Untacked 2016 jan feb by HRCS

The CHRONICLE of the HORSE

VOL . 4, NO. 1 • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016

GEORGE MORRIS HOW RADICAL SIMPLICITY MADE HIM THE GRANDFATHER OF AMERICAN EQUITATION

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Untacked The C HRONICLE of the HORSE

VOL. 4, NO. 1

J A N U A R Y/ F E B R U A R Y 2 016

44 44 George H. Morris: The Man Behind The Myth

KEVIN LYNCH PHOTO

JOSH WALKER PHOTO

58 Q&A: Ann Romney, In Focus 68 Artist Profile: Susan Tuckerman 74 Global Culture: Diary Of A Dressage Rider In India

ON THE COVER: Josh Walker Photo

20 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016

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PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BROOKE

64 Essay: Ann Romney

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s t n e t n Co 32

Editor’s Letter

Contributors

Around The Arena

Editor’s Picks

Test Lab

The Clothes Horse: Transformers

The Clothes Horse: Karl Cook

City Guide

DIY

Charity Spotlight

Best Of Web & Print

Parting Ways

22 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016

U N TAC K E D

JOHN CROPPER PHOTO

Departments

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EDITOR’S LETTER

’Tis The Gift To Be Simple What struck me most as I first read associate editor Molly Sorge’s candid and insightful cover story on George Morris (p. 44) is how rare the 77-yearold legend’s commitment to simplicity is in this day and age. “I’m a very narrow person,” Morris told her, unapologetically and without a hint of regret. “I can’t fix a car. I can’t cook dinner. I can’t work the microwave. I can’t play golf. I don’t look at a computer. Ever. I can’t do anything much. But in the horse world, I think I can do quite a bit. “Once I’m into something, I am 100 percent committed to it. That’s why I’m successful,” he continued. “I’m not a talent; I’ve never been a talent. But my only obsession in life is to do this as correctly as possible.” That’s not a philosophy you hear much—or really at all—these days. It’s a downright radical notion, in fact. Because the vast majority of us spend the vast majority of our lives seeking, above all else, that ever-elusive concept of balance— trying to have it all, do it all, dabble our way to a richly well-rounded existence. At least, that’s been one of my foremost goals thus far in life. But as I continued to edit our features for this issue, a theme of simplicity kept emerging. It stuck in the back of my brain almost to the point of irritation, like a glitchy iPhone app notification you can’t get rid of. In the pages that follow, you’ll find the stories of Ann Romney (p. 58) and Susan Tuckerman (p. 68), two healthy, strong, athletic women who were dealt sudden health crises that dramatically changed their lives and snapped their top priorities into sharp focus. The ways in which they’ve adapted and bettered their lives and the lives of others after facing their own mortality head-on are inspiring examples of what can 24 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016

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happen when we focus on our top priorities and let the minutiae go. On page 74 you’ll find British dressage champion Charlotte Dujardin’s personal diary from her first trip to India as a global ambassador for the equine charity The Brooke. In it, she reflects on the sobering realities of life for working horses and their owners in developing nations, as well as the huge difference just a tiny bit of education and access can make. When you focus on the fact that something as simple as building a ramp at an equine fair or teaching a family the basics of wound care can save horses’ and even humans’ lives, it makes it much easier to process the stress we create for ourselves in our comparatively comfortable routines. As we head into 2016, many of us will be making New Year’s resolutions, and I hope this issue of Untacked helps to inspire and inform yours. Whether that just means you spend an afternoon Kondo-ing (aka the Japanese “art” of decluttering that’s all the rage in women’s magazines of late) your tack room, or you summon the courage to deliberately pursue a more “narrow” existence, we can all stand to embrace the radical power of simplicity. —Kat Netzler, Editor

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CONTRIBUTORS

In This Issue

Mail: The Chronicle of the Horse, P. O. Box 433288 Palm Coast, FL 32143-3288 Phone: 800.877.5467 Email: subscriptions@chronofhorse.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BROOKE

PHOTO COURTESY OF LAURA ST. CLAIR

Manuscripts and photographs, accompanied by return postage, will be handled with care. Publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material.

Charlotte Dujardin

Laura St. Clair

As the reigning Olympic, World Cup, European and world champion, Charlotte has helped lead the British team to the forefront of international dressage. But in her new role as Global Ambassador for the equine charity The Brooke, she’s also focusing on bettering the lives of working equines and the owners who rely on them in countries like India, Kenya, Afghanistan and Nicaragua.

Laura is a writer, adult amateur dressage rider, and the fresh voice behind the equestrian style blog SHADBELLY. Raised on her family’s farm near Nashville, Laura still holds dear her Middle Tennessee Pony Club pin. She recently returned to her love of all things equestrian after a notable career in commercial real estate. Laura, her husband George, and their two Hanoverians now reside in Litchfield, Conn., and Naples, Fla.

Copyright© 2015 by The Chronicle of the Horse, LLC. Reproduction of any material (including photographs and drawings) without written permission is prohibited. All rights reserved. The Chronicle of the Horse® and the distinctive masthead that appear on the cover of the magazine are all registered trademarks of The Chronicle of the Horse, LLC and may not be used in any manner without prior written permission. THE CHRONICLE OF THE HORSE (ISSN 00095990) is published weekly except for January 5, February 2, March 2, March 23, April 27, June 1, June 22, July 20, September 7, October 5, December 7 and December 28 by The Chronicle of the Horse, LLC 108 The Plains Road, Middleburg, Virginia. Periodicals postage paid at Middleburg, VA and additional mailing offices. THE CHRONICLE OF THE HORSE UNTACKED is published bimonthly. It is part of your subscription to The Chronicle of the Horse. To order single copies, call 800-877-5467 or e-mail subscriptions@chronofhorse.com.

POSTMASTER SUBMIT ADDRESS CHANGES TO P.O. Box 433288, Palm Coast, Florida 32143-3288

PHOTO COURTESY OF RAQUEL LYNN

PHOTO COURTESY OF ESTHER HAHN

SUBSCRIPTION RATES United States and possessions $59.95/yr. Canada $79.95/yr. Foreign (other than Canada) $159.95/yr. Digital-only $35/yr. For all subscription options see www.chronofhorse.com.

Esther Hahn After graduating from Yale University in 2008 and an early career in professional surfing, Esther forged out on a freelance writing career and is now based in San Francisco. Often found burning the midnight oil, her escape from her desk is atop her hunter mare, Panda.

26 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016

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CANADA POST Publications Mail Agreement #40612608 Canada Returns to be sent to Bleuchip International, P.O. Box 25542, London, ON, N6C6B2

Raquel Lynn Raquel currently lives in sunny Santa Monica, Calif. She is a full-time blogger and creator of the equestrian-based lifestyle blog, Horses & Heels.

The C HRONICLE of the HORSE

Untacked Volume 4 • Number 1 • January/February 2016

produced and published by The Chronicle of the Horse PUBLISHER

KATHERINE BELLISSIMO

PRESIDENT/EXECUTIVE EDITOR

BETH RASIN, bethr@chronofhorse.com

with the Chronicle this winter.

Editorial EDITOR

KAT NETZLER, kat@chronofhorse.com MANAGING EDITOR

SARA LIESER , slieser@chronofhorse.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR

MOLLY SORGE, molly@chronofhorse.com

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tidbits from across the industry

Aroundthe Arena i My Faves: Kelli Cruciott

Pessoa/USEF Medal Finals (Pa.) with her longtime mount Monterrey was a juicy cherry on top of a sundae of a season. As she prepares for the 2016 George H. Morris Horsemastership Training Session in Florida, to which she earned a wild card invitation, Cruciotti took a few moments to muse about her favorite things.

AL COOK – ALCOOKPHOTO.COM PHOTO

➜ Breeches: That’s a hard question. I think the Ariat

The end of 2015 marks 18-year-old Kelli Cruciotti’s graduation into a professional career, and her final year as a junior was quite the springboard. The Elizabeth, Colo., rider channeled the momentum she and Chamonix H gained by winning the $25,000 Artisan Farms Under-25 Grand Prix at the Winter Equestrian Festival (Fla.) into a stunning victory in the $100,000 Sapphire Grand Prix of Devon (Pa.). After scooping up the top prize in the Private Tutoring Services North American Junior Equitation Championship (Md.) aboard Darius, a win at the 30 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016

U N TAC K E D

breeches. I have the schooling breeches, the Olympia; I think they’re great. ➜ Hunt coat: My favorite equitation coat is a Grand Prix, just a regular black—it’s kind of just my go-to for any class. ➜ Riding boots: I really like the Ariat Monaco stretch boots. ➜ Street footwear: Any type of sneaker, really. A comfortable shoe with a lace is really up my alley. I’m not picky about that! ➜ Comfort food or drink: I love pasta. Being Italian, we eat it a lot. I definitely could eat it any day of the week. ➜ Movie: Silence of the Lambs ➜ TV Show: I was a Grey’s Anatomy fan but not anymore, obviously. Nobody is. I really like The Big Bang Theory; I think it’s really funny. ➜ Book: I have to say, I’m not much of a reader. It puts me to sleep. But if I had to pick one I would say the last Harry Potter book [Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows] was a good one. ➜ Musician: I pretty much like anything. I love country music. ➜ Vacation destination: We don’t really go on so many vacations, but Wellington is great. It’s kind of like a vacation. ➜ Place to ride: I love the Hampton Classic (N.Y.). And I think to show at Aachen [Germany] someday would be incredible. ➜ Place to shop: Any tack shop really is my favorite shop! ➜ Type of restaurant: I think I’m going to have to go with

Italian again. Anything that has really good pasta— especially if they have homemade pasta, then that’s a bonus. ➜ Non-horsey hobby: To be honest, I don’t really have one. Pretty much horses are my life. I’m really lucky to be able to do what I love every day. ➜ Thing to do with family and friends: One of the things my family does a lot, because we’re all in so many different places throughout the year, is that we always sit down, if it’s lunch or dinner or breakfast, and just talk. We can talk for hours. When we’re all home we try to do that at least once a week. ➜ Memory in the saddle: I would have to say [winning the Pessoa/USEF Medal Finals]. It was so incredible. I’ve dreamed of winning that class since I was little, and to have it actually come true, and for the people around me who have worked so hard, for them to get the recognition… That was really a dream come true for me. ➜ Favorite type of jump: I love triple bars. I guess it’s because you only have one choice, forward and deep, so it kind of weeds out the rest of your choices. ➜ Type of horse: I love horses with a lot of blood that carry me to the jump, but I don’t like them to pull on me, so it’s kind of an awkward combination. I like them to be really light but have a lot of go; I don’t really like to kick that much. ➜ Guilty pleasure: Looking on YouTube for more horses that I want to buy. And showing them to my mom [Cindy] and having her be annoyed because I’m showing her way too many videos. ➜ Phone App: Instagram. ➜ Barn chore: I love braiding my jumpers. I think it’s really fun, especially for the jog or something. I really like doing that. At home—its kind of a cliché—I think sweeping is really fun. ➜ Vehicle: I’m actually quite petrified of driving. I can drive, and I do drive, but not unless I really have to. I try to stick with golf carts. ➜ Stress reliever: Candles are good. ➜ Non-equestrian sport to watch: If I’m not watching horses—which is most of the time—I’m watching my brother [Michael] play college football. He plays for the Whitworth [University] Pirates in Spokane, Wash.

On Deck

Mark your calendar with these upcoming important dates. u Dec. 30-Jan. 2 The 10th annual George H.

Morris Horsemastership Training Session will be held

at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center in Wellington, Fla. Although Morris is taking a sabbatical from teaching in 2016, his ideals and influence will continue to be present in the training session, designed to identify and develop the next generation of top U.S. Equestrian Team talent through instruction from experts in a variety of aspects of horsemastership. If you can’t attend in person to take advantage of fee-free auditing, don’t miss the Chronicle’s daily online coverage! u Jan. 5-9 Up-and-coming dressage riders have their own top training opportunity in the annual Robert Dover Horsemastership Clinic at the Global

Dressage Festival facility in Wellington. Lessons and presentations are open to auditors (fees will be $20 for a half day, $30 for full day, or $125 for the week), and the Chronicle will be on hand to share all the highlights from each day.

u Jan. 13-16 The 2016 USEF Annual Meeting will take place in Lexington, Ky., at the Hyatt Regency Lexington. In addition to regularly scheduled committee meetings, Horse of the Year and Pegasus Awards, this year’s convention

will include Town Hall meetings on a variety of topics from rules to coaching. The meeting on accountability for drugs and medications violations will gather feedback on GR404, while the coaching forum will look into the viability of developing a coaching pipeline for equestrian sport in the United States. Head to usef.org/convention for more information. u Feb. 12 Prior to the CDI***** Grand Prix freestyle at the Adequan Global Dressage Festival (Fla.), Ann Romney will sign copies of her new memoir, In This

Together, as well as issues of Untacked.

u Feb. 23-27 The American Academy of Equine Art and legendary sporting artist Booth Malone will be holding a painting

workshop titled “Creativity vs. Cliché: Keeping your work fresh and unique” in

Aiken, S.C. Head to aaea.net for more information. u Feb. 24 Attention all students: Don’t miss the deadline for the

Intercollegiate Equestrian Foundation Scholarships.

These grants are available to both Intercollegiate Horse Show Association members and non-members. Visit ihsainc.com/ scholarship/ief-scholarship for more details and an application.

