Untacked december2016-january2017 by HRCS

The CHRONICLE of the HORSE

THE EQUESTRIAN LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE

From India, With Love THE MARWARI HORSES OF RAJASTHAN

Winter Wonderlands

See stunning vistas with “Life Between The Ears”

LIGHTS, CAMERA, GALLOP

Movie horse magic with the Naprous family

SAFETY FIRST

INNOVATIONS FROM HEAD TO TAIL

BELLE BEACH

History’s forgotten horsewoman A SUPPLEMENT TO THE CHRONICLE OF THE HORSE

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

OW NER K E E N TO SE LL B E AU T I F U L 4 . 7 AC R E P RO P E RT Y 2648 Appaloosa Trail Wellington, Florida

$7.42 Million

BRILLIANT AND BEAUTIFUL BARN AND HOME IN WELLINGTON. A TWELVE M I N U T E W A L K T O T H E S H O W .

INCREDIBLY COMPELLING PRICE & STEPS AWAY FROM WEF 2488 APPALOOSA TRAIL WELLINGTON, FLORIDA

$6.9 Million

MARIA MENDELSOHN, SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT EQUESTRIAN REAL ESTATE

10680 W. Forest Hill Boulevard, Wellington, FL 33414 C: 561.758.1605 maria@mariamendelsohn.com © 2015 Douglas Elliman Real Estate. All material presented herein is intended for information purposes only. While, this information is believed to be correct, it is represented subject to errors, omissions, changes or withdrawal without notice. All property information, including, but not limited to square footage, room count, number of bedrooms and the school district in property listings are deemed reliable, but should be veriﬁed by your own attorney, architect or zoning expert. Equal Housing Opportunity.

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JANUARY 12TH - MARCH 26TH, 2017 AGDF 1 BROOKE USA CDI-W / National - Lloyd Landkamer Memorial Jan 12-15 AGDF 2 CPEDI 3* (Para) Jan 20-22 AGDF 3 UNITED STATES P.R.E. ASSOCIATION CDI-W / National Jan 26-29 AGDF 4 Wellington Eventing Showcase Feb 3-5 AGDF 5 DIAMANTE FARMS CDI 5* / National Feb 9-12 AGDF 6 National Feb 17-18 AGDF 7 AXEL JOHNSON GROUP CDI-W / National Feb 23-26 AGDF 8 EVERGLADES DRESSAGE CDI-W (Palm Beach Derby) / National March 2-5 AGDF 9 CPEDI 3* (Para)/ National March 10-12 AGDF 10 HAVENSAFE FARM CDI 4* / National March 16-19 AGDF 11 STILLPOINT FARM CDIO 3* / National March 22-26

Grand Prix Village - There’s a 16-stall barn that includes a half-bathroom, two tack rooms, two feed rooms, and wash stations. A one-bedroom grooms’ apartment is on the second floor of the building, and includes a full bathroom and kitchen. Connected to the barn is a full owners’ home with vaulted ceilings and a gourmet kitchen. Offered at $13,950,000

Grand Prix Village - With six-acres of land, an 18stall center aisle barn, gorgeous lake views, and hacking distance to the Winter Equestrian Festival, this property has everything a discerning equestrian could desire. There’s a spacious owners’ lounge with vaulted ceilings and skylights. Grass Grand Prix field and all weather ring in place. Offered at $12,750,000

Across from Horse Show - 4.5 acre farm boasts solar tunnel lighting, solar panel power, gorgeous bamboo wood Rower & Rub Stalls, Nelson automatic waters, and a luxurious detached owners lounge overlooking the ring. The home has a pool with outdoor kitchen and balcony that overlooks the farm. Offered at $12,750,000

Grand Prix Village - The center -aisle barn includes 20-stalls, 2 large tack rooms, 4 wash/grooming stalls, 2 feed rooms, 2 storage rooms, laundry, a full bathroom, and an office. The second-story serves as a luxurious owner’s penthouse. This open and spacious retreat has a bedroom and full bath, as well as a full kitchen that flows into the living and dining rooms. Offered at $10,950,000

Grand Prix Village - Newly constr ucted 20-stall equestrian facility with spacious 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom owner’s quarters upstairs and amazing kitchen with top-of-the-line appliances. Downstairs viewing room opens to the riding arena. Full bathroom and office with plenty of storage, 4 wash stalls, laundry, tack and feed rooms. Offered at $10,900,000

Grand Prix Village - Situated on 4-acres of lush land, is an amazing 20-stall barn with 4 wash stalls, 2 tack rooms, a laundry room, and a feed room. The owners’ lounge has a beautiful fireplace as the focal point, as well as a kitchen with great room for entertaining and a wonderful view of the 220’ x 120’ competition ring with superior custom footing. Offered at $9,300,000

