by MARY KIRKMAN Technically speaking, history is written in every class at every U.S. Nationals; any horse who wins is added to the record books of the Arabian horse breed. Sometimes, though, the audience witnesses landmark history, when a “never before” scenario unfolds in the ring. That’s what happened in the last class of the 2021 show, when ROL Divine Style earned the national championship in English Pleasure after winning the title in park just two days earlier. In the more than six-decade history of the show, no horse had won both events at the same U.S. Nationals. Plenty have migrated from one division to the other, but not at one show and particularly not at a one of that level. So, it’s fair to ask, what does it take? And, how did Divine Style, “Duke” to his friends, pull it off?
Here’s how it happened.
Ar abian Horse Times | 8 | Volume 52, No. 6
Schatzberg photo
Horsemen will point out that the two classes require the same basic athletic talent; the key is how an individual horse is ridden and presented, so winning both awards at one show is as it should be for the right horse. For trainers Joel and Ashton Kiesner, who delivered the titles (Joel in park, Ashton in English), and Gene LaCroix, who has advised owners Nancy De Lisi and Carol Sandusky throughout the stallion’s career, Duke is a good example of the right horse. He has the critical mental aptitude, and his level of fitness was off the charts—plenty to excel in two competitions. At the age of 12, he was up for the challenge.
First, the cast of characters. The owners: Nancy De Lisi and Carol Sandusky, of DELSAN Arabians, are known for not only their good horses, but their support of their trainers. While Carol has enjoyed competing in the ring herself, Nancy is content simply to form bonds with their horses. “We have two objectives with every one we own,” she says, “and that’s that they are happy and healthy. If they have that passion to show, they show; if they don’t, we don’t push it. With this guy, he’s a showman. He has always wanted to show.” Last summer Duke added park to his resume, and his whole team agreed—Carol in particular was adamant—that he deserved a shot at the division’s championship. When they rolled into Tulsa, that was their objective. What they hadn’t gauged, she reflects, was the depth of Duke’s desire. “On Thursday night, we won our goal. On Saturday, he won his.” The advisor: Gene LaCroix. He’s so much a part of the ROL Divine Style journey that for Nancy and Carol, he’s like a third owner. Carol smiles, “We call him ‘the maestro.’” The trainers: Joel and Ashton Kiesner. They both train and show, but as a fifth-generation horseman, Joel is more front and center. In the past 20 years, he has won 12 English pleasure national championships and four out of the last five park titles—but he credits Ashton with Duke’s success. The veterinarian: Ty Wallis, of Equine Athlete Veterinary Services, is Duke’s physical care and fitness guru, charged with making sure the stallion is sound and happy.
ROL Divine Style - a.k.a. “Duke”
And the horse: ROL Divine Style, by Afire Bey V, out of IXL Miss Firefly, who is by three-time park national champion MHR Nobility. It’s a five-star pedigree for English and park, and prior to 2021, he had won two Canadian national championships in English pleasure and four U.S. reserves. The first wispy indicator of what might be possible appeared last summer at Kiesner Training, where ROL Divine Style had arrived early in 2020. He’d shown successfully with three training operations, but his list of prestigious titles did not yet include the silver winner’s trophy of the U.S. Nationals. It soon became apparent that for Duke, the Kiesner barn was home: he blossomed in his training, fairly glowing with contentment. Joel worked on fine-tuning his style and Ashton improved his ability to relax his responses to what was asked of him. As she worked him more and more, Joel found himself inviting visitors to “come and watch this horse of Ashton’s …” Duke was, they could tell, perhaps more special than even they had foreseen. Given the stallion’s natural ability, the challenge was refining his understanding of the different tasks he was being asked to do. “For a couple of months, I set a timer on my watch and we walked for 20 minutes,” Ashton says. “I just wanted him to know that he didn’t ‘have to.’ He’s bred to give, give, give, and I told him, ‘No, let’s just walk for today.’ We did that for a couple of months, and then we would just kind of jog. He would want to go faster and I’d slow him down, and then some days we’d go faster and then I’d make him come back and rate. At home, I never did a park trot or anything like that; he learned that he could go hard, but then he has to come back down. Over the course of so many months, he softened—his mind, his body, his mouth, his expression.”