C H RO N O F H O R S E .CO M

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016

EDITOR’S PICKS

PS Of Sweden Jump Off Revolution Bridle

or all the technological advances we’ve seen in equine equipment over the last, oh, hundreds of years, a few staples—bridles and saddles—still don’t look or function too differently than they did decades ago. And from the outset, a PS of Sweden bridle doesn’t look alarmingly unusual, either. But the way it functions—and the way horses respond to it—is truly ingenious and different. The company carefully constructs every aspect of their bridles to avoid pressure points on nerves and other sensitive areas on the horse’s face. I tried the PS of Sweden Jump Off Revolution, characterized by its swooping flash noseband designed to avoid pressure on the cheekbones and the nearby nerves, on my mare who raced for a long time and is extremely sensitive about what’s on her face. In other bridles, I’ve had issues with her flipping her head, putting her tongue over the bit and then immediately trying to rub off the bridle once I dismounted. Though,

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of course, you don’t want to blame all your problems on your equipment, I wondered if a bridle designed for more comfort might indeed help her feel more comfortable. It did! From the first test ride, she felt happier and more stable in the contact. Within a few rides, she became even steadier, stopped trying to put her tongue over the bit altogether and just generally settled down. No more head flipping, no more angst about what was on her face. Frankly, I was shocked. I had hoped it would make some difference for her, but I was honestly not expecting that much of a change. PS of Sweden bridles are thickly padded, especially around the top of the crownpiece. The crownpieces are cut out around the ears, so that the horse doesn’t feel pinching when moving his or her ears, or any additional pressure there. Another comfort feature is the “cradle,” which is a little elastic insert that slightly suspends the bit within its buckle and helps

relieve pressure on the poll. If your horse doesn’t like this feature, the cradles are designed to be cut out with ease. Aside from being comfortable for the horse, it has some ingenious, “Why didn’t I think of that?” features too. The browband—which curves gently downward in a slight U shape, so it also doesn’t interfere with the horse’s ears—has snaps to attach it to the headpiece of the bridle. No more unfastening and refastening cheekpieces to swap it out. You can change the browband in seconds, and you could even do it while the bridle was on the horse. The noseband of the Jump Off Revolution model also includes a snap on one side, so once you’ve fitted the noseband to its proper snugness, you just release the snap after every ride. It’s especially nice to not be fiddling with extra buckles and leather pieces when you have frozen hands. The bridles come without throatlatches, which concerned me at first since I felt the whole thing would just fall right over the front of the ears. It didn’t, of course; it was plenty stable. But the company offers throatlatches you can add on if needed (for, say, an FEI dressage class, in which they’re required). Though it’s definitely different, the most common comment I got from people at clinics and lessons was, “What a pretty bridle!” and they were then duly impressed when I pointed out all its unique features. PS of Sweden’s leather is exceptional right out of the box. It’s soft and supple. But the most important feature is how comfortable it made my horse, and that’s the real reason I consider it an indispensable piece of tack now. The Jump Off Revolution retails for $342, and it comes in black and brown. The company offers a full line of bridles for dressage and jumping, including some hackamores, at PSofSweden.com. —Lisa Slade, Editorial Staff

TEST LAB

From Slip To Grip: Try Your Hand At A New Set Of Reins

Sweat, rain or a big splash through a water jump can make the perfect performance go south in a flash. That’s why we tested seven brands to find the best rein for your ride. By LINDSAY BERRETH Nunn Finer Soft Grip Reins ★★★★★ Slip To Grip Factor: 5

Wintec Cushion Grip Reins ★★★★★ Slip To Grip Factor: 2 Made with a heavy nylon webbing core, these reins are strong, non-stretch, and easy to care for. Wintec also touts that they won’t get hard or rot due to sweat. My trainer always tells me to think of a half-halt like squeezing a sponge, and these reins give that thought a literal feel. They’re soft—so much so that I could ride without gloves. They did get dirtier faster than my pair of usual pimple rubber reins, but it was nothing a good scrub with soap and water couldn’t handle. As for the grip, they wouldn’t be my top pick for grippiness on cross-country, but they work well for dressage and moderate jumping. I rode with my pair for about a month and have to say that from the distance of a judge (or my trainer), they look just like leather reins.

A favorite of top upper-level eventers like Jennie Brannigan, the Nunn Finer Soft Grip Reins come in a variety of fun colors. I’ve never been let down by the quality of Nunn Finer leather, and I was impressed with the lightness of these reins. The rubber is thinner than traditional rubber reins but just as grippy, with extra-raised pimples. They’re also incredibly flexible compared to other rubber reins, making the break-in time nearly non-existent. Their two holes for the rein buckle is also a nice touch, so in case they break for some reason, you won’t be left hanging, literally. And as an added bonus, the reins also come in black on black and havana on havana, so they’re perfect for the dressage rider or show jumper who wants to stick to more traditional colors. Also available in havana with white grip, havana/royal blue, havana/red, havana/purple and light brown/ white. " wide, 58" long. $89.95; bitofbritain.com.

SmartPak Harwich Rubber Reins ★★★★★ Slip To Grip Factor: 4 The Harwich line of reins and bridles is a quality, affordable brand. I tested the full rubber reins, but they also make laced reins with rubber and inside rubber reins. The brown pair I tested had fancy stitching and raised leather, which isn’t something you usually see on eventers, but the grippiness was second-to-none. Raised pimples on the rubber helped me keep a good hold but also allowed me to slip the reins over a drop fence. I appreciated that they only had about 9½" of leather at the ends, compared to 15" on the Nunn Finer Soft Grip Reins. Sometimes those few inches can mean the difference between grabbing a good hold of your reins after a bad jump and not.

Available in black or brown with buckle-ends, " wide, 54" long. $31.95; multiple online retailers.

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Available in black with black rubber (plain) or hazelnut with brown rubber (raised and fancy stitched), " wide, 54" long. $59.95; smartpak.com.

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TESTER’S CHOICE

Nunn Finer Eventa Reins ★★★★★ Slip To Grip Factor: 5

You’ll see mixed reviews online for the Nunn Finer Eventa Reins, but I’m a devoted fan. Made of a slightly textured rubber over nylon, they’re more flexible than standard rubber reins and more comfortable to ride in without gloves. Like the Nunn Finer Soft Grip Reins, the leather quality is high—you’ll find they’re very supple right out of the box. When wet, they allow a better grip than the standard pimpled rubber reins, which is surprising since the rubber is so very finely textured. They’re a little thicker than the Soft Grips, but just as flexible in my hand. I also like how easy they are to slip over a drop fence and gather back up.

ThinLine Reins s ★★★★★ Slip To Grip Factor: 4 It’s difficult to reinvent the wheel, but ThinLine has come close with their special open-cell foam material. With a nylon base, their reins are strong but incredibly flexible and light. The ThinLine material is wrapped around the core and is quite soft and perfect for use with or without gloves. In fact, ThinLine even recommends their reins for those with arthritic hands. I found the reins actually conformed to my grip (after which, yes, they return to their original shape). They were quite grippy, even more so when wet, making them a perfect choice for cross-country. They also provided a soft, elastic contact with my horse’s mouth. My only complaint is that the ThinLine material tends to wear down quickly where you hold the reins. After several months of use on an old pair I had, the material frayed near the stitching. ThinLine also recommends using their special cleaner, not leather cleaner, for that part of the reins. But they do get bonus points for the option of a 60” long model, a must on my long-necked OTTB, as well as a choice between buckle-ends or hook-stud ends. Available in black or dark brown, ¾" wide, 54" or 60" long. $109.99; multiple online retailers.

Available in black or havana, " wide, 58" long. $116.95; bitofbritain.com.

Kincade Suregrip Web Reins ★★★★★ Slip To Grip Factor: 3 While the Kincade Suregrips don’t feature anything revolutionary in their design, they’re a good, sturdy, everyday choice for those on a budget. They feature rubberized stitching down the length and have sewn-in leather hand grips, perfect for riders who let their reins get a little long and want some guidance, or just for a little extra grip. I tend to ride with gloves, but even without, I had no problems keeping ahold of these reins. FYI: The company recommends oiling the reins before use, something I didn’t realize until after I’d struggled for 10 minutes to get the hook-stud ends attached to my bit! Available in black or brown (webbing tends to be more reddish in color) with hook-end studs, ¾" wide, 54" long. $19.99; multiple online retailers.

Schockemoehle Sports Grip Reins ★★★★★ Slip To Grip Factor: 4 Schockemoehle’s take on the grippy rein is unique, with two vertical lines of rubber threaded onto a webbed surface. They also feature rein stops, something that makes them a bit harder to slip over drop fences but easier to pick back up in a hurry. They aren’t as comfortable to hold without gloves because of the texture, but with gloves, my grip didn’t slip. Because they’re webbed, they do get dirtier faster than rubber reins, and cleaning requires a bit of work soaking them in soapy water to get all the grime out. The quality of the English leather on the bottom end of the reins was top notch—supple and easy to care for—and the reins were strong and sturdy. Available in black/silver, black/gold, espresso/silver and espresso/ gold. " wide, 54" long. $69.95; multiple online retailers.

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THE CLOTHES HORSE

TRANSFORMERS

The horse world continues to trend toward greater and greater specialization on the macro level, but products that do double duty (or triple, or more) are definitely having a bit of a moment. From clothing to tools to tack, there are plenty of adaptable items on the market today to help riders be more efficient than ever before. By L AU R A S T. CL A IR

NOBLE OUTFITTERS WINE DOWN HOOF PICK The finest French wines are known for a subtle hint of “brett”—that luscious, sweaty, barnyardy smell. Thanks to the Noble Outfitters combination hoof pick corkscrew ($22.99), you can add that special whiff of terroir to your vino right in the grooming stall. And beer drinkers need not feel slighted, as Noble also offers a hoof pick bottle opener for half the price ($11.99). NobleOutfitters.com.

MIASUKI MOONLIGHT SLEEVELESS BODYSUIT It’s a pair of breeches, a show shirt, a body slimmer, a ski suit, a pair of super-sporty long underwear, and a marvel of Milanese fashion. This new Italian company has finally debuted its long awaited first collection, and the Moonlight is the crown jewel of it all. Miasuki “champions a Female First philosophy,” and its designers developed the Moonlight Bodysuit through meticulous biomechanical athlete studies. Mesh panels offer optimum ventilation, and different weights and thicknesses of microfiber lend support and shaping where needed. It’s machine washable and returns to its original shape, even after multiple washes. Available only in white. Approximately $1,600. U.S. sales online at Miasuki.com will begin spring of 2016. BUA SADDLE Bua Sport is turning saddlery inside-out with its revolutionary new cantilevered saddle, “created by an award-winning Irish designer, made possible by aerospace technologists, and fashioned by leading craftsmen from the automotive industry.” The Bua Saddle features an adjustable suspension system for either a “high-performance sport” or a “relaxed trek” mode, and its changeable side panel components can be swapped easily for jumping or dressage. Oh, and it’s machine washable! From about $2,125. BuaSaddles.com.

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ASMAR SHIFT CONVERTIBLE JACKET/VEST Transition through any season with this lightweight, waterresistant jacket with mesh backing from Asmar Equestrian. It features zippers to remove the sleeves and oversized hood to unveil a fitted vest. The sleeves have inset fabric cuffs with thumbholes, and a magnetic, low-profile placket covers the front zipper. Supplies limited. Available in black or light gray, sizes XXS– XXL. $280. AsmarEquestrian.com. FITS JORDAN UNISEX FULL SEAT BREECH Men are from Mars, women are from Venus, and the hot new unisex breech everyone’s talking about is from FITS. The Jordan is a front-zip, Euro-styled, full-seat breech that features the buttery deerskin patches this brand is famous for. These breeches also boast all-season, micro-knit fabric, a power mesh ab panel, and FITS’ patented comfort crotch, which stretches seamlessly to accommodate any body. You’ll find them in the Spring 2016 collection. Available in hickory or black, ladies sizes XS-XXL or mens XS, S, S/M, M/L, L. $279. FITSriding.com.

www.stivalifabbri.it

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THE CLOTHES HORSE

METRO VAC N’ BLO PRO Who knew opposing functions could be so synergistic? The Metro’s super suction vacuum gets down deep to remove dirt, dandruff and loose hair. But on bath days, it transforms into a blower to dry the coat evenly and completely, leaving your horse’s coat soft and lustrous. Plus it weighs only 12 pounds. $359.95. SmartPak.com.

EOUS ENDURA-TECH COMBO RIDING JACKET This combination vest/ jacket is ultra light and packable, making it perfect for traveling. It features a two-way front zipper, breathable waterproof shell, removable sleeves, reflective piping on front, back and arms, a large back pocket (ideal for sleeve storage!), and a vented back with mesh panel. Available in black or peridot; sizes S-XL. $79.99. Amazon.com.

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RIDING SPORT 3-IN-1 JACKET New, stylish and extremely versatile, the Riding Sport 3-in-1 is sure to be your cold-weather favorite. The colorful outer shell functions as a waterproof raincoat, while the black liner can stand alone as a stylish moto jacket, fit for a night on the town. Put them together, and you’ve got a winter coat that keeps you comfortable in the worst of wet and cold weather. The hood stows away in the outer collar or can be removed altogether. Available in black/gray, pink/ black or peacock/ black (shown); ladies sizes XS-XL. $249.95. DoverSaddlery.com.

WINTECLITE CHANGEABLE CANTLE SADDLE Are you a prim “Dressage Diva” or a rough and tumble “Born to Ride” chick? With WintecLite’s Changeable Cantle Saddle, you can change your moniker every day of the week. WintecLite’s All Purpose and All Purpose D’Lux saddles come standard with two cantles, a blank one that is embroidery-ready, and an American or Canadian flag cantle, depending on where purchased. There are also multiple other nations’ flags available, plus a reflective panel for safe night riding. The cantles are a cinch to switch, with simple Velcro-like fasteners. Saddle prices start at $630, and cantle covers are $19.99 to $39.99. Wintec-Saddles.com. U N TAC K E D

MICKLEM MULTIBRIDLE This handy piece of tack is a bridle, a longe cavesson and bit-free bridle all in one. Ergonomically designed, the Micklem offers unique protection to the tongue and bars of the mouth and has proven positively transformative for many horses and ponies. Available in black or brown; sizes pony, small horse, standard horse and large horse. $199.95. WilliamMicklem.com.

MOUNTAIN HORSE WYNDHAM 3-IN-1 COAT With three garments in one, the Wyndham is the ultimate transformer. On cool days, wear the quilted inner liner by itself. Rain in the forecast? No problem. The Wyndham’s outer shell is a windproof, waterproof and breathable standalone. Freezing temperatures ahead? Easy. Zip the quilted liner into the Wyndham’s outer shell, and you’re ready for anything. Available in black, ladies sizes S-XL. $330. MountainHorseUSA.com.

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THE CLOTHES HORSE

Riding Fashion Forward A young Californian is turning heads in the grand prix show jumping world by punctuating great riding with buttons, buckles and bowties. By ES T H ER H A H N

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SARA JORGENSEN PHOTO

n a sea of black and blue, a rider dressed in a camel coat and complementary plaid bow tie stands out from the crowd. At closer glance, the attention to detail— vintage buttons, skull lining, French cuffs—reinforces the notion that the tall young man’s decision to dress differently is made with intention. The rider is 25-year-old Karl Cook, and he brings his unique fashion flair no matter where he competes, from the HITS Thermal Desert Circuit to FEI Show Jumping World Cup Finals. But the rising international star won’t readily admit to a deep-rooted interest in clothing design. Cook instead says he began developing his unique style when he realized that the standard attire did nothing to add to the sport, nor did the off-the-rack options suit his desire to express himself in the ring. “Nothing out there was fun, so I decided to make [the clothes] myself,” says Cook. And in collaboration with equestrian brand Renard et Cheval, he now selects fabrics and special details,

and dreams up designs that are then brought to life. When he’s not training or competing on his family’s Pomponio Ranch horses, Cook indulges in a unique pastime: heading to swap

“Nothing out there was fun, so I decided to make [the clothes] myself,” says show jumper Karl Cook, who collaborates with design boutique Renard et Cheval to make bespoke jackets with interesting details like this leather lapel.

Wellington, FL Outside the International Club February 17-21 and February 24-28

www.elizabethlocke.com

540-837-2215

Bangles, intaglio ring and granulated and diamond stack rings, all in hand-hammered 19k gold.

2016 WINTER EQUESTRIAN FESTIVAL

THE CLOTHES HORSE

MOLLIE BAILEY PHOTO

SARA JORGENSEN PHOTO

Cook has only worn “his craziest one,” this black denim jacket with zipper details and a large belt, which weighs 8 pounds, once (at the 2014 Longines Masters of Los Angeles), “but it’s pretty awesome,” he says.