Saddle Trail - Customizable 30 stall farm with 3bedroom, 3 bathroom pool home on 6.25 acres in Saddle Trail. This superbly designed professional farm is complete with a huge sub-irrigated (Riso System) Ring with Martin Collins CLOPF Footing, grand prix jump field, lounging ring and a 6 horse covered walker. Short hack to WEF showgrounds. Offered at $8,000,000

Las Palmas Equestrian - Stunning 10 or 15 acre equestrian estate in private gated enclave. The property offers a 4Br/4Ba main residence, 2Br/2Ba managers home with two additional staff apartments, totaling 4 bedrooms. The equine amenities offered are a 12 stall stable, jumping arena, grass grand prix or hunter field & large turnouts and room for a covered riding arena. Offered at $8,500,000

Saddle Trail - 30 stall equestrian facility with 5bedroom, 3.5 bath pool home on 6.2 acres in Saddle Trail. Farm is complete with a new Olympic all weather sub-irrigated ring, grass jump field, 6 horse Kraft covered walker and a detached storage garage. Offered at $7,250,000

Carol A. Sollak, P.A. • Phone +1 561-818-9476 • Fax +1 561-791-2221 www.carolsollak.evusa.com • Wellington, Florida • Carol.Sollak@evusa.com

©2017 Engel & Völkers. All rights reserved. Each brokerage independently owned and operated. All information provided is deemed reliable but is not guaranteed and should be independently verified. Engel & Völkers and its independent License Partners are Equal Opportunity Employers and fully support the principles of the Fair Housing Act.

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MARTHA W. JOLICOEUR

PALM BEACH POLO CLUB ESTATE Rarely does an exquisite home of this magnitude become available in the elite gated Bridle Path neighborhood, near the area’s world famous equestrian festivities. The main home and guest cottage provide a total of 6 bedrooms, 7 full baths and 2 half baths. Other features include a well-equipped kitchen, a remarkable cherry paneled library, infinity pool, 2 fireplaces, and a golf course view. $8,450,000.

Professional Equestrian Facility This fabulous 15-acre property includes a large covered arena complete with GGT footing, an outdoor GGT all-weather arena, 42 stalls, 18 spacious paddocks, walker, and round pen. The 3 bedroom/2.5 bath main home and 1 bedroom/1 bath, and numerous staff quarters overlook a beautiful lake with a sunset view. $9,000,000.

Equestrian Paradise in Jupiter Farms Nestled on 6.7 acres, the 5 bedroom/5.5 bath main home overlooks a fully equipped eight stall center-aisle barn. The main house is complete with exposed pecky cypress wood beams, a “saloon style” bar, and more. Built for the serious horseman, the equestrian facilities include a 125’X250’ riding ring, 1-bedroom apartment, tack/feed rooms, and 11 irrigated paddocks with 12 adjacent stalls in various sizes. $2,950,000.

PROVIDING THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF PROFESSIONAL REAL ESTATE SERVICE FOR THE GLOBAL EQUESTRIAN COMMUNITY.

Estate in Paddock Park 2 This lavish 4 bedroom, 4.5 bath estate features impact glass, fireplaces throughout, a gourmet kitchen, and a detached 1 bedroom/1 bath guest cottage. A full summer kitchen and heated pool and jacuzzi can be found in the expansive backyard. The seven-stall centeraisle barn is finished with a tack room, wash stall, feed/laundry room, sand ring, and plenty of paddocks. $3,789,000

10 Acres in Rustic Ranches Minutes away from the Wellington Environmental Preserve and WEF show grounds— this property offers a fantastic opportunity to build an equestrian facility. Fully fenced, the sizable lot is located directly across from the main bridle path leading right to the show grounds. Made up of two 5-acre lots with 3 acres fully irrigated, the property currently holds permits for 40 stalls. $1,275,000.

Renovated Saddle Trail Park Home This single-family home features marvelous renovations with land to spare for a barn and ring. The community offers miles of bridle paths to be enjoyed. This incredible 3 bedroom/2 bath home features brand new kitchen and baths, impact glass, wood floors, and a stunning pool with built-in spa. $1,650,000.

Southfields Equestrian Estate

Palm Beach Point Estate On this sprawling 5.77 acre lot in Palm Beach Point, within hacking distance from WEF, could soon be a new 12-stall show barn. The main house boasts 4 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, marble floors, and a cherry gourmet kitchen. Permitting and site work have begun, and your new barn with the finest amenities can be ready for next season should you choose to move forward with it. $2,750,000.

Offering easy access to bridle paths, this home is within hacking distance of IPC and all WEF show grounds. The property boasts an immaculate 4 bedroom, 4.5 bath home including guest cottage, 12-stall courtyard barn with 8 paddocks, regulation dressage arena with mirror, and a lovely pool. $5,900,000.

