By Laura Esty
I’m a dressage rider, trainer, and coach with a small boutique-style farm tucked into the coastal mountain range outside of Noti, Oregon. My focus is helping people and horses – regardless of breed – to better their communication and balance through dressage, and overcome their fears of showing. My personal breed preference is for Cleveland Bay Sporthorses, and they are all that I own.
Legacy Mover, fondly called “Nova,” is the heart of the farm. He greets everyone, oversees all the activity, and is always happy to be petted and told how handsome he is. The moment I laid eyes on him, weeks after purchasing him sight unseen off only some video footage, I knew he was something special.
I was in the process of purchasing Nova’s brother, and saw him in the background of one of the videos. Bred in Pouce Coupe, British Columbia, Canada by Linda Yaciw, he was a three-year-old stallion by Forest Fellow (CBHSNA), out of a Baquero (TB) mare, who had just been halter broke. After some negotiation, I ended up purchasing both boys.
When they arrived in Noti in December 2015, I immediately knew Nova was the one I’d been searching for. I had been looking for another young horse to bring up the levels behind my current FEI horse, another Cleveland Bay Sporthorse named Ducati.
“Nova could be the one,” I thought to myself, as I unloaded them from the semi truck in the dark, on an unfamiliar country road, and he quietly followed me down the driveway and into the barn. He was pasture raised, and had never been stalled prior to arriving at my farm. But he took everything step by step, with a quiet confidence and innate trust that won my heart immediately. In the years since that night, Nova’s undeniably sound heart and mind have continued to prove that love was not unfounded.
I started Nova under saddle as a four-year-old, and we were competing at Training and First Levels by the following year. As he has come up the levels, we have won Adequan®/USDF All-Breeds Awards from the Cleveland Bay Horse Society of North American every year that we’ve competed.
Nova’s excellent brain has allowed him to remain a stallion, and while I do stand him for stud, I do not actively advertise. I opted to wait a few years before breeding him, to ensure his mind would stay sound while competing. Once I was confident he truly was as saint-like as he started, I bred a few mares.
His oldest progeny that I own (he had been bred in Canada and produced a few foals before I purchased him) is now six, and began her dressage career last fall. I am quite excited to begin her journey up the levels, and enjoy her almost as much as her dad.
I also have a young gelding by Nova who is in baby school, and will hopefully make it out some time in 2026, if he’s ready. Nova also has a son that is being brought up by a young rider, and another filly that is being brought along with her adult amateur owner.
Nova has consistently passed on his mind and heart in his foals, and is creating new Cleveland Bay lovers in the process. In my experience, the Cleveland Bay can be crossed with anything and it stamps itself. I put a pause on breeding a few years ago due to life circumstances, but he did produce one 2026 foal. While Nova is now the only stallion on the farm, a few years ago I also had a full Cleveland Bay stallion in training for a client.
Together, Legacy Mover and I have shown successfull through Intermediate 1, and I look forward to seeing where our dressage journey goes. Hopefully we will eventually enter the Grand Prix ring, but time will tell.
Nova is well-loved around the farm, and that love is well-earned. From two year old kiddos to the hen that lays her egg in his morning hay, fully confident that he would eat a nest around it, he is gentle.
I had blown my knee out a few years ago and, despite not being able to walk without crutches and wearing a large brace, he would pack me around. Before finding out that my ACL and MCL were torn in the injury, I wrapped it and wore a brace and still showed him that weekend. We earned High Score of the show. When I started rehab, he was the only one I trusted enough to pack me around with delicate care.
Despite taking 2025 off from the show ring, he has taught me so much over the course of our partnership. His sensitivity, desire to please, and work ethic are incredible, and the trainability and logic he demonstrates has spoiled me as a rider. The trust I have in him goes beyond words.
There is a laundry list of traits that Cleveland Bay horses demonstrate, but it is this list that sold me on the breed: heart, body, mind, work ethic, intelligence, and soundness. I’ve never looked back. I bought my first in 2003, and have since developed several to the FEI levels – while raising human children – so I won’t ever own anything else again.
Due to the relationship they develop with their people, the joy found in working with them, and their honesty, you won’t find a more enjoyable breed to partner with.