Cook’s battle to wear bowties in FEI competition has made him a pioneer of neckwear.

meets to find unusual buttons, like the Royal Rhodesia Regiment buttons that feature prominently on one of his favorite show coats, or the silver coins from the early 1900s that are now buttons on a different jacket. Originally from Woodside, Calif., Cook is currently based in San Diego—close enough to Los Angeles to source new materials in the city’s 42 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016

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prominent fashion district. Cook says his partnership with Renard et Cheval founder Nick Collins began organically and developed into a more formal arrangement a little over a year ago. Cook’s major source of inspiration is his favorite old films. “You watch a movie and see something fun, cool, or interesting, and I just thought some of the stuff could be adapted to [equestrian wear],” he says. “I have a baby blue cashmere coat with big navy cuffs,” he continues. “It’s the first one that I designed, and the style is what the father in The Sound Of Music wears. The collar on that coat

from the movie is called a Mandarin collar, which I then put on a different coat. So with two details from one coat, I spread them between two styles.” Cook’s photographic memory of film costumes makes the design process easy, and he’s quick to follow his intuition on whether he likes the idea or not. “I’m pretty decisive, which makes the process easier,” he says. “If I like it, I do it.” And, of course, there are his bowties—the very accessory that made show stewards scratch their collective heads over the legality of the dapper punctuations to Cook’s ensembles. “The stewards correctly said that the bowties are not allowed,” he admits. “[But] I asked the stewards, ‘What’s the point of the dress rule?’ and they would say, ‘To maintain the appropriate, formal look in the ring.’ “To that I would respond, ‘Am I not doing that? Do I look offensive?’ And most responses are that I don’t look normal, but I don’t look offensive,” Cook says. These sartorial negotiations prompted Cook to delve into the rulebooks, and he discovered that the wording is not specific to prohibit his fashion choices. Fédération Equestre Internationale rules do state that riders are required to wear, per tradition, a coat of black or red or a color approved

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OFFICIAL PERFORMANCE HORSE BOOT AND LEG WEAR OF THE USEF

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by the national federation, but materials and bowties are not mentioned. “I designed a denim, Aviatorinspired jacket, with a big belt and buckle, but it’s black,” says Cook. “It’s my craziest one and weighs about eight pounds. I’ve only worn it twice, but it’s pretty awesome.” Cook doesn’t push the rules every time out, and he’s learning where and when to push the envelope. He notes he’s met the most resistance at Spruce Meadows in Alberta, Canada.“I think it was more important to protect tradition there,” he says. “I just try to be cordial about it. It’s easier now than it used to be when I first started wearing [bowties].” Despite Cook’s declaration that he’s not a big fashion buff, there are equestrian styling tips to pick up

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from his insights. For example, he won’t wear certain colors on certain horses. “It doesn’t look right to wear a cashmere camel coat on a chestnut horse because the combination washes everything out,” he explains. “And some gray colors don’t look good with gray horses for the same reason.” At the end of the day, Cook says he’s working under the conviction that more exciting competition wear will help equestrian sport appeal to a wider audience. “Our sport is hard enough to watch when spectators don’t know what they’re looking at, when we all come in wearing the exact same thing,” he says. “That doesn’t help to differentiate the riders. Plus it’s just interesting when people wear different outfits.” Cook is an advocate for the tasteful restructuring of federations’ rules for

riding attire, but he’s still very much a traditionalist when it comes to dressing in unity when competing on a national team. “There are times when people are not traditional enough, like with the red coats,” Cook says. “The red for the United States team coat is a very specific red, with a very specific blue collar. I feel like the U.S. should be a little more protective over that style, instead of letting people wear whatever they want. One brand’s colors and buttons are different from another’s, and for representing a country, it needs to be one style, one fit.” That said, Cook has no plans to tone down his personal fashion choices when riding as an individual. “I’ve got some more crazy ideas,” he promises. “We’ll see. They might come out next year.”

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COVER STORY

THE MAN Behind The Myth

GEORGE H. MORRIS’ reputation as a legend extends across many equestrian sports, but fame has never been his goal. It’s merely a byproduct of doing what he loves most, all day, every day, for seven decades, in the monomaniacal pursuit of perfection. By MOLLY SORGE

here’s a poetic irony to the fact that the founding father of American equitation doesn’t touch computers, let alone know how to Google the countless pop-culture memes his legend has inspired:

“George Morris doesn’t hold for a distance. Distances hold for him.” “George Morris can lead a horse to water and make it drink.” “George Morris titled his book ‘Hunter Seat Equitation’ because ‘the Bible’ was already taken.” “For George Morris, reins are just decoration. He can stop a horse with his mind.” And then, of course, there’s the timeless maxim, “What would George do?” If anyone has reached icon status in the world of horse

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shows, it is George H. Morris. His first name alone conjures up images of his hawk-like, piercing stare and the sound of his raspy voice commanding, “Gal-lop!” from the in-gate in measured, precise tones. A mythological aura has developed around him as a draconian teacher, a bastion of riding knowledge and an unapproachable legend. But there’s so much more to George. He coaches Olympic grand prix riders, talented juniors and 2'6"-division amateurs with equal intensity. On his way out of bed every morning, he does 60 push-ups. Every morning. At the age of 77, he can still ride without stirrups better than most teenagers. He’s also wickedly funny and no stranger to an off-color joke. He carefully replies to notes in his own handwriting. He battled debilitating performance anxiety throughout his unrivaled career in the show ring. And he’s long grappled with the complex questions of how to reconcile his private life with his abiding, all-encompassing passion for his profession. Because at the end of the day, “It’s about the horse,” George says. “And that’s all.”

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JOSH WALKER PHOTO

George H. Morris’ single-minded focus throughout his life has been horses—caring for them, training them, riding them, and learning from them.

COVER STORY

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MOLLY SORGE PHOTO

LIKE A STEEL TRAP

We’re sitting on the sofa of his Wellington, Fla., home. All around us, the walls of George’s house are lined with memories, photos of horses and students—many of them Olympic medalists—from the present and the past. Many of the photos are inscribed with messages of sincere appreciation for his guidance. Not much in George’s home is just idle decoration—a closer examination of a lovely brass clock on a table next to the sofa reveals it as a trophy from the 1960 Lucerne (Switzerland) horse show. A picture of him at age 22, accepting a trophy from Queen Elizabeth at the 1960 White City Horse Show in London, sits on a gleaming table next to an image of him walking the show jumping course at the 2004 Olympic Games with the U.S. eventing team and snapshots of himself with favorite students such as Anne Kursinski. His team silver medal from the 1960 Rome Olympic Games hangs in a simple wooden frame near the foyer. Ask George anything about any one of the hundreds of photos, and he can instantly tell you the year and location it was taken, along with the names—and correct spellings of those names—of all those pictured. George’s memories aren’t just hanging on walls or lining trophy cases. They’re filed with ruthless precision and indelible detail in his mind. His photos are a visible record of George’s incredible accomplishments as a rider, teacher and chef d’equipe of the U.S. team. His trophies from his historic wins in the ASPCA Maclay and AHSA Medal finals in 1952, at age 14, shine as brightly as the day he won them. They’re displayed alongside tokens of appreciation for lifetime achievement and contributions to the sport. Along with the hundreds of photos are countless books, filling the shelves. There are a few contemporary fiction titles, like Dick Francis and Barbara Kingsolver, but the vast majority are tomes about his all-consuming passion: horses and the art of riding. “I am fascinated by riding,” he says, simply and with earnest conviction. “I never stop reading. My room is littered with articles and books and magazines.” It is, though “littered” isn’t quite accurate. The journals and magazines, which include not only typical hunter/ jumper publications, but also titles devoted to natural horsemanship, are placed meticulously. Nothing in George’s life is just flung down or haphazard.

George Morris’ home office is lined with silverplated memories of some of his favorite victories.

George’s voracious appetite for writings about riding goes hand in hand with his intent observation of horses and riders in action. He might be the king of the hunter/jumper world, but he’s fascinated to see any horse in action, no matter the discipline. He soaks every moment in, filing notes away in that steel trap of his. “I’m learning. I’m learning how to ride,” he intones. Walter “Jimmy” Lee has been his friend for more than 50 years and recalls that in a conversation a few years ago, George kept telling him about a book he was reading. “It’s called Tug Of War, he told me, and he told me I had to read it,” Lee recalls. “I had no idea what book it was until I got off the phone and looked it up. It’s a book written by a German veterinarian about how today’s dressage affects the horse skeletally. “I thought to myself, ‘There’s George, with everything he’s done, and he’s reading a book about training horses.’ I won-

ASPIRING TO BE UNBENDABLE

I ask George what he considers his greatest accomplishment, how he wanted to be remembered in the future. He answers without hesitation. “What I most want them to say is that I’ve been very unbendable with my standards. No one can ever say I went to teach a clinic without my boots polished. I want people to say, ‘I don’t know if he was a great horseman. He was a pretty good teacher. He was a pretty good rider. But he stuck to his guns with what he believed in.’ That’s what I want the most,” he intones in the flat, growling voice and drawn-out pronunciation that everyone imitates when they tell a George story.

MOLLY SORGE PHOTOS

dered how many people who are out there training horses on all these show circuits are reading a book about training the horse. I would think very few,” he continues. “That little story just says volumes about George Morris. He will never stop learning, and he’s interested in all aspects of it, whether it’s show jumping or hunters or dressage or reining.”

The hundreds of photos displayed in George Morris’ home are a fascinating mix of competition memories and personal snapshots.

George Morris’ team silver medal from the 1960 Rome Olympic Games occupies a place of honor in his home, and it’s as shiny as the day he wore it atop the podium.

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COVER STORY GEORGEISM: It is always about ambition. If you see someone who is very talented but is stagnant, it is lack of ambition. I was so ambitious that I gave up my life to get where I got in this sport. I wasn’t talented, but I had ambition. The ambitious person will find a mentor, will ask to help, will find a way.

It was with the mare Flying Banners that George Morris had his first equitation successes, showing in 1949 and ’50.

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For someone who never served in the armed forces, George has a remarkably militant sense of routine and self-discipline. He takes “single-minded” to a new level. And ever since his teenage days, his mind has been focused on horses. “I’m a very narrow person. I can’t fix a car. I can’t cook dinner. I can’t work the microwave. I can’t play golf. I don’t look at a computer. Ever. I can’t do anything much. But in the horse world, I think I can do quite a bit,” he says. “Once I’m into something, I am 100 percent committed to it. That’s why I’m successful,” he continues. “I’m not a talent; I’ve never been a talent. But my only obsession in life is to do this as correctly as possible.” George’s intensity can be intimidating, and he doesn’t suffer fools lightly. Anyone who’s attended one of his clinics with dirty boots or while chewing gum has discovered his mercurial temper. He takes pride in his self-control, his rigid adherence to his own code. He still goes to the gym at 6 a.m. each morning. For George, the details matter. “He expects perfection because that’s how you keep people focused and develop winners,” says Melanie Smith Taylor, the 1984 Olympic team gold medalist who was guided throughout her career by George. “All the tiniest details make the difference. He lives by ‘practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.’ It’s that he’s driven to the perfect practice in everything that he does. “That mindset gives you the ability to know that you can jump any course, that you can be competitive, because you know you’ve done your homework and crossed every t and dotted every i,” she says. “You know your horse is fit and ready. It’s that military precision that gives you that mentality in your everyday work, which transfers to the show ring and makes winners. He absolutely embodies that.” Another former student, Bernie Traurig, recalls that

With Game Cock, George Morris scored the first big triumphs of his life—wins in the 1952 ASPCA Maclay and AHSA Medal finals.

KIT HOUGHTON PHOTO

MOLLY SORGE PHOTO

when he was preparing for a World Cup Final years ago, George offered him the chance to school in his indoor ring at Hunterdon, his New Jersey farm. “He’s detailed to the nth degree. He wasn’t there, so his faithful assistant Kathy Moore was there supervising, and I do mean supervising,” Traurig recalls. “She had a chart of where each jump standard was and what hole each cup was in. I had to put each jump cup back into the exact hole it was in prior to my school.” That all-consuming self-control is how George shaped himself from what he describes as a “timid” young rider into a legendary trainer. Like many great performers, he battled severe stage fright, especially in the early years of his career. He recalls walking the course for the 1960 Olympic Games and thinking the course looked huge, “like I couldn’t jump it. I didn’t think I could jump the course, on any horse,” he says. He was just 22, but as the day advanced, he put his doubts behind him and rode Sinjon to a team silver medal and into fourth place individually. “I am a very nervous person,” he says. “That’s just how I was born. I suffered my whole life from nerves. If I had to show tomorrow in the pre-green under saddle, I would be nervous. As much as I loved showing and was addicted to it, I suffered a lot.” It’s through sheer force of will that George has turned himself into what Traurig describes as “perhaps the most self-assured man I’ve ever known. He has a huge ability to laugh at himself. “He traveled to Wisconsin in the mid-’80s to try a horse of mine,” Traurig recalls. “I picked him up at the airport and waited for him at the gate. Off the plane he came, in boots, breeches and spurs, carrying a stick and wearing his hunt cap. He just looked at me and said, ‘You never know with these airplanes.’ ” George Morris (right) has been a driving force behind so many talented young show jumping stars, including Melanie Smith Taylor, pictured here during her career with Calypso.

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COVER STORY GEORGEISM: I’m a purist. But I’m not an armchair purist—I’ll get on anybody’s horse and prove it. The old masters had very good reasons for heels down, body in balance, and a straight line from the elbow to the bit. I follow that because I’ve experienced why it’s better.

George Morris’ skill as a teacher has earned him as much fame as his riding career. In 1968, he was advertising his services in The Chronicle of the Horse.

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LEARNING TO COPE WITH BEING A LONER

While George’s level of strict structure is something very few people achieve, it’s at least easy for most of us to understand that steadfast pursuit of professional perfection. George’s private life, however, has always defied such neat and tidy compartmentalization. “My personal life has never been easy because I’m a gay person, but I think like a straight person,” he says. “I’m not happy in a big social gay milieu, and I’m not really comfortable in a totally straight group, but I cope. I have two lives, and I’ve learned to cope with it well. It’s been tricky.” George came out at the age of 19 when he and the Hollywood star Tab Hunter were at the National Horse Show together. “It was 1957, and I was very high profile, the young boy about to get on the team. I was the heir apparent,” George recalls. “I had to make a very quick decision, because they saw me with the most famous movie actor for the whole weekend. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what was going on. It was just like coming to a fence and seeing a distance—I made a quick, definite decision. “Never to my face did I have a problem in the horse business. But that’s because I had great people around me,” he continues. “And I was very high profile and respected from that young age. People didn’t dare to bring it up.” While George has had a few serious relationships, “they’ve run their course,” he says matterof-factly. “I’ve stayed friendly with them after, but they’re like chapters in a book. Some peoples’ chapter runs for 50 or 60 years as married people,” he says. “I haven’t had a serious relationship longer than eight years.” And he very consciously chooses to live his social life separate from the horse show world. “I have friends and interests that aren’t at all in the horse business, socially. I’m not the typical horseman, Sunday night going with the guys after judging the show and having dinner.

KEN BRADDICK/DRESSAGENEWS.COM PHOTO

George Morris has always kept canine companions, such as Piglet (left) and Beagley.

WHO IS GEORGE H. MORRIS?

