Did you know… dressage riders who compete with a member of this stunning breed are eligible for special awards through the Adequan®/USDF All-Breeds Awards program? The Friesian Heritage Horse & Sporthorse International, Friesian Horse Association of North America, Friesian Horse Society, Friesian Sport Horse Registry, and Friesian Sporthorse Association are all participating organizations!
A Region 7 trainer was on the verge of leaving the industry, when a phone call from a potential client with a string of Friesians changed everything.
By Raquel Santos
My name is Raquel Santos, and I operate my training business in Coto de Caza, California. My program currently has a string of twenty horses. Eight of them are owned by a fabulous client named Nicki Lucas. In Nicki’s group of horses, we have horses spanning from five to seventeen years old, all working at different levels, from Training Level through Grand Prix!
Nicki’s mission – and by extension, mine – is to promote the Friesian breed at the highest level of dressage, and show that they can be just as competitive as warmbloods. So far, we’ve been doing a good job of making that goal come alive.
Three years ago, I was new to Orange County, and was trying to build my business. At one point, I was working non-stop, and nothing was coming to fruition. My goal was to get my name out there by showing, and grow my business in the sport. I’m a go-getter, and I always get up no matter how many times I fail, but at that point in my career, I felt that maybe everything was going wrong because it wasn’t meant to be. I was seriously considering getting out of horses altogether. Then, I got a phone call from a woman with eight Friesians and a goal that matched mine! That’s when the universe said, “Hold on a second.”
I have to say, when I first got the call from Nicki, I thought, “Eight Friesians! That’s a crazy project, right?!” And honestly, I have had a lot of potential clients contact me and say that their horse is super, and it can do ABC so easily. Most of the time, like dating, it feels like a catfish moment – when I see the horse in person for the first time, though well-meaning, the description is not accurate. I was especially hesitant, and had that thought in the back of my head about these Friesians before meeting Nicki. I appreciated Friesians as a breed, and have ridden a few here and there, but never considered them as a breed to campaign as upper level dressage horses.
When I met Nicki, and she brought her horses out, her Freisians had a totally different look from what I expected. They were less stocky, more refined, and had more engine than I was prepared for. Especially Eos, whom Nicki had told me didn’t have a lot of show experience, with his last outing having been at Second Level. Our first couple of rides together, he was a worker bee, going along with what I asked. One day, I asked for more collection, and I felt this impulsion and “go” underneath me that made me pause.
Within the first couple of months working together, I got to play more and more with Eos. I realized he had all the FEI movements in him; they just had to be smoothed out to be performed with more refinement. He needed to learn not to become so overactive when being asked for one movement after another. It was then that I knew he was going to be my main partner. As I began to ask him for more, he seemed to say, “Game on.”
Eos loves to be challenged in his work, and after three years off, his show debut was at Desert Dressage in 2024, doing Prix St. Georges. We will be getting ready to compete at Intermediate II this spring, and by the end of the year, hopefully, we will move up to Grand Prix.
Eos is a solid example of how it’s not the breed that determines whether a horse can reach the highest levels of dressage, but mindset. When it comes to picking a horse to campaign toward the upper levels, regardless of breed, I look for a horse that mentally tries, and loves to work. No horse and rider are perfect, but it matters how you and the horse communicate, and the horse’s willingness to try to understand you, even when you make mistakes while piloting the ride.
All of Nicki’s Friesians display a forwardness, and can sometimes be even “hotter” than some warmbloods. Sometimes, I need to calm them down in our training sessions, because they always over-give and try their hearts out. It actually makes me chuckle when the trainers I work with show their surprise at how hot and exuberant these horses can move. They have totally changed some people’s opinion on a Friesian’s capability to perform in a competitive show ring.
In all sincerity, I would have never thought this breed would be exactly what I needed in my career right now. Before I got them, I thought that to be recognized, respected, and to show competitively, it could only happen in the saddle of a warmblood. I’ve always felt like the underdog, especially when I started my career, and some people didn’t think I could hack it, and wouldn’t have the longevity in this industry. With Nicki’s Friesians, it’s been such an organic and great partnership. It feels meant to be, because that breed is also not regarded as competitive in the upper levels of the sport, but her boys and I prove them wrong. We still have so many things to accomplish, mostly to show that we can, but as Nicki says, “Let the feathers fly!” every time I go off to a show with her horses.
Rebecca Rigdon has helped immensely with our training at home and at shows. She guides me methodically to help Nicki’s horses carry their neck in a more organic way, helping them extend their topline while being exuberant, yet staying supple at the same time. This breed is known to be strong and powerful with their expressive movement, and my father, Carlos Santos, who also coaches me, has taught me how to handle this powerful breed. He has taught me how to use more of their back to become lighter in the front.
The Friesian breed has completely changed my life, and has opened so many doors for me. Nicki is very diligent and methodical in how she picks her Friesians, and in making sure they represent the breed well when showing. I feel so honored to ride her horses and to have a chance to dance with them in the show ring.
[…] Hof, aka Enzo, came to me about two years ago when his owner, Nicki Lucas, was looking for a new program for her herd of Friesians. Enzo and I clicked right away. At the […]