Martha W. Jolicoeur, PA marthasproperties.com martha@marthasproperties.com

561 797 8040

11199 Polo Club Road Wellington, FL 33414 All information deemed reliable as of the date of this publication, but not guaranteed. Not intended to solicit a property already listed. Equal housing opportunity.

s t n e t n Co

Untacked The C HRONICLE of the HORSE

VOL. 5, NO. 1

J A N U A R Y/ F E B R U A R Y 2 017

36 Hollywood Horses 48 The Striking

Beauty—And Ears— Of The Marwari Horse

56 At Home With

Melanie Smith Taylor

66 Seeing Sunny

Segovia Through Gray Ears

82 Belle Beach: Ahead HELEN SLOAN/HBO PHOTO

Of Her Time

88 Vive La Différence ON THE COVER: Paula Da Silva Photo

14 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

U N TAC K E D

PAULA DA SILVA PHOTO

KAT NETZLER PHOTO

Cozy up to the lightweight Ideal Down Vest & insulated Coniston Boot with GORE-TEX® waterproof construction.

More information at Ariat.com

s t n e t n Co Departments 18

Editor’s Letter

Contributors

Around The Arena

Editor’s Picks: Weatherbeeta ComFiTec Premier Trio Detach-ANeck Blanket

Tech Spotlight: The Electronic Heel Position Indicator

Test Lab: Dry Shampoo

The Clothes Horse: Safety Gear

Seeing The World With “Life Between The Ears”

City Guide: Franklin, Tenn.

100

Feed Room: Recipes From Dr. Steven Berkowitz

104

Book Reviews

106

Charity Spotlight: This Old Horse

110

Best Of Web & Print

112

Parting Ways

AMY K. DRAGOO PHOTO

CODY MULLENAX/@WASATCHWOODY PHOTO

100

16 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

U N TAC K E D

KNOW WHERE YOU STAND. More information at Ariat.com

EDITOR’S LETTER

When Your Passions Dictate Your Path Leaders in business, in technology, and, yes, the equestrian world, often take roads others don’t even consider. In hindsight, viewing them from the point at which they’re already successful, their choices might seem logical. After all, the story ends well. But you forget that, in the moments they made those unorthodox choices, they likely faced backlash for bucking tradition—and more than a few sleepless nights. The stars of one of this issue’s stories, “Hollywood Horses” (p. 36), are no different. From the patriarch of their family, Gerard Naprous, to his children, Dan and Camilla, all have made decisions most would consider untraditional at best, foolhardy at worst. Gerard’s family owned an auto shop and assumed he’d join the family business, but he discovered an affinity for horses at a young age, and he set out on an entirely different path— one that’s resulted in a rewarding career training horses for the biggest movies and television shows. His son Dan Naprous dropped out of traditional school at 15, and daughter Camilla at 14. Not completing high school isn’t a choice most do—or should—choose. But it’s worked for them. There’s a lot to be said for making sensible decisions in life—looking before you leap, following the path of least resistance, planning for your future in a sustainable way, taking the smart advice. But, as those of us who enjoy a life with horses well know, it’s not everything. Equestrians are passionate about their horses, and so they tend to be passionate about everything else as well—and that passion dictates your choices in all areas of life. You can see it in other stories in this Untacked, from

18 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

U N TAC K E D

photographer Paula Da Silva traveling to India, following her passions for photography and horses and capturing some unbelievable images in the process (p. 48), to Melanie Smith Taylor, who carried a flame for Wildwood Farm from her childhood until she eventually made a life there (p. 56). When Nancy Turner, founder of this issue’s Charity Spotlight (p. 106), started This Old Horse, it was with the acknowledgment that her business plan wasn’t fully workable. But then her community rallied around her, an example of one person’s passion igniting the same in others. In a way, you can even note that passion in our regular “Life Between The Ears” feature (p. 76), as riders all over the globe throw a leg over their horses and, quite literally, set out on the roads less traveled—through snow, through rain, through frigid cold, through some difficult life circumstances, too—when it’d undoubtedly be easier and safer to stay inside. Success, with horses and otherwise, is always a unique, and most likely unrepeatable from case to case, recipe of hard work and luck. But it also undoubtedly involves taking some risks, following your own passion down a path that at first seems impenetrable, or at the very least snow-covered.

—Lisa Slade

ANDREW HOCK PHOTO

I’m always fascinated by the stories of high-profile trailblazers or entrepreneurs. So rarely do their autobiographies read: “I did exactly what I was supposed to do every step of the way.”

