Draft cross. To be officially registered with the American Warmblood Society and Sporthorse Registry (AWSSR), he would need to meet the performance requirements of our chosen discipline. The AWWSR requires a horse to compete at a USDF-recognized show at Training Level, or higher, and receive a minimum score of 62%, so this became my goal. 

After graduating, I got a job working as a show groom for a farm that specialized in pleasure driving. They summered in Maine, and travelled to Florida for the winter. It became a priority to get Magnum down there, too. 

In October 2019, we drove for 24 hours straight from Maine to Florida. I had found a beautiful little dressage barn to move Magnum to, and we began learning together for the first time with a trainer, Jane Whitehurst, who taught us to longe line, began bringing a lot of our foundational pieces together, and made it clear to me that even this non-traditional breed could be a dressage horse. 

While I found my job as a groom challenging and engaging, I knew it wasn’t the be-all-end-all for me in the horse world; I wanted to be a trainer. I was still in contact with my first dressage instructor, Becky, and she got me in contact with a person who would change Magnum’s and my life forever – Debbie Place.

Debbie became my mentor, offering me a hybrid position of assistant barn manager and working student, focusing on all aspects of horse education. It included riding, horsemanship, horse husbandry, property and facility maintenance, and afforded room to grow into the trainer I wanted to be. So, in January 2020, Magnum and I made our way back to Maine to take advantage of Debbie’s offer. 

Over the next four and a half years, Debbie guided my horse journey carefully and purposefully, turning me into the well-rounded horsewoman I am today. Under her coaching, Magnum and I really buckled down, and we started showing, the first time of which I remember vividly. 

I had only had a couple of years of IDA competitions under my belt, and Magnum had come along so well in the dressage that I had signed us up to do First Level Test 1. He was so not ready for it, and that became very evident when I could barely get him into the ring, certainly couldn’t get him anywhere near the judges’ booth, and trying to get him through a test would have been laughable. We excused ourselves, scratched our next test, and went home with our tails tucked between our legs. 

Debbie had me focus on building my relationship with Magnum – I had dealt with a lot of fear issues and, to no one’s surprise, had struggled with having a young horse without a trainer for as long as I had. While we had improved, we were both still guarded. 

We incorporated jumping into our training, and not only did we both love it, but it also helped Magnum’s flat work. Being part draft, it wasn’t easy or natural for him to sit, push, or pick his shoulders up. Jumping taught him all that, and more. 

What started as cross-training turned into something more; we went over the “dark side,” and we took up eventing. We both got stronger, mentally and physically, and we really got on the same page. Suddenly, going to a dressage show felt easy; there was no jumping to face after all, and Magnum’s rideability improved drastically. 

After going to our fair share of schooling shows, I finally felt like we were ready for the real deal – a recognized dressage show. I signed us up for First Level Tests 1 and 2. My goal of completing the performance requirements for the AWSSR had shifted to something greater: I wanted to be a USDF Bronze Medalist. 

I had taken a horse or two on for training; I was in the fledgling years of my professional career, and I knew this accolade would help bolster my education and my reputation. Plus, I wanted nothing more than to prove the occasional “neigh” sayer wrong and show that my 15.3-hand “mutt” could do it. 

In July 2022, Magnum, officially registered as Mischief Managed 622, and I got our first two scores. In July 2023, we got our next two scores, this time at Second Level. Bronze was so close I could taste it. I had purchased another horse, had five horses in training, and was concurrently pursuing an eventing career. I had seen upper-level eventers who were also successful dressage riders, and I wanted to be one, too. 

Magnum was a good jumper, but he wasn’t easy; I hit the dirt more times than I could count. I couldn’t see a distance, and he was careful, but not super brave. Looking back, he was an excellent and patient teacher – he was never just going to give it to me, I had to get better. 

In the spring of 2024, Debbie convinced me to take a trip with my horses and a couple of my clients down to a place that was a transformative part of her career: Unionville, Pennsylvania. We packed up and headed down for a ten-day intensive, completely immersing myself in all things horse, taking multiple lessons a day with the likes of Bruce Davidson Sr., Fylicia Barr, Boyd Martin, and Phillip Dutton. Debbie had also set up a lesson for Magnum and me with a friend of hers, Sally Lofting, a dressage rider. 