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eorge grew up in New Canaan, Conn. His mother, Alice Frank Van Anden Morris, lost her first husband in an automobile accident and then remarried to George’s father, Harry H. Morris Jr. So when George was born on Feb. 26, 1938, he joined older half-siblings Louise Mitchell Whitcomb, Eliot Whitney Mitchell and Joan Mitchell Norton. Louise was the one who got into horses first, putting one in the backyard. “He was a renegade, a hot, roguey son of a gun,” George remembers. He and his siblings began riding with the New Canaan Mounted Troop, and by 1947, George started training with V. Felicia Townsend and Otto Heuckeroth at the Ox George Morris has been Ridge Hunt Club in Darien, Conn. In early watching and learning at horse 1948, he won a class at his first show, riding shows for more than 60 years. an ex-polo pony named Peanuts. “I had little cowboy boots. I’m not sure, but I might have been wearing blue jeans,” he says. By 1949, George had started in the equitation division, and he qualified for and showed in his first ASPCA Maclay Final at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1950. He didn’t place, but by the time he returned in 1952, he had started riding with legendary teacher Gordon Wright and had his first great horse, Game Cock. George made up Game Cock from a green 6-year-old into the top junior hunter and equitation horse of his time. “Unless I missed, he won,” he says. After his equitation triumphs, George caught the notice of Bill Steinkraus and other U.S. Equestrian Team members. He collected a few jumpers to ride and tried out for the 1956 Olympic Games. He finished second in the trials, behind Steinkraus and ahead of team members Hugh Wiley and Frank Chapot. “I’d had a fantastic result in the trials, but they didn’t take me, which broke my heart, even though I see now that they shouldn’t have taken me,” he says. But by 1957, he had joined the USET on a summer tour nationally, and then he jumped with the team at the prestigious fall indoor shows. In 1958, he saw his first European tour, and he joined them for team gold at the 1959 Pan American Games in Chicago. That led to the team silver and individual fourth at the 1960 Olympic Games. After a two-year hiatus from horses in which George explored an acting career, he came back to horse showing in 1963 as a professional, and he was therefore unable to compete for the USET. But he quickly established himself as a top trainer, guiding

Conrad Homfeld to the Medal and Maclay final wins in 1967 and other students such as Jimmy Kohn, Kip Rosenthal, Kathy Doyle-Newman and Melanie Smith Taylor. In 1970, George bought the property in Pittstown, N.J., that became Hunterdon. Over the next three decades, he built a training empire in the hunter, jumper and equitation divisions. In addition, he launched the careers of many top professionals like Frank Madden, Bill Cooney, John Madden, Karen Healey, Anne Kursinski, Katie Monahan Prudent, Jeff Cook, Kathy Moore and Chris Kappler as they worked for him. His thriving business teaching clinics carried him all over the world, and he became a renowned teacher. The 1984 gold-medal Olympic team included three of his former students—Homfeld, Leslie Burr-Howard and Taylor. Kappler claimed team gold and individual silver at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. In the early ’80s, 20 years after he’d last jumped at the grand prix level, George had a bit of a renaissance. In the fall of ’83, he traveled to Europe and found Rio. He rode the quirky, big bay on the winning USET Nations Cup team at Falsterbo (Sweden) and won the 1988 $500,000 Du Maurier Grand Prix at Spruce Meadows. But George had also broken his femur badly in a fall in 1986 and his neck in another fall in 1987. In 1989, Rio retired. George rode a few more horses at grand prix but decided to stop showing by the early ’90s. “When you’re 25 or 30 you can ride donkeys and have terrible wrecks and come back,” he says. “But as you get older, you can’t do that. Everything has to be perfect. I said to myself, ‘I can’t afford this. I have a great teaching life. Focus on that.’ ” By 2005, George made the decision to sell Hunterdon and accepted the role of chef d’equipe of the U.S. show jumping team. Under his leadership, they won the 2005 Samsung Super League series, team silver at the 2006 FEI World Equestrian Games (Germany) and team gold at the 2008 Olympic Games in Hong Kong. At the 2011 Pan American Games (Mexico), they earned team gold and individual gold and silver. In addition, a longtime George student, Rich Fellers, won the 2012 Rolex FEI World Cup Final (the Netherlands). The 2012 London Olympics were George’s last as chef d’equipe; he handed the title to Robert Ridland. Despite undergoing successful treatment for prostate cancer in early 2012, he continued to teach a grueling schedule of clinics. A quick look at his 2015 clinic schedule reveals more than 40 dates—George was teaching 12 days out of most months. But in 2016, George is going to take a step back from that hectic itinerary. “Since the Olympics, I’ve had a great time riding and teaching, which is why I got into the horse business. Now I need a little breather from that,” he says. “I’m going to curtail my clinics a bit, and I’m going to take some time off in 2016. I’m looking to concentrate on a few specific people. Instead of giving a little to a lot of people through clinics, I’m going to give a lot to a very few, select people—people who understand what I think is important, which is the horse.” C H RO N O F H O R S E .CO M

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COVER STORY

AMY K. DRAGOO PHOTO

He may be known for his brutal honesty while teaching, but George Morris doesn’t mind. “I don’t spend a lot of time telling a talented rider how fabulous they are,” he says.

DID YOU KNOW? • George Morris’ middle initial, “H.,” stands for Hayes. His middle name came from one of his father’s closest friends, Garland Hayes. • In his younger years, George was afraid of horses. When he was 5, his sister’s horse bit him, picked him up and dropped him. That fear continued after George started riding at the Ox Ridge Hunt Club in 1947 at age 9. • “I was on the leadline longer than anyone had been on the leadline before at Ox Ridge. When they unhooked me, I screamed,” he says. “I rode ponies that were like the living dead, Mitzi and Mittens. They could canter practically at a walk. They were saints.” • George almost missed showing in the 1952 ASPCA Maclay and AHSA Medal finals, which he won. He’d been kicked in the knee a few weeks before the National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden. “It wasn’t broken, but it was so bruised that I had to stay in bed with my leg up on a pillow for three weeks. I was hysterical because I couldn’t ride my horse and make him stale and sour and possibly lame,” he recalls wryly. “So he was fresh and happy. I had two lessons with Gordon and went straight to the horse show.” • George attended the University of Virginia in 1956; one of his best friends there

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was Walter “Jimmy” Lee. But he wasn’t much of a scholar. “I studied drinking. I got very poor marks because riding and partying was about all I studied. And I don’t know in which order!” he recalls. • In 1958, ’59 and ’60, George spent four months in the summer on tour with the USET. “My father would give me $500 for four months in Europe as beer money. That was my spending money, and it covered it,” he remembers. • Seeing “the spot” at a jump didn’t come naturally to George in his early riding days. “I wish I knew then what I know now about how to find a distance. It was mysterious to me. The distance god was either shining, or he wasn’t; there was no controlling it for me then,” he says In the 1960s, Carl Knee gave George some simple advice about distances. “He said, ‘George, ease off in the turn, and you’ll see the distance.’ A light came on, and I then had a predictable technique to find a jump. Up until then, I must have found a lot of jumps, because I had great success, but I didn’t have a clue how I was doing it. And when things went badly, I didn’t have a clue how to fix it.” • George’s libation of choice? “I love beer; I don’t drink it as much anymore as I’d like, but I do like it,” he says.

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Usually, I’m out of here,” he says. George has a half-sister in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., but he usually spends his holidays traveling to clinics. “I’m really a loner,” he says. “I’m happiest on a horse. Not talking to anyone, preferably, since lots of people are usually watching when I’m on a horse. I’m very happy in a corner of a field by myself. I’m talking to the horse, and the horse is talking to me. The horse is teaching me.” “He truly loves horses,” Traurig says. “Probably more than people.”

SPEAK THE TRUTH

Watch George teach, and you’ll see a carefully crafted combination of acerbic wit and deadly serious imparting of wisdom. George spent two years devoting himself to a career in the theater in the 1960s, and it shows in his ability to play to crowds with well-placed zingers. And he doesn’t mind his reputation for being tough on riders who don’t meet his standards. “People call it bashing,” George says with a wave of his hand. “I don’t think it’s bashing. That’s how I was brought up. Gordon Wright told me, ‘Don’t spend a lot of time telling people what they do right. You tell them what they do wrong and what they could do better.’

REMEMBERING RIO

Even after more than 30 years competing at the highest level, George Morris still found himself learning new things from a quirky but talented horse named Rio, who challenged him to adapt.

BOB LANGRISH PHOTO

“That’s how I teach,” George explains. “I don’t spend a lot of time telling a talented rider how fabulous they are. I hone in right on what could be better, in my opinion. That’s how I teach, and that’s how I write articles. If I see something that I think could be or should be better, I say it.” While Traurig knows George can be less than diplomatic when teaching, he notes, “I’ve never seen him be anything other than kind when he’s not teaching, and I’ve known him for over five decades.” With manners befitting a man raised in upper-class soci-

y 1983, George Morris was nearing the end of his showing career when a special horse came into his life. It was Rio, a mount who’d challenge him and teach him and go on to win some big classes, including the $500,000 Du Maurier International at Spruce Meadows (Alberta) in 1988. George can still recall his first sight of Rio, after a daylong drive from Geneva to a remote corner of eastern Switzerland: “It was about dusk. I looked in the stall, and this was a beautiful, big, Thoroughbredlooking horse. I fell in love,” he says. “[The seller, Rupert Moll] gets on the horse, walks down, and starts working the horse on the flat. I fall further in love. This horse moves with a big, lovely stride. “Then he starts to jump, and I’m crazed. He doesn’t have the tightest front end or the roundest back, but he’s so light and effortless. He exudes scope. I can’t wait to ride this jump. “Rupert slips off, and I go to get on. I don’t notice a thing. But when I settle into the tack and am picking up the reins, this horse freaks out. Luckily I had my stirrups and the reins. All he can do is whirl and whirl. I can’t get off him, and I am literally fearing for my life. I said, ‘All I want to do is get back in the car and drive 10 hours to Geneva and leave.’ I just wanted to live. “Then my horse experience kicked in. There were rails on the ground and a little cross-rail. As we were whirling, I started stepping over things to distract him. He got settled, accepted me, and I had an incredible school. Thirty years later, I spoke with the man who broke him, and he told me that riding him in drifts of snow was the only way they could ride him. “The next day, I got back on and had the whirl to a lesser degree, then had a great ride. He was so

good to jump. So I bought the horse with my own money. It was never comfortable mounting or dismounting that horse. I discovered that I had to find hidden places to mount him, because putting him in the thickets was better. I had to find places to mount in the stall, in a shed. I’d lay awake at night, not worried that they’d build a course he couldn’t jump, but worried where I was going to mount. “His freshness exhibited itself when I would see the distance—he would put his tail up over his back and scoot right through the distance into a terrible position. After two or three days of this, I thought, ‘This horse is too crazy for me.’ One morning, I worked him over rails—really worked him. He went to the ring after a little time in the barn, and he was fabulous. “That taught me how important it is to work horses properly. I’d always been taught this, but I never learned it until then. I work horses in lateral work, lengthen, shorten, get them through and to the bit. I was taught by several horses that were very difficult, very hot. They were top horses but very difficult. They taught me that proper work is the basis for a good performance with a horse every time. “The proper work might be a hand-walk or a light hack with a certain horse, or it might be 30 minutes of good, correct flatwork. Rio, every day of the show, would never get less than half an hour of proper flatwork every day he showed. Usually, 40 minutes.”

“I’d lay awake at night, not worried that they’d build a course he couldn’t jump, but worried where I was going to mount.”

ety in the mid-’50s, George is unfailingly polite. He has highpowered friends around the world and has shaken hands with royalty. But there’s little pretension to George. When he walks into his local deli in Wellington for lunch, the woman behind the counter greets him with a cheery ‘Hey George!’ and they discuss the day’s menu. Despite his stern demeanor and gruff exterior, George is a man well-liked. But he’s also been frank about the problems he sees in the sport as it exists today. George is worried about what he sees as a drifting away from the basic tenets of horsemanship.

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COVER STORY “Now it’s all about buying the best horse,” he says. “Jack Le Goff said, 20 years ago, ‘They’re teaching them to compete today, not to ride,’ which is more and more true. They get the wind-up horse and go straight to the ring. As that grows, the conditioning of the horse, the developing the horse correctly, all of that gets lost.” George’s scorn for that shortcut approach is evident, but then his voice shifts to a note of despair. “It’s very frustrating, Molly. Very frustrating,” he says to me. For a man who’s devoted his life to the craft of horsemanship, seeing a generation distance themselves from the very knowledge he covets is maddening. “People think they can buy it. But how can you buy feel? How can you buy horsemanship? How can you buy eye? How can you buy what Buck Brannaman does?” he asks. “You can’t buy that. But they try to. It’s all vanity and ego—it’s all how they do in the competition. “Winning isn’t the point,” he underscores. “It’s part of the point, but it’s not the only point.” George notes a handful of victories that have given him particular joy, including when his lifelong student Rich Fellers won the Rolex FEI World Cup Final (the Netherlands) in 2012. But when I ask what moment he looks back on as the most gratifying, his answer shows just how devoted he is to the process, versus the result. “I would say that I’ve found the most satisfaction in my personal riding, which could be walking, or when the horse is truly on the bit, or that I got a very clean flying change with the horse forward and straight versus what I had three days ago,” he says. “My journey would always supersede the competition.” JOSH WALKER PHOTO

GEORGEISM: I am the old school. I operate by, “It’s my way or the highway.” I had great success with that; it’s how I was brought up. I’m not so flexible.

“I’m really a loner,” says George Morris. “I’m happiest on a horse.”

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Inspired partially by seeing a video of Olympic dressage, Ann Romney returned to riding at age 50, initially believing she wouldn’t have much time left to enjoy it before her multiple sclerosis rendered it impossible. But as her health improved, “I thought, ‘Oh, in about a year, I’ll probably be able to do all of [those Grand Prix movements],’ ” she says, laughing. “Then after that first year, you can barely sit the trot! Every year of education is another year where you learn how much you don’t know.”

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Q&A

Ann Romney, In Focus

To the average American, she may be best known as “the almost-First Lady,” but a life-altering

experience with multiple sclerosis and subsequent

return to her first love, horses, inspired her to cast off that label and take up a cause.

By JENNIFER B. CALDER

rom her darkened bedroom, Ann Romney could hear the distant, familiar tinkling of Christmas carols and the occasional delighted shriek of her grandchildren. The joyful sounds punctuated the silence, underscoring her isolation, her depression. Being at the center of the jubilant chaos that accompanied her five sons and their families during the holidays had always been the highlight of the year for the devout Mormon. Everyone celebrating together, sledding, laughing. Brothers ribbing each other as only they can; cousins tumbling over one another and playing board games. But in 1998, after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, all the family matriarch could do was listen from afar to the Rockwellian celebration below. “Everyone took turns coming into the bedroom with forced enthusiasm,” Romney writes in her newly published autobiography, In This Together, “But we were all living under a thick layer of pretend normalcy. It might not have been so terrible if I’d believed it was temporary, that it was simply an inconvenient and depressing step toward a better, healthy life. But I knew it wasn’t temporary…this was my new life.”

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Darling, Ann Romney’s Intermediaire I mount, served as a back cover model for her new memoir, In This Together.

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Q&A Romney’s depression engulfed her to the point that she found herself wishing she would die quickly, instead of being slowly devoured bit by bit, envisioning the progressive nerve damage consuming her body like Pac Man gobbling up dots. “Among the many changes taking place in my life,” she writes, “this was the first time I really had nothing to look forward to.” But the pall would begin to lift, ever so slightly, one month later, when her husband, Mitt Romney, received an offer to overhaul the upcoming 2002 Winter Olympic Games. Conversations with her doctor soothed their worries about the move from Boston to Utah; she could continue her treatment there. “I realized after my diagnosis—it was one of those moments when time stood still, and I realized that I had precious little time left to be physically able to do anything,” she tells me by phone. “I thought, ‘What did I love so much as a kid? If there was something that wasn’t finished in my life yet, what did I need to go finish before I couldn’t?’ And it was getting back to horses. Getting back to my inner child, who loved horses.” Today, 17 years later, Ann Romney is in remission, and she’s definitely back into horses. She’s competed up to the Grand Prix level in dressage; she’s the part-owner of an Olympic veteran horse, and she’s partnered with legendary cowboy Monty Roberts to provide equine-assisted therapy for military veterans with PTSD. And she’s not wasting one more hour worrying about the future or lamenting what might have been. With a candid new book out and the establishment of the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (Mass.), she’s taking up the reins herself.