WORLD EQUESTRIAN CENTER Junior Rider Clinics Horsemanship Skills CREDITS

for Showing

WEC

Photo courtesy of Andrew Ryback Photography

LEARN EARN

Photos courtesy Tracy Emanuel Photography

For more information email:

cadets@robertsarena.com

Quality. Class. Distinction. www.wec.net

CONTRIBUTORS

MAARTEN DINGS PHOTO

KEVIN THOMPSON/THE HORSE PHOTO

In This Issue

Tricia Conahan

Paula Da Silva

Stephanie Church

Sarah Farnsworth

Megan Brincks

A former junior equitation rider, Tricia Conahan grew up on the show circuit in Canada before selling her horses and pursuing a career in New York City as a corporate marketing and sales executive. More than 30 years later, Tricia is now joyfully back in the saddle, and she competes her two geldings Max and Clark in the adult amateur hunters. She retired from the corporate grind and is a freelance writer and columnist for several equestrian publications. When she is not on deadline or on a horse, Tricia can be found at home in Atlanta with her husband and two rambunctious but grateful rescue dogs.

Born in Angola, Africa, to Portuguese parents, Paula Da Silva has been based in Italy for the past 35 years. She’s been an equine photographer for 30 years, with a focus on travel, behavior and veterinary issues. She’s traveled to many countries to shoot—with a camera, of course—endangered breeds of horses and to capture the cultural background in which they exist. Her work’s been featured in magazines worldwide, and she also hosts traveling photography workshops.

Stephanie Church is editor-inchief of The Horse: Your Guide To Equine Health Care and TheHorse.com, a Lexington, Ky.-based magazine and website with international horse owner and veterinary readership. She also edits Off-Track Thoroughbred magazine, a quarterly publication she and her team launched for Retired Racehorse Project. Stephanie recently began competing in eventing again after a long hiatus. In addition to riding, Stephanie enjoys writing, traveling, cooking and cycling.

Based in the Cotswolds district of England, Sarah has been documenting the countryside, specializing in foxhunting but also covering all manner of British sport, for 10 seasons and earned numerous awards for her stunning photography. Her work has appeared previously in The Chronicle of the Horse and is regularly featured in magazines such as Country Life, The Field and Horse & Hound.

A former staff reporter for The Chronicle of the Horse, Megan now lives with her dog and cat in Midland, Texas, where she works for a local community college. With time spent in almost every kind of saddle over the years, she rides whenever she gets the chance, recently focusing on eventing. In addition to spending time with and riding horses, she enjoys reading, traveling and hiking.

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

MATT MENDELSOHN PHOTO

Manuscripts and photographs, accompanied by return postage, will be handled with care. Publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material. Copyright© 2016 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.

Kat Netzler

Eliza McGraw

Julia Arnold

After growing up eventing in the Midwest and attending journalism school at the University of Georgia, Kat spent nine years serving on The Chronicle of the Horse’s editorial staff, first in its Middleburg, Va., main office and then in Chicago. She’s now the director of communications at a youth-focused social change non-profit in Memphis, where she lives with her husband Brett, Fitz the corgi and Burger the pit bull.

Eliza McGraw is the author of Here Comes Exterminator!, which was published in April 2016 and is about the 1918 Kentucky Derby winner. She has also written two academic books and is a contributing writer for numerous equestrian publications. She has contributed to The New York Times’ racing blog, and The Washington Post. Eliza has been riding since she was 3, and she keeps her American Paint Horse Association mare Dude’s Cupid Prize (or “Sugar”) in Potomac, Md. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband, two children and two corgis.

Julia Arnold is a freelance writer based in Minnesota, covering topics from motherhood to horses to education and everything in between. She is also a licensed learning disabilities teacher. When she isn’t writing, tutoring, or spending time with her husband John and two busy young children, she is riding or snapping photos of the beautiful Morgan horses at Hardwood Creek Farm.

20 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

U N TAC K E D

THE CHRONICLE OF THE HORSE (ISSN 0009-5990) is published January 16, January 23, February 6, February 20, February 27, March 6, March 20, March 27, April 3, April 17, April 24, May 1, May 15, May 29, June 5, June 19, July 3, July 10, July 24, August 7, August 14, August 21, September 4, September 18, September 25, October 9, October 16, October 23, November 6, November 13, November 27, December 11, December 18 and December 25 in 2017 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@coth.com. SUBSCRIPTION RATES United States and possessions $59.95/yr. Canada $79.95/yr. Foreign (other than Canada) $159.95/yr. For all subscription options see www.coth.com. POSTMASTER SUBMIT ADDRESS CHANGES TO P.O. Box 433288, Palm Coast, Florida 32143-3288 CANADA POST Publications Mail Agreement #40612608 Canada Returns to be sent to Bleuchip International, P.O. Box 25542, London, ON, N6C6B2