We had such a fantastic lesson with Sally that when I got back to Maine, people noticed a difference in our dressage. He felt and looked so proper. I knew that if I really wanted to become a serious professional, I had to be in Pennsylvania. In June 2024, I moved to start a new job with Fylica Barr, a 5* event rider, working as her groom, and after six months, I started my own training business. 

Magnum and I took that year off from showing. With the move and settling into a new job with a busy schedule, I just didn’t think we were ready for another move up. We spent the winter training hard with Fylicia. The half pass had come along, the changes were straight and through, the trot was more cadenced; we were ready. I signed us up to compete at Stable View. We were headed down to Aiken, South Carolina, for the winter season, and while I hoped to event some too, I was really looking forward to being between the boards again. 

Magnum, unfortunately, had other plans. Only days before our competition, Magnum got pretty seriously hurt in the field. It was a freak thing, but he came in non-weight-bearing behind. I was heartbroken and scared for him. We took our time getting him back into work over the next several months, but even when he had been cleared to return to full work, he didn’t feel right. I thought my hopes of securing our scores had been dashed for the season. We ticked along, started riding with Donnan Sharp, and eventually, he felt better. 

I signed us up for our next show in June for our first go at Third Level, but I had underestimated how Magnum would be. We hadn’t been to a show in ages, almost two years, and he was a spooky, tense block of pure muscle through our first test. We missed the mark by 3% in Third Level Test 1.

I was bummed, but we had another shot in Test 2, only this time, I was the one who messed up. I turned left instead of right off centerline and got all the way to the walk work before the judge finally rang the bell. In her defense (and hey, mine too!!), it is a lovely mirrored test. Shoulder in, to renvers on the long wall tracking right? Well, next you’ll do the same tracking left! I was so discombobulated that I then proceeded to forget an entire movement in the canter tour, earning us our second error on an otherwise harmonious test. 

When I got the score back, I was devastated and so angry at myself; we had scored a 57.1%. Without my errors, we would have gotten our score. I made it my goal to get the scores before the end of the year. 

During our time in Fylicia’s program, Magnum and I had started jumping much bigger fences and much trickier questions, and as a result, he was becoming reliable, adjustable, and fun. I had always introduced him to people as “my dressage horse who events,” because he would always score well on the flat, a lot of times leading our division, and would probably have won some stuff if we could have jumped around clear, but we didn’t. I could tell his heart just wasn’t in it the way I wanted it to be, so I switched his focus back to more straight dressage. He transformed in a way that I wouldn’t have thought possible in such a short period of time. 

By the time our next show came up, we earned the score we needed with ease. One more score from a different judge on a different day was all that was left to make my bronze dreams come true. Our last chance would come up in October, the final recognized dressage show in the area. I was the most nervous I had been at a dressage show in a long time. 

Our first test went okay. He was tense, but willing. It was a cold morning, and I had to kick for every step, but it was a consistent, accurate test, and I hoped the judge would be willing to see past the tougher parts… no dice. When we got our score back, we were a couple of points off the mark. 

In the warm-up for our next test, I told Magnum I knew we could do it, that we could hold each other’s hand and get it done. The next test felt great, he felt proper and so did I. This, I thought, is where this horse and I are meant to be. I didn’t have time to wait around for scores. Halfway through the drive home, I reluctantly checked the live scores. 

We had done it, we had earned our last required score by only 0.789%. I cried right then and there. 

The little red horse who could and I were USDF Bronze Medalists. 

This horse has been there through the most transformative parts of my life; we’ve lived in four states, attended college, begun my professional career, and now we are Bronze Medalists together, with much more to come. He has made me brave, he has taught me to feel, be patient, and forgive. He makes me feel like a little kid and reminds me not to underestimate the underdog. He has an equal number of fans and critics. He is not your typical dressage horse, but he has proved time and time again that he belongs there. Magnum has taught me to advocate for your horse, not to be afraid to change your mind, and to go after something that seems impossible. 

Nothing about our journey has been easy, but it has all been worth it. Magnum is a horse with heart, and it doesn’t matter that he isn’t bred to the nines. He is my little draft cross that has a fire in his soul, and having a partner who wants to do it with you is more important than anything else. I hope everyone gets to have and love a Magnum at least once in their life. He is the coolest horse I know.