Q: What inspired you to write In This A: Well, I gave a speech last January in Palm Beach [Fla.], and the person who was my agent was so moved afterwards that he said, “You need to write this down.” I told him a lot of people had been telling me that, but that I didn’t really know how to make that happen. He said he would take care of that part and would make it happen and figure out all those details if I would write it. Literally a week later, I wrote down a couple of thoughts or chapters. All these publishers wanted to publish it, have a meeting with me. I think we had six to eight publishers who wanted to do it. It was fascinating to me that anyone would even be interested. I didn’t think anyone would be interested! I kept arguing with the publishers and said that my story wasn’t so great; I wanted to talk about other people and relate it to other struggles. I started writing with that thought in mind, and then they came back and said that no, they wanted it to be my story, just mine. I thought, “Ohhh, I don’t know how I can make this into a book!” So it was a bit of a struggle, especially initially. It just came together, and by about June, it was pretty much written. I was doing the audio portion by mid-July. I wrote in snatches; intense for five days, and then nothing for five. Q: What were your bleakest moments after your diagnosis? A: Honestly, I

think it was after I had been treated with the steroids. The attacks—the physical attacks—were under control, and yet I still felt, if anything, even worse. [I had the] realization that this was how the rest of my life was going to be, and I was never going to be healthy or well again. That was probably the hardest time for me. I was diagnosed at the end of October [1998], and [this was] probably around Christmas. I’d been treated for about a month at that point. I was thinking, “This is the lot I am going to have to deal with for the rest of my life.” I hadn’t even turned 50 yet, and I was thinking, “Wow, I feel like I am 85.” That was really hard for me. It took me three years of working through the fatigue. It wasn’t overnight I got better. It was a real struggle.

SARA LIESER PHOTO

Together, and how long did the process take?

The summer of 2012 was a big one for Ann Romney. Not only was her husband Mitt campaigning for president, but Rafalca, the horse she co-owns with Amy Ebeling (center) and Beth Meyer, was representing the United States at the London Olympic Games with rider Jan Ebeling (left). Now retired to the Ebelings’ Southern California ranch, the 18-yearold mare is due to drop her first foal in May.

Q: What’s the first thing you’d want someone diagnosed with MS to know? A: That

it’s not as hopeless as it used to be. That there are lots of treatments, and if one doesn’t work, another one may. That there is great research being done, so even if people are losing some function, there are some things we are working on—like new nerve repair, and all these different things— that are hopeful for people. [I’d also focus on] the energy aspect. We’re learning how mood is so important—being in a place [mentally and emotionally] with light, and by that I mean joyful. Those things you have to think about and work on and be more proactive about.

Q: And for you, returning to riding after several decades out of the saddle was pivotal in fostering that sense of joy, it seems. A: Yeah,

that really is what it was about. It became a consuming passion for me very quickly. Once I got back into it, it completely grabbed me. C H RO N O F H O R S E .CO M

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Q&A Then, at the same time, I forgot that I was sick when I was on them. I forgot that I was tired. I forgot everything. I just lived in the moment with them, and that is what horses can do. They can take you and let you live in the moment with them where nothing else matters. And how blessed are we to be able to have that, all of us who love horses? Because most people can go through life and never have anything like that. It absolutely accentuates the joy—and multiplies the joy you can have in life—if you can find something you love that much.

Ann Romney and her Hanoverian gelding Donatello are currently competing at the Intermediaire II level, but she’s working on their first Grand Prix freestyle routine. She keeps both her competition horses at Jan Ebeling’s The Acres in Moorpark, Calif.

Q: So were you surprised it had this therapeutic effect on you? Because you returned to riding just thinking you may not have time to do it much longer.

I didn’t expect that. I certainly didn’t go into it for the therapy part of it. I know there were therapeutic programs, but I don’t think it was as big a deal or that a lot of people knew about them. That was 1998. Obviously, since then, we’ve learned a great deal, and it’s therapeutic for many things, but it was a pleasant surprise that horses ended up being what I call “my healing partners.” And they were. They were my healing partners. I’ve tried to understand it. And I even asked Monty Roberts (we’ve connected on a horse level because he does so much work right now with horses and veterans coming back with PTSD; he’s got a whole program in addition to his other things), “Monty, can you explain why it works so well?” He looked at me and—he’s such a cowboy—said, “Who the hell knows? All I know is it works, and that’s all I need to know.” I’m sure they’re trying to do the science and everything else. There’s energy and all this other stuff, but how do you explain that a child with autism who can’t speak can get on the back of a horse and speak? How do you explain it when someone who has spasticity and cerebral palsy and can’t sit up gets on the back of a horse, and they sit up? There are things that are just amazing. Q: With both the London Olympics and the presidential election, 2012 was a huge year for you in the public eye, and I know you spent a lot of time in the barn as sort of a respite. What was it like having the hobby you usually turn to as an escape suddenly brought into the spotlight by mainstream media and people like Stephen Colbert? A: There

were both positive and negatives. It was a doubleedged sword. But someone told me they were working out in the gym during the Olympics, and they were watching dressage, and

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A: Yeah,

they were totally intrigued by it. Well, that never would have happened if Stephen Colbert had not taken us on! So yes, there was good and bad. Hopefully the good was that people recognized that this ended up being therapy. There is the art part and the beauty part of dressage, but there is also the therapy part that people would never recognize. Q: In your book, you talk about dressage being criticized during the campaign as “a rich woman’s hobby.” How did you deal with that? A: The same way you deal with almost all of the criticism that

comes in that is unfair. When you’re dealing with politics, you have so many people who are trying to bring you down, and you just know they are going to find something and be unfair about it. This was another way for them to be terribly unfair. Especially because [the barn] was a place for me that was so emotional and so healing, it was just like, “Oh, really?” It was so unfair, but they were able to, obviously, portray it in such a way as to marginalize us. It didn’t last long, because a lot of people jumped to my defense pretty quickly with that. It was sort of like tipping someone out of a wheelchair; it was so blatantly unfair that it stopped. Anything like that, they try to take advantage of and to marginalize. It’s just an indication of how they do it with absolutely everything in your life.

is probably no one who hasn’t been impacted in one way or another. He and I talked, and it became a kernel of thought: What if we combined all these neuro sciences under one house? And it just kind of rolled from there. It’s amazing, because 50 million people worldwide are affected by this. If you add the number of family members and caretakers to that number, it’s huge. The mystery of the brain is now at the point where there can be progress made. The diagnostic tools have become so much more refined, so we can look into the brain and understand function much, much better than we have been able to do for hundreds of years. We really are on the cusp of making breakthroughs, and that’s why I think this is so timely.

Q: You must want to set them straight, but you can’t, I guess?

A: Short term, obviously, is to raise as much money as we can.

A: You really have to let other people defend you. You can’t look

like a crybaby, because then that gets attacked!

Q: But did it shut down people’s criticism when you would tell them it was therapeutic? A: Totally—it totally shut it right down. Q: What’s your present condition? Are you still in remission? A: I am in remission, and I am doing great, so honestly, I have

the energy and the passion and everything now to just move forward and keep giving back. I’m in a really good place. The center is what I’m focused on now. [I’m applying] my energy and passion [toward] trying to unlock some of the mysteries of the neurologic diseases, and the center is going to be focusing on multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, ALS, Parkinson’s and brain tumors.

Q: What prompted you to found the center? A: Well, I always thought, when Mitt was running, “Where would my energy and compassion be [as First Lady]?” And it obviously would be with trying to find cures for neurologic disease. But it wasn’t until about a year after Mitt had lost, I was talking to my doctor [Howard L. Weiner MD], and I said, “It’s such a shame we lost because of how much good we could have done.” Then I said, “What the heck? It won’t be as big, but let’s do it anyway,” and of course he was vey enthusiastic about that. Then he told me what his research was doing, uncovering mysteries for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and ALS. And so many more people are affected by the combined neurologic diseases; there

Q: What are the short-term and long-term goals of the center?

The long-term goals are to find first treatment, and then cures. I hope within 20 years we find a cure for some of these diseases, and I think it’s possible. The fact that we are in the lab right now working on a nasal vaccine for Alzheimer’s is incredible. What an impact that would have on this nation, on the world, if this were to be the case. It’s being fast-tracked, and the fact that we’re going to have human trials in a year is astonishing. One of these things going on in the lab is going to turn out and work. That’s why we have to—as Dr. Weiner always says— have as many shots on goal as we can. The more opportunities, the more [likely] something may happen, and that’s what we’re going to do at the Ann Romney Center. We’re going to put as many shots on goal as we can.

Q: You’re doing a lot of good, bringing all this under one roof. A: Yeah, and that’s the point of it all right now. I love the horses,

and they feed me and nourish me, and now all of that energy has got to go to healing others and making progress with people that are really, really struggling.

Q: What’s the greatest lesson you’ve learned from horses? A: Patience, I think. And if you ever feel like you need to be

humbled, get on the back of a horse, because they can humble you faster than anything. But a really good friend of mine just emailed me and said, “Oh my gosh! I can’t believe it, but I picked up riding, and I am having so much fun.” I emailed her back, “Oh I am so sorry, because this is an addiction, and there is no cure!” C H RO N O F H O R S E .CO M

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In This Together

In an excerpt from her new memoir, Ann Romney recounts her return to riding after her crushing diagnosis with multiple sclerosis and more than three decades out of the saddle.

grew up in a neighborhood with few homes and lots of space. I was pretty much the only girl in the area, so for survival I learned to play baseball and football; but mostly I played on my own. Like so many other young girls, I fell in love with horses at a young age. I started taking riding lessons when I was eight, and quickly became a barn rat, happily mucking stalls, grooming horses, and learning how to care for them. One of the horses in the barn was a gentle creamy white mare with blue eyes named Sobie, who quickly became my best friend. I would tell her all my secrets, confident she would not share them with anyone. For Christmas 1979, in addition to the usual pile of presents, I found a note telling me, “Go to the mailbox.” In the mailbox, I found a second note: “Go to the olive tree.” A further series of clues directed me to the garage my father had just built at the bottom of our hill. I hadn’t been the least curious about this new project, even after my father put up a white picket fence around it. I pushed open the garage door and stood there dumbfounded. Rather than a large open area for cars, the structure contained two stalls. And standing right in the middle was Sobie. My Sobie. She was as sweet as any animal possibly could be. For the next few years of my life, I practically lived in that stable.

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We got another horse, presumably for my brother, but it was really so Sobie wouldn’t be alone, and I took care of both of them. I cleaned and filled the troughs, swept the barn, made sure they were fed, and kept them groomed. In the winter, when the pipes froze, I would carry buckets of water down the hill. One freezing cold morning I will never forget, I went down to the stable and broke the ice covering the top of a bucket, reached in to pull out the debris that had settled into it, and instead found myself holding an enormous frozen rat. After that, my father added a metal feed room with raised bins off to the side. During the school year, I would be in the stable before I left in the morning and go right back there when I got home in the late afternoon, to muck the stalls and feed the horses. I would ride often after school and on weekends. In the summer, that’s where I would always be found, and we would go for a ride every day. Sobie and I were connected emotionally. I learned how to read her moods and communicate with her; I never had to say anything, she would respond to my touch. She must have understood me, too, because somehow she always gave me the response I needed. Eventually, I was so comfortable with her that I didn’t really need a saddle or bridle to ride her. I would direct her with my knees. We had some apple trees not very far from the house, and sometimes, on beautiful summer or fall days, Sobie and I would go there and I would let her roam free; it was a place she loved, too. I would turn around on her, lying on my tummy with my head on her butt, as she walked around eating apples and grass. I felt completely safe; I knew she was going to take care of me. I would watch the drifting clouds, and her gentle movements would rock me. We

would wander around for hours like that, listening to nature, enjoying the warmth of the sun and the gentle breeze, feeling totally content. Being with Sobie was my happy place during my childhood. As I got older my interests changed, and I had less time to care for her. It was the normal cycle of life; I had my life in high school, I had boys to giggle about with my friends, I had all those magical things that occupy the lives of teenage girls. So our rides became less frequent. Then one day I came home from school and she was gone.

A marriage and raising five children in Boston kept me much too occupied to ride again. I would think about Sobie from time to time, I would tell the boys about her, and I promised myself that sometime I would start riding again. My father had sold her. That was him, always practical. He had spoken to me about it, pointing out that I wasn’t paying as much attention to the horses and maybe it was time to move on. “You’re getting older,” he said, reminding me that I was going to leave for college soon. “No, no, no,” I’d said, completely dismissing the idea, and then I’d probably gotten on the phone with a friend and forgotten all about his warning. Then Sobie was gone. I knew that it was the right thing to do—I wasn’t giving her the attention that any animal needs—but I felt that an important part of my childhood had been yanked away from me. I was so upset. I never saw Sobie again. I hoped she’d found a home with someone with a little girl. I was angry with my father, but that feeling passed over time, and not too long afterward I met Mitt. I never filled that place in my heart, though. A marriage and raising five children in Boston kept C H RO N O F H O R S E .CO M

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me much too occupied to ride again. I would think about Sobie from time to time, I would tell the boys about her, and I promised myself that sometime I would start riding again. I didn’t expect to find that emotional connection that I’d had with that horse, but riding was something that I’d loved deeply. After my diagnosis, and facing an uncertain future, I knew it was time. Truthfully, I wasn’t even certain I would be able to ride. People who haven’t ridden have no understanding of how physically difficult it can be to control an incredibly strong animal weighing as much as a thousand pounds. With my balance problems, at times I was having difficulty simply staying upright in a chair, so the concept of sitting in a saddle and commanding an animal made me a little bit nervous. But I believed this might be my last opportunity to find that happy place of my childhood, before my disease made it impossible, so I was determined at least to try. The first day Mitt and I arrived in Salt Lake, the Olympic Committee held a press conference. It was a major story: the turnaround expert from Boston had come to save the Salt Lake City Olympics. After the conference, I opened my day planner, found the number I had been given, and called a horse trainer named Margo Gogan. I knew nothing about her other than that she was considered to be an excellent teacher, but this was the only name I had. I introduced myself and told her that my husband and I had just moved into the area and I wanted to start taking lessons. It was obvious she had never heard the name Romney, and I suspected that even if she had, she wouldn’t have cared.