With Ty Wallis
Joel notes the details of her style and how it worked with Duke. “She understands the concept of having a horse move their body to their head softly and with sophistication, and never with force,” he says. “She’s thorough with her legs, with educating their mouths. Anytime I climb on one of her horses, they’re just thoroughly trained; they’re never afraid of their mouth. They understand the bit and they move off it. You can use all your cues and they are never nervous or tense about it, they know how to do everything, and they have good controls. They don’t just do the big trot; they do all kinds of other trots too. You can put them anywhere you want and then when you ask them for the big trot, you have all the control you need. They do it in a relaxed way and we think that’s more beautiful to watch.” “I always had Gene in my head, like a little birdie on my shoulder,” Ashton smiles. “The straight rein, a smooth snaffle, Duke being roundbacked, round-necked—I think doing all that enabled him to do the park and the English.” “He was that settled in his brain that he could go multiple different speeds and impulsions, and that’s why he was able to do that,” Joel observes. “The horse got to accept that he was mentally, physically and emotionally really at his best. Obviously, you have to have a great horse, but Ashton did a fantastic job. I got a lot of enjoyment out of watching the training sessions; it was a beautiful thing to watch.” In July, the team headed out to Region 15, and that’s where things
heated up. Ashton won the English pleasure preliminary with Duke and Joel added the open, noticing so much impulsion and enthusiasm that he remarked, “You know, we might have a park horse here.” Although they had previously focused on English pleasure, Nancy and Carol were agreeable. Early on, they’d regarded English as more of an asset to Duke’s career at stud, but that aspect of his life had taken off (“At latest count, we find that about 86 percent of our breeders re-breed to him,” Nancy says, and the list includes many of the major English breeders in the industry). So at this stage, they had more flexibility. By early October, when they arrived in Tulsa, their target remained the park championship on Thursday night. And in that class, Duke was explosive. “I asked for everything I could from him,” Joel reported, “and he showed me more.” Impressively, he came back to the stalls “with gas in the tank,” as Nancy puts it. Still, they waited until Ty Wallis pronounced him fit to go again before that second round of competition became a reality. For the next two days, Duke’s mental acumen was obvious. He knew how to take care of himself, sleeping and eating through Friday and resting on the day of the class. “He has the intelligence and the work ethic,” Nancy notes. “He was ready for Saturday night. When I talk about temperament, that’s part of it. It’s something you want to reproduce, something that will enhance the breed.” There would be one difference for the English pleasure championship: Ashton would be Duke’s partner.
Ar abian Horse Times | 10 | Volume 52, No. 6
With Gene LaCroix
With Nancy De Lisi
Saturday night. “This was the moment that I’d been working for all my life,” Ashton says simply, and but allows with a laugh, “All that work … but when you are riding Divine Style in open English, it’s not a bad gig!” For Duke, it was down now to this one last effort. “He was ready,” she says. “He was so excited and so pumped up as we were walking down the chute to go to the Ford Truck Arena; I’ve never felt a horse like that. I could feel his heart beating between my legs. Honestly, I hadn’t planned on going in that early, but he was ready to go; nobody was stopping him, not even me. I thought, ‘If I hold you back I may get myself in trouble. So, I’m just going to go with you, let you do your thing.’ We hit that ring and he was just a monster (in a good way). He never tired. He did everything I asked him to—on the rail, off the rail, faster, slower. He was perfect, never broke, always cadenced. It was a total thrill, obviously!” All the months of schooling came together. That night, Duke and Ashton were so in tune with each other that they were nearly in their own world. “He is the kind of horse that makes a commitment to the rider if the rider makes a commitment to him,” Nancy says. “When she went through the in-gate, you had to be there to feel the enthusiasm—the crowd was with that horse and was with them the whole time.” “It wasn’t just a win; it was epic,” says Joel proudly, even though he was riding against her. “The crowd went nuts. When we lined up together, I said, ‘Ashton, do you hear that? They’re chanting your name!’ She had no idea. I knew during the class that it wasn’t just that she was
Schatzberg photo
Above: The moment history was made. Right: 2021 U.S. National Champion win passes in Park, with Joel and English Pleasure, with Ashton.
