By Claire Nana
Aaron Lauritsen once said, “Without struggle, success has no value.” There is no place that this quote shows up as clearly as it does when I think about my journey in dressage.
Dressage was not my first choice as a discipline. In fact, having begun my riding career in the hunter/jumper rings, as well as starting many young horses from scratch, I would have told you that dressage is for people who lack courage.
It was only because I had a young warmblood stallion who was too young to start over fences but needed some exposure that I decided to enter a dressage show. When we earned a High Score award at our next show (at Training Level), this only served to cement my theory that dressage was equivalent to taking the “easy road.”
After a very successful first season, I arrived at the barn one day to find my young stallion dragging his hind legs as he walked down the barn aisle. When my vet could find nothing wrong with him, and could only hypothesize that, at some point, he must’ve injured his neck, I was forced to ask myself some very hard questions. What does riding really mean to me? Where do I want to go with my riding career? What are the strengths I want to develop through my riding, and what do I want to contribute through my riding?
It was then that I remembered an experience with my first Saddlebred horse. My mother had purchased him for me from our neighbor after I couldn’t stop talking about the most beautiful horse I had ever seen. Standing next to the other Quarter Horses in the yard, he looked like something out of a fantasy. He stood with his head held high, and his eyes bright and alert to the world around him, as if he knew something the other horses didn’t.
I rode endurance races with him, and it was on the way home from a training ride that he stopped, right in the middle of the wash, and refused to go any further. He was spooking at something in the bushes, and when I tried to push him past it, he spun around and took off, leaving me standing face to face with a Javelina (a wild boar native to Arizona, and known to charge) as it stepped out from behind the bush. Turning to run as fast as I could out of the wash, I thankfully escaped the charge. I turned right to go around the block, taking the long way home, when I saw my horse, standing a few hundred yards up the road, waiting for me, as if to say, “I tried to tell you.” I was shocked; my horse knew the long way home just as well as I did, but instead of making for home, he chose to wait for me.
That memory, for me, has always characterized Saddlebreds. Once they choose you, they will do anything for you. It was this kind of connection with a horse that I really craved. Yet, I also wanted something else; I wanted to grow as a rider. Sure, I had learned how to train a horse to jump, and had ridden in some small Grand Prix classes, but now I wanted something different. I wanted to learn how to train a horse to be somewhat of a ballet dancer, to perform the most demanding upper level dressage movements with grace and lightness.
My problem was that Saddlebreds are not known for their dressage ability. In the dressage world, they are somewhat of an outsider – some might even say a black sheep. It was then that I had an epiphany: If I really wanted to learn how to ride in this discipline, and I really wanted to grow in my ability as a rider, what I needed was a challenge. In fact, the greater the challenge, the greater the growth. And further, the more the journey demands of you, the more you will value the outcome.
After purchasing my first two Saddlebreds and becoming involved in some of the online Saddlebred groups, I had a second realization: this breed is in trouble. Much like Thoroughbreds, Saddlebreds are overbred; for every horse that becomes the next saddle seat superstar, there are many, many more who don’t make the standard. Many of those end up working as Amish horses, and some don’t make it at all, ending up on the meat truck.
For me, this was not a reality I could accept. And so, I decided to see if I could intercept a few Saddlebreds that were heading to auction, and turn them into upper level dressage horses. Many people told me I was crazy. “Why not just get a warmblood if you want to ride at upper levels?” This was a question that I answered countless times.
I was, and probably always will be, someone who finds tremendous value in the struggle. Was it hard? Yes, along the way, there were many challenges; there were the flat croups that made sitting feel almost impossible, and canters that were too disjointed to perform a lead change. There were late lead changes, stiff rib cages that made bending around the leg feel like trying to bend a board, and, of course, there were high heads.
All of this required me to, quite often, think outside the box, but sometimes, I just had to ride better. And more than anything, I had to refuse to quit, even when people told me I should.
Today, when I look back, I’m happy to say that I received all of my USDF Rider Medals (Bronze, Silver, and Gold) on Saddlebreds. And the first Saddlebred that made it to Grand Prix with me, a horse named Rockin In Vegas (Mr. Las Vegas x Madeira’s Gifted Lady – Madeira’s Caramac; Judith Oetinger, breeder), did it at the age of nine. He then went on to be the 2024 Adequan®/USDF All-Breed Champion at Grand Prix for the American Saddlebred Horse and Breeders Association in his first year of competition at the level.
The next two Saddlebreds that I’ve brought along are now competing at Intermediate-1, and we are having fun riding freestyles at that level. This accomplishment is all the more sweet because I was told by a couple of coaches that one of these horses, a gelding named Sunset’s Captain Carter (Sunset’s Flying High x Sunset’s Calendar Girl – I’m A New Yorker; Pamela Boyers, breeder), would never be able to do tempi lines. Now, he does them on a curve.
My other Intermediate-1 partner, a gelding named Virtual Explosion (The Sky King x Walterway’s Material Gold – Star Material; Virtual Saddlebreds, breeder), took two years to learn how to do a clean left lead change.
But again, for me, the value is in the struggle. For each of the challenges that I faced, I am a better rider for it. It is these horses that forced me to think deeply and honestly, until I found the missing link. It is these horses who are always my best teachers – and not just in the saddle. They taught me that life isn’t about the fancy saddles, the flashy browbands, or even the ribbons and accolades. It is about who we become.
And while I do hope we have shown that Saddlebreds (even rescue ones) can become competitive upper level dressage horses, perhaps more than that, I hope that we have shown that it is only through the struggle that we become better.