She very politely told me that she was completely booked and that there was no chance she would be able to add another client to her already filled schedule. Her stalls were full; there just was no room for another horse. She did offer to add me to her waiting list, although she admitted that she didn’t know how long it would be until it was my turn. I wouldn’t let her off the phone. The fact that she had no interest at all in training me made me want to train with her even more. I began dropping little hints about why we had come to Utah, mentioning “the Winter Olympics,” and eventually I got her attention. “Oh, yes,” she finally agreed, “I’ve heard something on the news about this Mitt Romney guy. That’s you?” As Margo told me later, much later, “I thought Ann Romney was an awfully pushy broad, but I’m pretty pushy, too. The Olympics were very important to all of us living here, and I thought if she and her husband were coming all the way to Utah to help us with this, the least I could do was meet her.” Margo had no idea that this stranger was about to burst into her life. She expected to meet some aggressive woman, give her some information and recommendations about other equestrian centers in the area, shake hands, and send her on her way. I believed I had a limited amount of time to fulfill this promise I’d made to myself, and I intended to spend each minute wisely. So I put on a pair of riding breeches and drove out to meet her. I was going to ride. What possessed me to put on those jodhpurs I will never know, but I wanted this woman to know I was serious, that I was ready to get started right away. I really wanted this. The good news was that when I walked into the barn wearing breeches and a little riding hat, she didn’t laugh at me.

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Margo was tall, about five eight, and wore her blond hair in a casual ponytail, and everything about her exuded calm and confidence. We connected the moment we started talking. I told her the truth about my disease; I wanted her to know what she was getting into. It didn’t seem to bother her at all. I pretty much recognized in Margo the same streak of practicality that I have: This is what it is; you can do it or you can’t do it. You can spend all day wishing, but you’ll get a lot more accomplished with one minute of doing. That first day was incredible. Within a few minutes we had gotten away from horses and were talking about those things in life that really matter. We talked about spiritual things, about family, God, what Mitt and I had been doing in Boston, and how scary it was to have been diagnosed with MS. Among the things about Margo that immediately appealed to me was her bluntness. She asked a question I supposed a lot of people had wondered about but no one had asked: How did it feel to have something that money couldn’t fix or make go away? I wasn’t hesitant about answering that, telling her that money had never been the essential aspect of our lives. While Mitt and I appreciated what we had—and boy, did we know how fortunate we were—the things that mattered to us really were those things money couldn’t buy: our love for each other, our family, and our church. It just had never been part of our thinking that being wealthy would or should insulate us from life’s challenges. And while obviously having money made dealing with the ramifications of the disease simpler, it didn’t change who I was.

Among the things about Margo that immediately appealed to me was her bluntness. She asked a question I supposed a lot of people had wondered about but no one had asked: How did it feel to have something that money couldn’t fix or make go away? In fact, as I would learn much later, the stages that I was working my way through were common for anyone who has faced a sudden and life-changing challenge, whatever their financial situation. I had gone through the first stage, denial. I had accepted the reality of my situation, and I had set out to make the best of it. I knew there was no cure for MS, but I was determined to fight it as much as I was capable of doing—and the best way to do that was to live the best life possible.

Read More Ann Romney’s In This Together (St. Martin’s Press, Sept. 2015) is available in hardcover, e-reader, compact disc audio and unabridged digital audio formats. You can find it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart and many other major retailers. To learn more, visit us.macmillan.com/ inthistogether. Romney’s proceeds from sales of the book will support the Ann Romney Center for Neurological Diseases, which she founded at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston to tackle research on five neurological diseases: multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, ALS, Parkinson’s disease and brain tumors.

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ARTIST PROFILE

Tuckerman did this iconic Kentucky Horse Park scene based on a moment she captured at the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games in Lexington.

DIGITAL

Evolution

Lifelong horsewoman Susan Tuckerman has found a style of art that works for her—digital painting—and a life she loves alongside it. By LISA SLADE Artwork courtesy SUSAN TUCKER MAN 68 JANUARY/ FEBRUARY 2016

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usan Tuckerman can’t remember when she first felt compelled to make art. But she knows that by the time she was in kindergarten, it was already a passion. “I’ve done it all my life,” she said. Tuckerman’s art has taken many forms, though, starting with needlepoint before transitioning to printmaking and painting in college, and then to pottery after graduation. And her most recent transition occurred about seven years ago, not by choice, but by necessity; she was rendered an incomplete quadriplegic in a riding accident.

AMY K. DRAGOO PHOTO

“Unfortunately the accident destroyed my fine motor skills, and I was unable to continue working with the clay. I began to investigate digital art applications, particularly digital painting.” But Tuckerman has never been defined by her art alone. She’s bred and brought along numerous top horses, including a few Olympic eventers, and she competed quite a bit herself before her accident. She’s also been married to U.S. eventing legend Bruce Davidson for almost two years, and the pair have been together for nearly 15. Horses—as a lifestyle and a passion—have always gone hand-in-hand with her artwork. “The horse is something I know the best, and it’s something I love the best,” she said. “I think horses have brought me more excitement and sorrow and joy than any other animal in my life. The horse has a nervous system that’s closest to a person’s there is. I always love to think I was very simpatico with the animal, and I like to think I’m simpatico with them in my art as well.” Though she also photographs and then digitally paints dogs, children and pastoral scenes, the equine form takes center stage in many works—from capturing upperlevel competitions to quieter moments. “Her work really creates a story,” said longtime friend and four-star eventer Kristen Bond. “It takes you to that moment, and you feel exactly what she was feeling when she took the photo. She has an amazing eye for really emotional moments. There are a billion pictures and artwork of horses, but she can really make something that captures you for some reason— whether it’s the look in the horse’s eye or something else.”

Horses And Art From Birth Tuckerman was born into the horse world. Her parents, Bayard Tuckerman Jr. and Milicent Tuckerman, ran a Thoroughbred breeding operation called Little Sunswick Farm in Westport, Mass. Susan grew up riding from the time she could walk, foxhunting and competing in the jumpers when she was younger. Though neither of her parents were what she’d call artists, they both expressed an artistic sensibility in other ways. “I have lovely drawings my father did

“I think horses have brought me more excitement and sorrow and joy than any other animal in my life.” —SUSAN TUCKERMAN

Susan Tuckerman found her way back into the saddle, first with her gelding Tuff (pictured) and now with a mare named Tar, after being partially paralyzed in a fall while jumping in 2008.

as a child,” said Susan, 64. “But art was not done by men as much back then. My mother was definitely artistic in a housewife kind of way; she was always working in the gardens or doing something like that. My sister, Jane Tuckerman, is a very famous photographer, and I’m really not sure why the two of us have ended up making our livings as artists!” Susan met her future husband, Davidson, when she was a child, though the pair would remain just friends for many more years. “He kept his pony at my parents’ farm, and we rode together on the weekends and all summer long,” said Susan. “He of course rode a lot better than I did, and it irritated me enormously, but what can you do? When he was 12, you could tell it was going to happen—that he was going to be great. My father [who’d been a steeplechase jockey in the 1910s] was

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ARTIST PROFILE When she was still competing, Tuckerman rode Spruce through the one-star level.

inspirational in Bruce’s beginning because he was a horseman and spotted his potential.” Susan married her first husband, Christopher Dickey, shortly after graduating high school, and the two had a son, James Dickey. They were living in Northern Georgia together when Susan started her first foray into the art world as a professional. “When I got married at an early age, I needed to make a living,” she said. “Bizarrely I started designing needlepoint, of all things. The only place nearby where we were living was a needlepoint store. My mother had always created elaborate needlepoint pillows and chair covers and taught her children the craft, so I did the needlepoint kits and reproductions for The National Trust for Historic Preservation. It was fun. I was able to visit lots of old houses in Virginia and duplicate or embellish the antique work that they had in their collections. But then I got divorced and decided to go to college.” After obtaining her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting and printmaking from the University of Massachusetts, Susan ventured into ceramics. “Besides being a horse dealer, I made my living doing pottery then,” she said. “I did the major craft shows in America, and I have some work in museums in this country. Luckily people really liked my pottery. It was very decorative and very baroque.” Alongside her art work, Susan Tuckerman not only paints but also breeds Jack Russells like Rupert, who’s now owned by Morag O’Hanlon.

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trial division. “She did a lot of the show jumping with a lot of success,” Davidson said of his wife. “For her, when she was younger, the best road once she got a horse to a certain level was to sell it on. But there are a number of horses that went on with well-known riders to be very successful. Like any of us horse people, you enjoy following them on through their lives, and she gets a great deal of interest and a whole lot fun in the sport following the bloodlines.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF SUSIE TUCKERMAN

Susan was also working as a professional in the horse industry. She made her living breeding some horses and then selling them on, or buying and reselling others. One of those she bred was Out And About, or “Outie,” who won individual bronze at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games with Kerry Millikin aboard. “I was at a horse show, and I saw this gray mare that could really jump,” said Susan. “Most people had Thoroughbreds then, and she was, but the mare could really jump and was really game, but she was obviously lame. I went up to the girl and said, ‘If you want to get rid of that mare, I’d love to breed her.’ A year later she said, ‘You can have the her.’ I took the mare, and we were standing a very nice stallion by Olden Times then, and I bred the mare to him. Outie was the result.” The Thoroughbred (L’Amour Rullah—Incarnadine, Decidedly) was born in 1987, and Susan first sent him to the racetrack. “He was anything but special there!” she said. “But the minute he came back at 3, it was obvious he was still very uphill, and he would never have been a race horse, but he could jump anything, and he was a beautiful mover. Kerry bought him and created a legacy. “I’ve actually done very little breeding, so from the percentages side, I’d say I was better than almost anybody,” she joked. “I sold a lot of really nice horses and had a good reputation for it, so that was a wonderful way to live. I was lucky, because I split my life pretty much 50/50 between the horses and my art.” Another product of Susan’s excellent eye for horses was Taxi, who she found as a young horse and brought along. Taxi went on to compete at the 1980 Alternate Olympic Games (France) with Wash Bishop aboard, and the gelding also placed sixth in the 1981 Rolex Kentucky advanced horse

A Freak Accident But Susan’s own competitive career came to a halt on a December day in 2008. She was schooling a mare over a plain 3'6" oxer at Chesterland Farm’s winter base in Ocala, Fla. “Somehow she put her legs down through the jump instead of over it, and she flipped over it,” said Susan. “She broke her neck, and I broke my neck. Randy Ward was sitting right there, and Bruce was sitting right there. We were out just having a school. It was a stupid fence the mare had jumped a million times, and I’d jumped it probably 30 million times. It was just one of those ridiculous things.” Though Susan was initially fully paralyzed due to her spinal column injury, she started slowly gaining feeling and function. Now, still partially paralyzed, she rides her Quarter Horse mare, Tar, nearly every day. “I walk around the countryside on her, and that means everything to me,” she said. “I have the ultimate life. I get to meander through the countryside for an hour and

Artist Susan Tuckerman and eventer Bruce Davidson grew up riding together on Tuckerman’s family farm.

then come in and paint.” “She’s very determined,” added Davidson. “Even with what she’s endured as far as the accident, that’s just shown what kind of girl she is. She has the strength and determination, and the positive attitude, to deal with it. It’s amazing to watch her and see what she can still accomplish. She still works on her transitions when she’s riding. She just loves it.” But because of her fine motor skills issues, Susan had to set aside making pottery. So she turned to a form of art she practiced and mastered: digital painting. Now she takes photographs and then uses software on her computer to alter the images. “Digital painting is still to some extent frowned on,” she said. “But it’s an actual printmaking process. A great many very leading artists are doing digital art, and just because it can produce a great number of copies if you choose it to doesn’t mean it isn’t art. If it’s not a commission, what I do is limited edition prints, and usually the edi-

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ARTIST PROFILE tions are only 10. I keep them exclusive. I literally paint as if you’re painting a canvas, and I paint into this altered photograph. It’s really no different than someone taking a photo and doing a painting from it. “They are not photographs,” she continued. “They are paintings in every way. The fact that you can duplicate them makes them more a print, like a lithograph or a screenprinting. It’s just done though the medium of a computer.” In addition to working on commissions, Susan visits events and horse trials, the nearby Amish country when in Pennsylvania, the racetrack, local horse shows like HITS Ocala, and horse sales, in addition to photographing young horses at Chesterland in Florida and Unionville, Pa. “I like horses being horses,” she said. “It’s hard to describe, but I just see a moment with a horse, and that’s what I want to capture. I want that picture to express that moment rather than just make a representation of the horse.”

Susan Tuckerman painted the steeplechasing champion Flatterer after his retirement, when he was 26. “He was an old man then, and his mane wasn’t pulled, but I tried to get in his eye that he was the great Flatterer,” she said.

This landing shot of Bruce Davidson and Jam at the Land Rover Burghley CCI**** in Great Britain showcases Tuckerman’s deliberate choice of unconventional moments and framing.

“If I couldn’t paint, I’d be a very upset person.” —SUSAN TUCKERMAN

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Susan especially loves the form of a horse and rider heading out of the start box on cross-country, and several of her works capture that moment, or the one right before they enter the start box. “I try to find something different,” she said. “If someone requests a commission, I’ll follow them around and try to get to know the horse or dog or whatever it is, and then I take a photograph of the animal the way the people think of that animal.” Her works have graced event program covers and the cover of The Chronicle of the Horse, and every year she does numerous commissions for top eventers and other riders. “If I couldn’t paint, I’d be a very upset person,” she said. “Quite a few people have my work in their houses, and I was at a dinner the other night, and this was a couple who has a lot of very good art, and they said, ‘The work here that’s asked about every time is the one thing that’s your work.’ Everybody needs something like that, especially when you’ve lost what you love the most. It’s very frustrating to be paralyzed after you’ve been very active, so it’s great to have something you love to do and can do.” Bond especially loves a piece of artwork Susan did of her jumping the second

fence on the 2007 Land Rover Burghley CCI**** course with Fleecework’s Blackout in Great Britain. “Another one I have of hers is the big oak tree in Unionville up on the hill,” she said. “I’ve always loved that tree, and she did a big print of that for me. Her art is all over the house. “She has all these talents that people don’t know about,” Bond added. “She has incredible taste—impeccable taste—and she’s an unbelievable interior decorator. She’ll pick focal points, like there are some open beams in her studio painted turquoise, and you’d think, ‘That’s such a bold thing to do,’ but it looks so cool. Everything she touches becomes a conversation piece. She’s just so talented.” —KRISTEN BOND Susan starts most

“Everything she touches becomes a conversation piece.”

Susan Tuckerman loves to illustrate horses being horses, as she did with this work, captured at a nearby training track.

of her days with painting, working through the late mornings and early afternoons before going out to ride. She’s also very involved with the breeding program at Chesterland, helping create future generations of talented jumpers and eventers. “Susie’s not quiet, and we’re going to know her opinion, like it or not!” said Davidson. “And usually she’s right. When it comes to the breeding, she grew up with it, and we’ve both done it a long time, and she’s good at it.” “I’m very lucky, and I’m really blessed,” Susan added. “I can get around, and I have wonderful people who help me. I can ride, and I can do my art. I would have a very hard time complaining about anything.”

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Diary Of A Dressage Rider

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in Day 1 In October, World No. 1 dressage rider Charlotte Dujardin made her first visit to New Delhi as a Global Ambassador for the international animal welfare charity The Brooke. Accompanied by friend and fellow British Grand Prix rider Alice Oppenheimer, she recorded their eye-opening experiences and the work the charity is doing there to better the lives of working equines. By CHARLOT TE DUJAR DIN Photos courtesy of THE BROOKE

During her inaugural trip to India as a new Global Ambassador for The Brooke, Charlotte Dujardin made fast friends with an affectionate donkey foal she named Brooke.

It didn’t take long for India to hit us when we got off the plane—the traffic was incredible. There are no rules! Cars, bicycles, cows, dogs and motorbikes are all sharing the road, traveling in different directions. At one point we were on a two-lane road that seemed to have about six lanes of traffic on it.