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The C HRONICLE of the HORSE

Untacked Volume 5 • Number 1 • January/February 2017

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J E W EL S

tidbits from across the industry

AroundtheArena My Faves:T.J. O’Mara

Ask T.J. O’Mara about his earliest riding memory, and you may wonder why he continued in the sport. “[It] would probably be doing my sister’s pony jumper in the Level 0 jumpers and falling off at the same long approach oxer three times in a row,” said O’Mara, 18. “I think I got really upset each time, but I just kept getting back on and going into the ring!” Despite the dusty start, O’Mara’s tenacity proved a useful trait. He started working with Kaskade in early 2013, slowly shaping her into the horse who’d help him become 2016’s equitation star. O’Mara took the top spot in the George H. Morris Excellence in Equitation Championship (Fla.) before going on to win the Platinum Performance/USEF Show Jumping Talent Search Finals–East (N.J.) and the Pessoa/U.S. Hunter Seat Medal Final (Pa.), as well as earning third place in the ASPCA Maclay Final (Ky.)—all aboard the Dutch Warmblood mare (Colander—Arabella) he owns with his family’s Walstib Stables LLC. He also was awarded the Wilson Dennehy Perpetual Trophy as the junior rider with the most points in the Maclay and Medal in one year. Now a freshman at the University of Kentucky, O’Mara is looking towards the jumper ring with a new mount he purchased last spring, Queen Jane. With her, he’s planning to complete in the under-25 grand prix classes. In the long term, he hopes to progress to the international scene and maybe also represent the United States, as well as start his own training business. “I’ve been trained by many talented professionals, and I’d love to pass the knowledge I will have on to young riders,” he said. Breeches: Pikeur Footwear: Der Dau

MOLLIE BAILEY PHOTO

Drink: Gatorade

24 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

Food: “I love this steak at J. Alexander’s—it’s a restaurant in West Palm Beach [Fla.]. They have this macaroni and cheese that is the best I’ve ever had, so the combination of the two makes it the most delicious meal.” U N TAC K E D

Movie: Nerve

Mark your calendar with these upcoming important dates.

Guilty pleasure: Chocolate cake and

u Jan. 3-7 Educational opportunities abound during the start of the winter season in and around Wellington, Fla. The year kicks off with the George H. Morris Horsemastership Clinic, held Jan. 3-7 at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center, which is free to in-person auditors in addition to streaming live on USEFNetwork.com. There will also be daily coverage of the sessions on COTH.com as lead clinicians Anne Kurskinski, Beezie Madden, Laura Kraut and Lauren Hough teach a crew of top young riders.

Book: 1984 by George Orwell

chocolate milk. “I love chocolate milk. That’s always my reward after doing well in a show or something.”

Memory in the saddle: “Winning Medal Finals this year is probably one of the best memories just because my sister [Meg O’Mara] won it when she was a junior. That was her last year as a junior, and my first year in the equitation. It’s always been a goal of mine to be the first brother-sister duo. Just five years later, it actually happened, which was a dream come true for me.”

Show (Pa.)

App: Instagram

Quality in a person: “Someone that’s actually genuine and shows true personality and doesn’t really care about what other people think.” Workout exercise: Running

Family activity: “Every year at the Lake Placid Horse Show [N.Y.], my whole family meets there for Fourth of July. Hanging out with them, going to the show with them and doing outdoor activities at Lake Placid, it’s really my favorite thing to do.” Season: Fall

Emoji: Thumbs up and smiley face

with sunglasses

Celebrity: Melissa McCarthy

favorite picture from USET Finals that my parents are getting me on a canvas for Christmas. The picture is of when they announced second place, and it’s me smiling while patting Kaskade. She looks as if she knew she won as well!”

Song: “My Way” by Calvin Harris TV Show: Parks and Recreation

CARL BAGGE PHOTO

Picture in your home: “I have this

LISA SLADE PHOTO

u Jan. 11-14 The chance to participate in the governance of your sport comes but once a year, so don’t miss 2017’s USEF Annual Meeting in Lexington, Ky. In addition to the usual committee meetings, there are town hall sessions on concussions and equine welfare, and the U.S. Equestrian Federation is unveiling a new strategic plan with CEO Bill Moroney and incoming President Murray Kessler. There will also be two nights of awards ceremonies, honoring 2016’s top humans and horses. For more information, visit usef.org/convention. The Chronicle will be reporting onsite throughout the week.

Competition venue: Devon Horse

CATIE STASZAK PHOTO

On Deck

u Feb. 18 Make a morning of watching the horses work during one of the Aiken Training Track’s Backstretch Tours in Aiken, S.C. Meet at 8:45 a.m., spend time railside, and then take a tour of Legacy Stables. Brad Stauffer, president of the Aiken Training Track, will discuss race horse nutrition, training and conformation, and he’ll offer a Q&A session as well. Visit aikenracinghalloffame.com/Backstretch-Tour.html or email halloffame@ cityofaikensc.gov for more information. C H RO N O F H O R S E .CO M