doing good, but that the crowd was really getting behind her.” Gene LaCroix nailed the essence of their accomplishment. “To me, there was a distinct difference between Joel riding him as a park horse and Ashton as an English pleasure horse. I thought the horse looked fantastic both times, but different, and that’s exactly as it should be if the horse is ideally trained and capable of doing it, which he is. Joel could be as aggressive as he needed to be with Duke, and then Ashton relaxed him, but he didn’t change his frame or his motion that much. They looked relaxed, but they were doing a hell of a lot.” “Joel and I are different riders, but we’re under the same umbrella,” Ashton nods. “He can get things out of a horse that not many people can, and Duke is the type of horse who is mentally and physically made in a way that he wants to give you everything. You ask for more, he’ll give you more. I think it came down to the different riders, how Joel asks him to perform and how I ask him to perform. He is such a sensitive horse and his heart is huge.” “There are some moments in there that I will never forget,” Joel says quietly. Two months after the triumph, his voice still reflects his emotion. “The story never gets old—I’m choked up right now, thinking about it all over again; it’s the top of the mountain and not everybody gets there. There are horses that are capable of doing it and he’s one of them, but he hadn’t done it yet. Everything has to come together, and everything came together for Ashton and Duke.” Ar abian Horse Times | 12 | Volume 52, No. 6
For Ashton, Saturday night in Tulsa was a milestone. “I was that little girl who went to Scottsdale when I was 12 years old, and when I touched NH Love Potion, I thought, ‘I’ll never wash this hand again.’ I was the same girl in Louisville, when I turned 16 and I went around having famous horse trainers sign my birthday card: Ray LaCroix, Michael Byatt, Gordon Potts; they were my rockstars. This was important for all the horse crazy girls out there—I’m that girl too. I want to say to them, ‘Anything can happen! Have the courage to take those paths and recognize those opportunities and take them.’”
A quiet moment between the two who shared with us all, something we will never forget.
Above: Big smiles from owners Carol Sandusky & Nancy De Lisi with Karlton Jackson.
“It was a win for the industry and for young women trainers to see what Ashton did,” Nancy says. As to why she and Carol elected to go with her, rather than her mega-titled husband, she responds that there was never a question about it. “She’d earned it.” And with the 2021 trophy, Ashton became only the fourth female trainer to win the U.S. National Championship in English Pleasure. And Duke? He secured his singular place in history. Nancy, whose relationship with ROL Divine Style is based on their conversations in his stall, has a theory that amplifies not only his wins, but the Arabian personality. “The night that he won the park class, when everyone was gone, I went into his stall and said, ‘Buddy, you’ve always been my champion, and tonight you became everybody’s champion. Congratulations!’ He kind of put his head on my shoulder and was as sweet as can be. Then on Saturday morning, after Ty cleared him to show on Saturday night, I went into his stall and I said, ‘Buddy, you’re going to show again tonight.’” She chuckles. “And he looked at me like he was saying, ‘I know, I’ve already had my bath. I know what the drill is.’ I said, ‘But Ashton’s going to be on you tonight and she’s worked really hard for you; you probably wouldn’t be showing at all, if it were not for her. You need to give her the ride of her life.’ And he gave me this look that said, ‘You don’t need to be telling me! I know what I have to do!’ That’s the mentality that they have—they’ll let you know what they’ll do if you just listen to them. “I’m convinced that these are goals he set for himself,” she concludes. “We never said to him, ‘you have to be a national champion.’ We never said he had to be a champion at all. He just looked back at me as if to say, ‘that’s fine, but I have bigger dreams.’” u
Ar abian Horse Times | 13 | Volume 52, No. 6