An even bigger shock was the earthquake that struck Afghanistan [on Oct. 26, with a magnitude of 7.5], which hit with such a force that we felt it in New Delhi just after reaching our hotel. The next day our first stop was a visit to the Qalandar community in Uttar Pradesh, Northern India, where our hosts took us to see where their horses and mules graze. I went into the field and straight away thought, “My goodness, there are so many things wrong with these animals.” I was particularly drawn to a mare thought to be pregnant, who had a problem with her back leg. She was very sweet, and it was upsetting to see her condition. But after hearing about how much The Brooke has taught the animals’ owners, and what was happening before, I realized they’ve come a long way in a short time, and these animals are better cared for now than ever. There’s still more work to do, but real progress is being made.

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Charlotte and Alice posed for a photo with their Day 1 hosts in the Qalandar community in Uttar Pradesh, Northern India.

We also saw mares in foal and spent time speaking to the owners in their own homes. One of the things that struck me was the way the staff from The Brooke take the time to listen to the people and understand where they’re coming from. The teams don’t just march in here and tell people what to do. They ask questions and they understand how important these animals are to their owners. The people here really do love these horses, mules and donkeys. They want to take care of them, because they rely on them so heavily for transport and income, but they just don’t know how. We saw The Brooke teaching people 76 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016

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how best to bathe, feed and tether their animals. We met the stallion donkey that the community uses to breed mules (Alice and I called him “Bertie”) and we heard how, before The Brooke came along, eight out of 10 animals they bred would have died soon after birth, whereas now eight out of 10 survive. Then after lunch we went to a women’s group, one of many set up by The Brooke because the women of the communities are often the main caretakers of the horses, donkeys and mules. They welcomed us with open arms and showed us, with pictures and models, how they take care of their animals and what they’ve learned from The Brooke’s training. They told us a lot about how these animals support their families’ lives, how crucial they are to putting food on the table, getting their children to school, and earning money for clothes and shoes.

Day 2

e were up early for a 5 a.m. visit to a vegetable market on the outskirts of New Delhi, where we saw horses being loaded up with fruit and veg. The owners buy at wholesale prices then go around the city selling it on for a small profit. They earn around 500 rupees—just about $7.50—in these very long days. In the afternoon we went to see the brick kilns near Noida, also outside of New Delhi, where workers make, dry and fire thousands of bricks. The trip from where the bricks are made to the kiln is around half a mile, and the horses and mules who transport them pull carts piled with more than 400 bricks at a time—weighing more than a ton—and they do the journey 10 times a day, seven days a week, for six months of the year. It was horrible watching them trying to get the load moving from a standing start, straining and pulling such huge weights.

Charlotte and “Bertie,” the Qalandar community’s stud donkey. “Before The Brooke came along, eight out of 10 animals they bred would have died soon after birth, whereas now eight out of 10 survive,” she said.

A trip to the brick kilns outside of New Delhi on Day 2 proved emotional for Charlotte, as the conditions for both horses and humans were hard to fathom. The working equines there pull loads weighing more than a ton, 10 times a day, seven days a week, for six months of the year, and their owners must make over a thousand bricks to earn the equivalent of just $1.50. “I have to say, seeing what they have to do, for such a low income, nearly reduced me to tears,” she said.

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One of the main causes of injury for horses at the Dewa Equine Fair was the process of unloading from trucks with no ramps. “But it’s been made so much better by The Brooke, which has helped install a ramp for the animals to walk down, and an open area for them to adjust after being crammed into the small trucks,” Charlotte explained. “However it is still a difficult process, and a lot of injuries happen here.”

This handsome devil, whom Charlotte dubbed Steady Eddie, is owned by one of the many families who’ve benefitted from The Brooke’s training in grooming, farriery, nutrition and veterinary care. “He was a lovely creature, and we got on really well,” she said.

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The Dewa Equine Fair in Lucknow runs for around two weeks, and thousands of horses, donkeys and mules are bought and sold in that time. Many of them will go on to work in brick kilns.

It’s not only hard work for the animals, of course. Entire families work here during the brick season. There will be six to eight family members working side by side, with children as young as 7. They have to make over a thousand bricks to earn the equivalent of just $1.50. I have to say, seeing what they have to do, for such a low income, nearly reduced me to tears. The welfare of the animals here was better than I expected, but that’s thanks to The Brooke’s hard work. They make sure the horses and mules get the best care and equipment within these difficult circumstances. It’s so vital the animals are healthy, not just for their own sake, but also for the families who are so utterly reliant on them. I was honored to be able to present bags of feed and new head collars on behalf of The Brooke to those owners who had made big improvements to their animals’ wellbeing.

Day 3

n our third and final day in India, Alice and I flew to Lucknow, south of New Delhi but still within Northern India, to visit the Dewa Equine Fair. The meet runs for around two weeks, and thousands of horses, donkeys and mules are bought and sold in that time. Many of them will go on to work in brick kilns locally and throughout the state. The fair was extremely busy with both people and animals as far as the eye could see. First we visited The Brooke’s clinic, right in the middle of the fair, where they have two distinct areas: one for treatment and the other a community engagement area teaching owners and traders about how to look after their animals. There were around 40 Brooke staffers there, half of whom stay by the station, while the others move around the fair to check

up on animals and talk with traders. Amazingly, people don’t just bring their animals here to sell them now; some owners find transport for their sick or injured horses and mules and bring them all the way here just for advice and help from The Brooke’s veterinarians. Alice and I saw a number of treatments happening at the clinic—fixing of wounds, injections for infections, and advice for better saddlery, harnessing and nutrition. The most common problems here are Surra, a blood disease spread by flies, and injuries caused by the loading and unloading of animals from the trucks. We went to watch this process of unloading, which is one of the most stressful experiences for these animals. But it’s been made so much better by The Brooke, which has helped install a ramp for the animals to walk down, and an open area for them to adjust after being

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“At one point during our walk round, Alice and I came across an abandoned foal who was just a few days old. Her legs weren’t able to hold up her weight, so I just carried her to the Brooke clinic,” Charlotte recounted.

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crammed into the small trucks. However it is still a difficult process, and a lot of injuries happen here. I talked with some of the owners I met about better handling techniques and ways to tie their animals to give them more free movement. We met some wonder-

ful creatures, including a couple of affectionate donkey foals, and I showed some fair-goers just how much a donkey enjoys a good scratch on his neck, which we all smiled about. It was great to bond with people over our shared love of the animals, even with the language difficulties.

Unfortunately, despite The Brooke’s best efforts here and some positive examples, we saw many animals being mistreated or suffering from exhaustion, dehydration and malnourishment. At one point during our walk round, Alice and I came across an abandoned foal who was just a few days old. She had been born prematurely and wasn’t eating. Her legs weren’t able to hold up her weight, so I just carried her to the Brooke clinic. I named her Hope and watched the team jump into action, giving her fluids and creating a temporary bed for her in the clinic. We heard later in the day that she was standing on her own after the team had splinted her legs, and we were all thrilled, but unfortunately despite initially rallying, Hope died a few days later. It was unclear what had caused her death, but with a foal so young and so weak, there could have been many underlying factors. Looking back on my short time in India with The Brooke, I feel a rollercoaster of emotions. The progress I saw being made, the differences the charity is making to these animals and the people who rely on them for their daily survival, are so significant and real, it’s inspiring. But it was also devastating to see how so many horses, mules and donkeys are suffering, with infected wounds, swollen fetlocks, eye injuries, sores, ribs poking out and matted hair. There is so much more to be done, and I’d urge all horse lovers out there to give whatever they can to help The Brooke keep doing what it’s doing and extend its help to more of these animals.

About The Brooke

The Brooke is an international animal welfare charity dedicated to improving the lives of working horses, donkeys and mules. The Brooke believes that animal suffering is preventable and that good animal welfare protects human livelihoods. To learn more about The Brooke and its new U.S. branch, check out our feature in the May/June 2015 issue of Untacked and head to TheBrooke.org or BrookeUSA.org.

CITY GUIDE

Winter’s Not So Bad In Wilmington By KIMBERLY LOUSHIN AND KAT NETZLER

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JOHN CROPPER PHOTO

While warmer-climate winter circuits are high on hustle and bustle, bucolic Wilmington, Ohio, is beckoning more and more riders to the Country Heir series.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF ROBERTS ARENA

stablished in 1810 by a group of Quaker settlers, Wilmington, Ohio, is still known for its peacefulness. Home to one leg of the Country Heir Horse Show Series from November through April, the laidback small town offers a welcome break from the hustle and bustle of other winter circuits. Stepping away from the showgrounds can be a vacation in itself, as fast food and chains are far from the staple here. Instead they give way to privately owned restaurants with a family atmosphere. Settled in the middle of what’s referred to as the “Golden Triangle” between Cincinnati, Dayton and Columbus, Wilmington offers the attraction of nearby bigger cities with museums and sports teams yet is also a perfect location for outdoorsy types. The area is rich with state parks, arts, culture and historic locations. Local farms and orchards offer opportunities for fruit and vegetable picking, and the area’s also known for its many lavender farms. Almost any time of year, you can stumble upon a fair or festival celebrating everything from banana splits and corn to Oktoberfest and Christmas. Wilmington also boasts an indoor bluegrass festival when the weather turns chilly. And for the kids, there’s Great Wolf Lodge, located 25 minutes away in Mason, Ohio. Part of the Kings Island amusement park, the lodge is home to a huge indoor waterpark perfect for the winter months. Indiana-based hunter/jumper trainers Catherine and Richard Rinehart always try to spend one night there. “The kids love it in the winter,” said Catherine.

ROBERTS ARENA

If the weather outside is frightful, no matter; Country Heir’s Wilmington venue is like a home away from home itself. The 100,000-square foot Roberts Arena (which actually includes three massive competition rings) is billed as America’s largest, and it has all the amenities to match. In an adorable log cabin inside the indoor arena, you’ll find The Cutting Room, a full-service Aveda salon with manicure and pedicure stations, a make-up artist and a full menu of spa services. The venue also has its own grill and café, business center and kids’ play area, not to mention guest cabins, RV hookups and all the basics you’ve come to expect from a top-notch show series. 4095 State Route 730, Wilmington. (937) 382-0985. RobertsArena.com.

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JASON MORGAN MURALS

PHOTOS COURTESY OF JASON MORGAN

Wilmington is a small town big on charm thanks in part to its beautiful public art by local portraitist Jason Morgan. After first painting his vibrant farmers market and community garden murals, he completed his most recent work, the four-story Heritage Harvesters, on the Fife and Bosworth Building downtown, in the summer of 2015. JasonMorganPortraits.com.

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53 E. Main Street, Wilmington. (937) 382-6300. Find them on Facebook.

THE GENERAL DENVER HOTEL

Built in 1928, The General Denver Hotel is conveniently situated right in the middle of town, and it offers a unique experience, taking you back to a time before phones existed. Stay for the week (guests are served breakfast daily) or just stop in for Sunday brunch (which locals describe as “to die for”—don’t miss The General’s buttermilk pancakes, made with owner Mark Dullea’s secret recipe) or a nice meal after a long day of showing. Their menu features your typical pub fare, and there’s a wide selection of their “infamous” gourmet burgers. While the hotel might bring you back in time, the pub has TVs and hosts live bands on the weekend. If you’re a real foodie, don’t miss their monthly tastings, which feature five courses and a drink pairing for each. Just don’t forget to make a reservation. 81 W. Main Street, Wilmington. (937) 383-4141. GeneralDenver.com.

THE MURPHY THEATRE

If you’re seeking refuge from the worst winter weather but also craving a little culture as well, Wilmington’s historic Murphy Theatre is definitely worth a visit. Opened in 1918, the beautiful landmark is as inspiring as the concerts and performances it stages. 50 W. Main Street, Wilmington. (937) 382-3643. TheMurphyTheatre.org.

JOHN CROPPER PHOTO

If you’re looking for great Italian and Mediterranean fare, this is the place. A quaint local restaurant, the Mediterranean is well known for its welcoming atmosphere and friendly service and has become quite popular with the horse show crowd. It’s a smaller restaurant but is always packed, so get there early if you want to come during prime lunch and dinner hours. With classic Italian dishes, create-yourown-pasta dinners, gourmet salads and grinders, there’s something for everyone. Their spinach and artichoke dip appetizer is a local favorite. They also offer glutenfree pasta options at affordable prices. They’re closed on Mondays and close before dinner on Sundays.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE GENERAL DENVER

MEDITERRANEAN RESTAURANT & CAFE

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PHOTO COURTESY OF SPILLWAY LODGE

CITY GUIDE

SPILLWAY LODGE

Steak lovers need look no further. Read the reviews on Spillway’s Facebook page, and you’ll immediately get the message that their prime rib is “the best ever.” Located 10 miles outside of Wilmington, the Spillway Lodge dining room offers beautiful views of the nearby East Todd Fork River. “[Spillway] is a very cool and unique restaurant in the country with rustic atmosphere, a great salad bar, steak and seafood,” says Kentucky hunter/jumper trainer Elaine Schott. Catherine Rinehart also counts Spillway as one of her favorite spots when she heads to town. “We like to sit in a booth where you can see the water. They have good food and a great salad bar,” says the Indiana-based trainer. Off the beaten path, the parking lot is a cornfield, and previous patrons have gotten stuck—but Schott says they’ll pull you out! 623 Old State Road, Clarksville. (937) 289-2168. Find them on Facebook.

ROD’S CAPRICORN INN RESTAURANT

This unassuming dive is just a short drive from the Roberts Arena, so if you’ve got some time between classes, this is the place to go for a horse show lunch. They have the reputation for the best burgers in town, and one reviewer proudly said, “Drove 32 miles to get my Rod Burger! Worth it! I’d do it again!” Their signature burger is by far the most popular menu item, and too small a portion is never a problem. Finish off your meal with a piece of their famed peanut butter pie or a cinnamon roll (or if you wish, just duck in for one). You won’t regret it. Be aware, they only accept cash, but they do have an ATM on site. 6660 State Route 730, Wilmington. (937) 382-4357. Find them on Facebook.

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BEAUGARD’S SOUTHERN BAR “B” QUE

If you’re a barbecue fan, you’ve found the right place. Beaugard’s offers smoked meats that fall off the bone and savory sides. While everything is good, the most popular item is their pulled pork sandwiches. Sides are sold separately, but with their low prices, you’ll walk away with a full stomach and a good deal. Just try to save room, because their desserts shouldn’t be missed. The restaurant is owned and operated by Marty Beaugard, a 22-year veteran of the Air Force, and his family is originally from Blytheville, Ark., with 40 years in the food service industry. Their goal is to serve you with a feeling of Southern hospitality. Marty’s parents opened the restaurant in Wilmington in June 2000, and he took over in December 2005. While management has changed, the homemade Memphis-style barbecue has remained the same. “We try to treat everybody like they’re part of the family,” said Marty. “Except in football season! I kind of give people a hard time if they’re not [Cincinnati] Bengals fans, but that’s all good too!” 975 S. South Street, Wilmington. (937)-655-8100. BeaugardsBBQ.com.