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EDITOR’S PICKS

The Three-In-One Theory Of Blanketing By LINDSAY BERRETH Photo courtesy of WEATHER BEETA

ith my off-thetrack Thoroughbred transitioning from stall to field board in Virginia for the first time this winter, I was hunting for a sturdy and warm blanket to make the change easier on him—and me. As a black horse, he tends to run hot, but he also has a blanket clip and doesn’t carry a lot of weight, so I’ve found myself experimenting with different blanket combinations. A blanket set is a good option for owners who don’t want to own three separate turnout rugs. The Weatherbeeta ComFiTec Premier Trio Detach-A-Neck Medium Weight blanket includes a waterproof and breathable shell with 100 grams of polyfill, a liner with 200 grams of polyfill and a removable neck cover. The 300 grams of blanket insulation combined is between a traditional medium and heavyweight rug, so it may not be the best choice for horses living in colder states on the worst winter nights, but it’s worked well for my horse on upper 20- and low 30-degree nights. The company also sells heavier versions of the outer layer for those in colder climates. I like Weatherbeeta blankets because of their generous shoulder gussets, and the liner and the blanket both have 26 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

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them, so my narrow-chested guy wasn’t rubbed. The quick clip front closure on the top layer and single Velcro enclosure on the liner makes taking them off easy, even with frozen fingers. Cross straps underneath the belly and between the hind legs on the shell helped keep everything secure. The blanket has a very soft memory foam wither relief pad, a new feature I haven’t seen on other brands. For my horse with shark fin withers, it was a great addition—keeping the blanket off that sensitive area and preventing rubs. Attaching the liner to the blanket was easy enough. Four Velcro touch tape pads on the neck and clips at the rear keep the two pieces together.

As an experiment, I tried detaching the liner on a warmer day while the top layer was still on and slipping it out from underneath, but it was cumbersome and time consuming. It’s probably easier and safer to take the whole thing off and detach the liner. The neck cover stayed in place when connected to the outer layer with a strip of very strong Velcro, but there was a slight gap between the bottom and the chest of the blanket. We’ve had some wintry precipitation and cold rain already, but my gelding has stayed dry and warm underneath. He loves a good roll, so while the beautiful blue plaid exterior is now caked in mud, the outer shell of the blanket is a tough 1,200-denier triple weave material, so I’m expecting it to last. I also appreciate the front and tail reflective strips when I’m hiking out in the dark to find him. If having options is important to you, you can’t go wrong with this blanket set. With the included neck cover, it’s a great value too. The Weatherbeeta ComFiTec Premier Trio Detach-A-Neck Medium Weight blanket is available in gray plaid, sizes 66"-87" and retails for $299.99. See more information at weatherbeeta.com.

FALL WINTER 2016/17 #EquilineAmerica

TECH SPOTLIGHT

Saving Trainers’ Voices, One Beep At A Time The Electronic Heel Position Indicator tells you every time your heel goes up, helping you develop muscle memory for a perfect position. By M EGA N BR I NCK S Photos courtesy of LEV EL U P I N NOVAT IONS

f you’ve ever taken or watched a riding lesson, one phrase you’ve probably heard more than any other is “heels down.” After saying it dozens of times each lesson, Kathy Phillips decided it was time for a product to help the issue. “There’s nothing to replace good teachers, and that’s not at all what this is meant to do,” Phillips said. “This is a training aid for those who don’t have a trainer with them all the time or don’t have indoor mirrors, to develop the muscle memory.” In 2013, Phillips’ daughter Katlyn was focusing on improving her equitation, and Kathy tired of repeating herself. A brainstorming session resulted in an original design by Kathy and her husband Fred for the Electronic Heel Position Indicator, a device that fits onto a rider’s boot and beeps every time the heel comes above level. “It was a very fortunate collaboration,” Kathy said. “We put the idea out there to get public opinion to see if there would be interest. The response was phenomenal.” After developing a prototype, Level Up Innovations LLC introduced the Electronic Heel Position Indicator at Equine Affaire in Columbus, Ohio, in 2014. But an unexpected challenge sent them back to the drawing board. “The response was overwhelming,” said Kathy, of Paw Paw, Mich. “We came home and told the plastics company, ‘OK, fill my order,’ and the company actually backed out.” What seemed like a major setback at the time—Level Up 28 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

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The Electronic Heel Position Indicator fits on any size boot and reminds riders to keep their heels down.