PHOTO COURTESY OF KAVA HAUS

ROZIC DESIGN PHOTO

GENERATIONS PIZZERIA

Wilmington’s aptly named pizza joint was opened in 1962 by current owner Kerry Steed’s grandparents. Generations most popular concoctions include “The BIG Meat,” which includes sausage, bacon, ham and pepperoni, and “The Hot Big,” made with jalapeño peppers, banana peppers, onions, ham and sausage. The menu boasts 14 gourmet pizzas, 25 toppings to choose from if you wish to create your own, and a wide variety of draft and imported beer. Gluten-free crust is available on all pizzas, and Generations also offers wings, sub sandwiches and fresh salads. If you prefer to stay in, they do deliver, and your beer and wine can be brought to your door. 100 Lowes Drive, Wilmington. (937) 382-3845. GenerationsPizzeria.com.

AUSTIN’S CASUAL EATERY & BAR

If you’re looking for a place with good food, a full-service bar and a relaxing atmosphere to decompress after a show day, look no further than Austin’s Casual Eatery & Bar. Located in downtown Wilmington, Austin’s menu is an ever-changing rotation of pub fare. Their daily specials are posted to their Facebook page every morning around 10 a.m. It’s not often that you’ll find the owner taking orders and bussing tables alongside the staff, but Austin’s owner has been known to be out on the restaurant floor throughout the dinner service. If you stop in on a Saturday evening, you might be treated to free entertainment. Austin’s often has a live band or DJ on site with no cover charge. 35 S. South Street, Wilmington. (937) 283-9600. Find them on Facebook.

KAVA HAUS

If you’re looking for a quiet atmosphere and a homemade baked good to go with an excellent cup of coffee, Kava Haus is the place for you. A newer establishment in Wilmington, Kava Haus is run by the Heys family out of their home. The Heyses spent several years looking for the right location, and they found their spot in a historic house on Locust Street. Kava Haus offers both a light and a dark roast daily. The beans come from nearby Stoney Creek Rosters in Cedarville, Ohio, and are roasted on request, ensuring freshness. Or if you’re looking for something a bit fancier, they can make “any type of latte or cappuccino or mocha you could imagine,” according to owner Brad Heys. They also boast a seasonal menu with favorites such as pumpkin and peppermint. You’d be remiss to leave without a scone, but be warned, they go quickly. The menu boasts 25 different flavors on a rotational basis, with five or six varieties daily. On Saturdays only they offer homemade cinnamon rolls and sticky buns—a local favorite. When you walk in you might notice a guitar sitting in the corner; if you’re up to it, you’re welcome to give it a strum. “Every once in a while somebody will just pop in and sit down and play for a few minutes, and I tell people, ‘If you know what you’re doing, feel free to grab it,’ ” says Heys. 187 E. Locust Street, Wilmington. (937) 527-3725. Find them on Facebook.

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DO IT YOURSELF Easy, Equine-Themed Organizers Looking for some kid-f riendly snow day craft projects? These DI Ys are fail-proof and fun. Stor y and photos by RAQUEL LYNN

Supplies • Assorted jars with matching lids • Plastic toy horses or other figures • Spray paint • Super glue

Horsey Storage Jars

othing puts me at peace like organization, which is why I was inspired to make these cute horsethemed decorative jars. First you’ll need to gather a collection of lidded glass jars (think pickle, pasta sauce or Mason jars) and adorable equine toppers. I raided my childhood farm set for its plastic ponies, and they were the perfect size. But you can also find horse figurines at your local dollar store or farm supply store. Add a tiny bit of super glue (consider getting the gel kind, because it’s easier to work with, as opposed to liquid) to the bottom of your horses’ feet and stick them to the lid. Let them sit for an hour, then come back and spray paint the entire top as one piece. To avoid your paint dripping, err on the side of holding the can too far away at first. It’s just that easy! The storage possibilities are endless, and I have a feeling I’m going to be making a lot more of these handy jars soon.

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DO IT YOURSELF

xclusive Linda Luster scarf depicting eight sport horse disciplines: Dressage, Reining, Endurance, Vaulting, Para Dressage, Show Jumping, Driving, and Eventing. Pure silk, hand-rolled edges.

$60.00 plus s&h

Supplies

Leather And Bit Box

• A simple box—it can be an old shoebox, or something from IKEA or a local craft store. Just make sure it’s strong and meant to last. • Good quality paint (I used Martha Stewart Vintage Decor paint in ivory.) • Miniature snaffle bits. I purchased my gold snaffles from Beading Babes Boutique on Etsy. I went with the smaller sized bits, but you can get larger ones, and silver too. • Leather string (available at your local craft store) • A good glue. I used Aleene’s Tacky Glue for applying the leather to the box and Aleene’s Super Gel Adhesive for attaching the bits. • Ruler • X-Acto knife

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y office area shelving is small but presents an opportunity for a stylish display, and I happened to find the most beautiful leather and brass snaffle bit box sets online… for more than $135. So instead I fashioned my own out of a scratched up but sturdy designer Badgley Mischka box. Start by giving your box two good coats of paint, and allow it to dry completely before attempting to attach your bits and leather. Then measure around your box and determine the amount of leather you need and where to place your bits. Use a pencil to make tiny dots and mark out placements. Carefully add a few drops of glue and secure the snaffle bits one side at a time first. Allow them to dry for at least an hour and then proceed with placing the leather. Measure, cut and glue the leather strips one at a time until complete. Voila!

>> This project originally appeared on author Raquel Lynn’s lifestyle blog, Horses & Heels. You can find many more equestrian-themed DIY how-tos at horsesandheels.com.

The Official Education Sponsor OF WEF 2016 • B O C A R AT O N • W E L L I N G T O N •

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For over 25 years, Palm Beach International Academy (PBIA) has been the premier educational provider for the equestrian community, developing individualized academic programs for students of all levels and learning styles. We offer year-round, custom programs to help student-athletes maintain academic excellence while training, traveling and competing. PBIA has an 8,000 sq ft center adjacent to the showgrounds in Wellington and another center in Boca Raton. We also offer educational services at horse shows in Ocala, Gulfport, Tryon and around the world. Joanne Weiner, Executive Director "For years, I've been a trainer to students whom I've sent to Palm Beach International Academy, and now as the step-dad to Taylor Griffiths, I have witnessed firsthand what a great experience and opportunity it is for students to work with them." Frank Madden, Old Salem Farm "All that I can say about Palm Beach International Academy is how lucky I was to be a student of theirs. Ever since I was a child I knew I wanted to make it to the Olympic Games and that took intense dedication and most of my time. PBIA allowed me to give the same dedication to my academic career as I did to my Showjumping career. I can't thank PBIA enough and its incredible staff of teachers who helped me maintain a high standard of education while pursuing my athletic dreams." Reed Kesler, Former Student and Olympian

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T H E E D U C AT I O N A L P O S S I B I L I T I E S A R E E N D L E S S AT P B I A !

CHARITY SPOTLIGHT A CLOSER LOOK AT:

Gallant Chance Ranch

The “Code of the West” inspires at-risk teen boys in rural Montana. By JENNIFER B. CALDER Photo by STEPHANNIE CAMOSSE

tephannie Camosse was simply looking for a place to board her horse when she stumbled into Gallant Chance Ranch in September of 2014. A hunter/jumper rider originally from Massachusetts, she’d attended college in Montana, and during that time she’d always been impressed by Jon and Karen Goff’s facility on the outskirts of Belgrade, Mont. But even more notable was the work they were doing for troubled local teens on their ranch. “When Jon asked if I knew anyone who had experience working with youth and horses, I thought, ‘Meeeee?’ ” Camosse, 24, says with a laugh. “I knew it was a long shot, but I decided to take it anyway. I’ve been around horses since In 2012, Jon Goff and his wife Karen started a youth program at their Gallant Chance Ranch with a mission to D.R.E.A.M.: Develop Responsible, Employable and Ambitious Mindsets through the power of horses, hard work and the “Code of the West.”

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I was 3. I’ve volunteered with kids with ADD and ADHD and have a brother who is a heroin addict, so I was very familiar with the issues of troubled youth.” The long shot paid off, and Camosse was hired this June as their development director. Started by the Goffs in 2012, Gallant Chance Ranch’s mission is to D.R.E.A.M., an acronym for: Develop Responsible, Employable and Ambitious Mindsets through the power of horses, hard work and “the Code of the West.” “This program was Karen’s idea. When she was a kid, she spent a lot of time after school at the barn and thought, ‘Wow, this would keep a lot of kids out of trouble, keep them busy, keep them focused, have them learn something,” recounts Camosse. “There are 10 principles in the Code of the West/Cowboy Ethics—very simple but powerful rules that are applicable to almost every single aspect of life.” Cowboy Ethics is a Wyoming-based program created by James P. Owen and utilized by the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. Jon and Camosse attended training workshops with Owen and brought the program to Montana. For the first two years, prior to hiring Camosse, the Goffs accepted teens into their program from the Bozeman, Mont., probation system. But they’ve since adjusted their mission and are focusing on helping high school boys before they end up in the system. “We’ve created a four-phase curriculum that runs year-round,” Camosse explains. “This year, for the first time, we are starting in the high schools, kind of as a preventative measure.” Phase One involves spending time with the boys one to two days a week after

school, teaching the Cowboy Creed. “The Cowboy Ethics teachings are all through games. We lay the foundation during the year and make it fun,” says Camosse. Phase Two is G.R.I.T. (Guts, Resilience, Integrity and Tenacity) Camp, during which boys spend two weeks in the wilderness (with no phones and no computers) to implement the Cowboy Creed taught in Phase One. Phase Three takes place over the summer break, with an emphasis on fun and responsibility. They learn horsemanship skills, go on pack trips, and work on local ranches. The all-important Phase Four? Employment. “They’ll graduate from the summer portion, and we’ll set them up with core employers who are part of our program. It could be construction or the [agricultural] industry,” Camosse says. “The core employer reports back to us and gives us updates on what we need to work on with that particular kid.” Unlike some youth equestrian programs, Gallant Chance Ranch isn’t therapy-based. “We are not about babying or coddling. We are not equipped for that, to be honest. We just want these boys—and we only take boys—to learn to be gentlemen through this principled creed, and it’s so simple. We feel cowboys really represent the best of America,” says Camosse. “The counselors at their high schools call these children ‘the forgotten ones,’ ” she says. “They’re not excelling, but they’re not the lowest of the low. They’re kind of in the middle. Some don’t have great home lives, they don’t have a lot of friends, they don’t have a lot of self-esteem.

>> WHAT IT IS: Gallant Chance Ranch is a

non-profit organization that utilizes Cowboy Ethics, a program created by writer and philanthropist James P. Owen to inspire at-risk teen boys to take ownership of their lives. The 10 central maxims, based on the unwritten “Code of the West,” are: 1. Live each day with courage. 2. Take pride in your work. 3. Always finish what you start. 4. Do what has to be done. 5. Be tough, but fair. 6. When you make a promise, keep it. 7. Ride for the brand. 8. Talk less and say more. 9. Remember that some things aren’t for sale. 10. Know where to draw the line.

>> LEARN MORE: Visit

GallantChanceRanch.org or Facebook.com/ GallantChanceRanch.

GET IN TOUCH: Contact Development Director Stephannie Camosse at src@ gallantchanceranch.org or (774) 289-6344.

>> GET INVOLVED: The ranch welcomes

monetary donations, which can be made via their website, and they’re always looking for new local volunteers. Cowboy Ethics training will be provided.

“I want those kids,” Camosse continues. “I want them to know there’s more to life than just hanging in the middle.” Camosse says that her brother, who’s now 36, has had a record since he was 7. “The majority of my memories [of him] are visiting him in jail; then the drug use came along,” she says. “I haven’t seen him in a very long time. But if I can help one kid not turn out like him, my job will have been successful. I think, had there been a program like Gallant Chance Ranch available to him when he was younger, things would have been much different.”

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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016

BEST OF WEB & PRINT

What’s Hot On The Web u Come Behind The Stall

u Are You A Sportsman Or A Gamesman? Inspired by recent proposed changes to the Olympic eventing format, eventer Matt Brown has written a thought-provoking and highly shared column about how we approach competition in horse sports at coth.com/article/are-you-sportsman-or-gamesman. “As athletes we have to decide what winning means to us,” he writes. “Is a win really a win if the methods used to get there are explicitly illegal or even go against the spirit of the rules? Is not winning still a loss if we have made improvements and given our all?”

If you’re already a fan of our Behind Barn Doors farm tours in the magazine, you won’t want to miss the Behind The Stall Door series at coth.com/category/ tags / behind-stalldoor. They’re some of the most popular features on our website, and they provide a unique look behind the scenes into the daily lives of some of our sports’ most famous equine athletes, like Hello Sanctos, Monterrey, Brunello and even the Budweiser Clydesdales. Check in on Tuesdays for new installments on famous horses’ strange quirks and favorite treats, and their grooms’ secrets for success.

u Meet Our COTH Horse Show Dad

PHOTO COURTESY OF CHAD OLDFATHER

If you haven’t met new blogger Chad Oldfather yet, now’s the time. He’s a non-horsey father of two junior hunter/jumper/equitation riders, and he’s taking readers along on his horse show-parenting journey. By day, he’s a law professor in Wisconsin, but on weekends and evenings, he can be found, laptop in hand, ringside at a lesson or show. Check out his first blog, “My Soul For An Equitation Horse,” to get to know him, and read up to his most recent post about his experiences auditing George Morris clinics, all at coth.com/category/ author-name/blogger-chad-oldfather.

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PHOTO COURTESY OF MATT BROWN

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Don’t Miss In The Magazine u Cloning: A Chance To Preserve

Genetics Or “An Admission Of Failure”? STALLION ISSU E: The Dutch

Cattleman Wh o Ma

Though not all approve, equine cloning has opened new doors in the breeding industry, and in our annual Stallion Issue (Dec. 7), writer Stacey Reap takes a thorough look at how the practice CLONING is playing out across the sport horse world. Pick up a copy today to find how much influence cloned stallions are exerting on the breeding industry, how host mare DNA makes exact genetic copies impossible, and what the clones of famous horses like Ratina Z, Gem Twist and Sapphire are up to today.

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Inside:

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How The Equi tainer Came To Be p. 58 New GR404 And Its Potential Com plications p. 110 Indoor Eventing: Is Promotion Worth The Peril s? p. 114

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u Sharing Our Readers’ Wisdom u Foxhunting Fun For All

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Overwhelmed by all the tack cleaning options on the market? In our Nov. 2 issue of the Chronicle, we asked the experts—you, our loyal readers—for their take on favorite products and methods. You’ll want to keep this issue in your tackroom as a reference for great tips on battling mold and mildew, de-griming tricky tack, pennypinching versus splurging, and how to bring leather back from the brink.

Whether you’re a lifelong hunt club member or have never once ridden to hounds, you’ll still find something to catch your fancy in our Nov. 23 & 30 Foxhunting Issue. In it, reporter Jennifer Calder heads out with the MFHA’s newest—and perhaps most unconventional—pack, Big Sky Hounds in beautiful Montana, and Erin Harty profiles the efforts of many U.S. hunts to prioritize proper retirement planning for their hounds in her story “On The Hunt For A Couch To Call Their Own.” You can also get to know Mooreland Hunt jt.-MFH and future MFHA president Leslie Rhett Crosby and learn about the tailoring traditions of Savile Row, London, where foxhunting’s finest garments have been custom made for centuries.

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My Kingdom For A Throatlatch Photo by PIERRE COSTABADIE/ARND.NL Brazilian show jumper Marlon Módolo Zanotelli’s mount Vera took an impromptu tour around the ring at the 2015 La Baule CSI (France) sans rider and bridle.

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