Innovations had already taken pre-orders from customers— turned into a push toward a better direction. “At that point, we did a total redesign, and we went to injection mold instead of poured plastic,” she said. “We made quite a few improvements; it was actually a fortuitous event.” The first orders of the Electronic Heel Position Indicator shipped in November 2016. Hunter, jumper and equitation riders have jumped at the chance to use the product, but dressage riders, pleasure riders and even bull riders have also expressed interest in it. “We’ve found through all of our research that it’s not just raising the heel blatantly,” Kathy explained. “My dressage has improved because I was raising my hip when I was cueing, which raises your heel.” Kathy worked for the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Department in Michigan, and she spent several years on the mounted division. She now uses the indicator with their mounted team to ensure a more secure position in the saddle. The company is also starting work with therapeutic riding programs for students who have diminished feeling in their lower legs; the riders can develop muscle memory even if they

can’t always feel exactly what their legs are doing. No matter who the rider is, the indicator will beep and maintain its beep until the heels drop to level or below. Like any good barn fixture, the Electronic Heel Position Indicator is hardy against the elements. “I throw them on the floor and the table hundreds of times each trade show. It’s made for horses,” Kathy said. “It is as water-resistant and dirt-resistant as we can make it. If someone stands in a lake, it’s not going to make it, but water jumps, walking through grass—that’s just fine.” The indicator bends to fit any boot size, a handy feature that means you can use the same indicator for everyone at the barn. The company, from design through shipping, is based in Michigan, which means the Level Up team oversees every aspect of the production. Though they are only available in black now, a spectrum of colors may soon be released. “We’ve been doing a Facebook poll, and purple is leaps and bounds above the rest,” Kathy said. Although the company recommends activating the device a

few times near your horse to get him accustomed to the sound, in the hundreds of tests they’ve performed, no horses reacted poorly to the noise. “Mostly what horses are worried about is a sudden, unexpected loud noise. If you let them hear the indicator before you ride, we don’t anticipate issues,” said Laura Buxton, operations manager of Level Up Innovations LLC. “I have police horses—I’m a reserve mounted sheriff’s deputy—and the indicator beep is negligible compared to everyday sounds your horse will hear when you ride.” The noise level is adjustable, so if you’re riding somewhere a little louder—maybe galloping cross-country on a windy day versus riding in an indoor arena—you can make sure the indicator is at an appropriate level. “Once I get people to try it, they are really kind of amazed,” Kathy said. “Even my daughter, for example, did quite well as a hunter/jumper, but now when she goes to clinics or a show, she always comes out with comments from the judges or clinicians about having textbook legs. We attribute [that] to the indicator.”

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TEST LAB

Winter Washing Without The Water When the temperature drops and bathing isn’t an option, dry shampoos can provide a quick clean. We put five to the test. Story and Photos By LINDSAY BERRETH

Ecolicious Squeaky Green & Clean Waterless Deep Cleaning Shampoo Canadian company Ecolicious makes several bathing products I like, so I wanted to try their take on a dry shampoo. Made with witch hazel and coconut-derived cleansers, as well as honey, shea butter and aloe vera, this shampoo almost went straight to the house for the humans instead of out to the barn. The bottle is 100 percent recyclable, but the spray head was not my favorite. It felt a bit flimsy and didn’t spray a large area. It also has a button you push to unlock instead of the usual twist or turn lock. The spray smells like sweet oranges and contains tea tree oil, which is soothing on the skin, antibacterial and antifungal—a nice touch for a horse that wears a blanket all winter. Ecolicious recommends shaking the bottle before use because the natural ingredients can separate. It’s easy to apply—just spray on, wipe off, and watch the dirt come along with it! It left my horse’s coat feeling smooth and clean and even had a slight whitening effect on his sock. Learn more: EcoliciousEquestrian.com Cost: $29.95 for 16 oz.

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Lucky Braids Whitener/Dry Wash Another product meant for whitening and stain removal, Lucky Braids Whitener/Dry Wash doubles as a dry shampoo. Made with special enzymes that lift and remove dirt from the hair, the product is designed for horses of any color. The directions recommend spraying the product on stains and then waiting a few minutes before wiping off the dirt that comes to the surface. It did a decent job getting my horse’s sock white, and when I used it on his body, it left his coat feeling soft, not slick. It had a clean scent, which was not overpowering. It also worked well for removing stone dust from the bottom of his tail after a lesson in the slop, so I could see using it to touch up dirty spots like pasterns and ankles in between rides at a show. Learn more: Luckybraids.com Cost: $31.95 for 32 oz.

R Carr & Day & Martin Stain Master TESTER’S CHOICE

lthough this product is marketed as a green spot and stain remover, Carr & Day & Martin also recommends it as a dry shampoo. The brand uses a 360-degree continuous spray system, which helps get difficult-to-reach areas like under the belly. While they claim it’s good for sensitive horses, my horse definitely knew it was different and didn’t love it. Even so, it was the most economical of the sprayers I tried because it distributed the product more evenly. I tested the purple spray on my black horse’s white sock by applying the product and and then wiping it off with a damp cloth, per the directions. It was noticeably whiter after application, and the scent was light and sweet. Used as a dry shampoo, it easily took out sweat stains, and the hair dried to a nice shine. Learn more: CarrDayMartin.co.uk Cost: $21.95 for 600ml.

Coat Defense Grooming Powder & Dry Shampoo Coat Defense founder Sandy Polentes started her natural skincare line Bausc after an illness inspired her to look for non-toxic products. After California equestrian Zena Howard tried Bausc’s human deodorant powder on a horse prone to chronic rain rot and had immediate success, she gave Polentes a call. Six months later, Coat Defense was the result. They now offer a grooming powder and a paste version. The light brown powder smells of peppermint, and the first thing my horse wanted to do was eat the bottle, but once I sprinkled it on, it brushed into his coat nicely. It left him with a subtle shine and helped dry the damp spots from under his saddle a bit better than just rubbing down with a towel. Because Coat Defense helps prevent bacterial and fungal issues, I also felt comfortable turning him out without his blanket if he was still a bit damp. My horse has just transitioned to field board, and while it hasn’t been wet enough in Virginia to truly test the power of the product on rain rot and other skin conditions that might pop up on his sensitive Thoroughbred legs, I’m armed and ready.

Nickers International Radiance Dry Shampoo Another powder option, Radiance Dry Shampoo was a bit cumbersome to use, but it produced good results. Made from vegetable fibers and enriched with biotin and aloe, the product removes dried sweat, excess oil and manure stains, as well as tangles from manes and tails. Brushing on was the difficult part though. The product is less finely milled than Coat Defense, so whether sprinkled on my horse’s coat directly or onto a towel or brush, there was some fallout, some of which landed on me! Despite that, I found it worked well on clipped and unclipped coats once it was blended. It left a subtle sheen and did a good job whitening as well. You can also get the product wet and use it as soap for your hands. Learn more: NickersInternational.com Cost: $17.54 for 1 lb. 10 oz.

Learn more: HorsePowder.com Cost: $24.99 for 28 oz.

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THE CLOTHES HORSE

SAFE, NOT SORRY

Life around horses requires acceptance of a certain level of risk; there are a million scary possibilities we can never plan for or protect against, and we can’t let those fears stand in the way of our passion. But that also means there’s no room for excuses if you don’t prepare for the injuries you can prevent. Do you have the safety basics in your barn? Take a look at these simple solutions and technological advancements that could help keep horses and humans safe in 2017.

By K AT N E T Z LER

FRIENDLY REMINDERS FOR FELLOW RIDERS

If you’re heading into a new environment with a green or persnickety horse, tail warnings can be the ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure. You may prefer a simple red ribbon on a kicker, but it also never hurts to spell out your message loud and clear. Pictured: Gizapaw Ltd. Kicker and Novice Tail Sleeves, $19 each, gizapaw.co.uk.

SOFT TRAINING TOOLS

Every young horse is different, and the sensitive ones sometimes need a little help in the confidence department. Foam ground poles and soft safety jump elements can help them bounce back from a mistake quickly—and literally. No slipping, no stumbling, no clattering through cavaletti. Plus they’re much easier for us humans to move around!

HIGH-VISIBILITY ROAD-RIDING GEAR

With urban sprawl overtaking open land more every day, many riders who love to hack out are forced to ride on the roads at some point or another. Luckily there are myriad products designed to increase visibility, whether you’re out at midday or coming home at dusk or in fog. Look for hazard yellow or hunter’s orange clothing with wide reflective strips for both horse and rider, as well as flashing LED accessories, some of which are activated by kinetic energy and don’t even require batteries. Pictured: Equisafety Reflective Aspey Jacket (with collar-packable “please pass wide and slow” warning triangle on back), $74.99, EquestrianCollections.com. Tail Lights rechargeable and remotecontrolled LED light packages, starting at $199, tail-lights.com. 32 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

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Pictured: Plastic and foam water trays from Safety-System Show Jumps, starting at around $70, safety-system.com.

DOUBLE BODY PROTECTORS

Air vest companies had a few kinks to work out when they went mainstream a few years back, but today their triggers have been perfected, and new designs ensure your insides won’t feel like they’ve been vacuumed-packed the second your vest goes off. Yes, they’re still expensive, but isn’t a few hundred dollars a small price to pay versus a bunch of broken vertebrae or a stud puncture in your spleen? Combination body protectors, with a base layer of traditional high-density foam and an integrated outward-only air bag vest, protect you from serious wounds and cushion the body on landing, in addition to meeting current U.S. Equestrian Federation rule requirements for eventing. Pictured: Airowear AyrVest, $709-$846, bitofbritain.com.

QUICK-RELEASE STIRRUPS

Once upon a time, safety stirrups had a reputation for looking uncool, but we’ve come a long way from peacock irons with rotten rubber bands. These days you’ll see quick-release models at the very pinnacle of equestrian sport, from the Olympic Games to the FEI World Cup Finals. The flexible outer branch on FreeJump System stirrups, for example, frees the foot during a fall, and the holes seen in the design ensure the branch will open backwards, preventing a rider from being dragged. Pictured: FreeJump Soft’Up Lite stirrups (with fiberglass polyamide single-branch core), $170, freejumpsystem.com.

REUSABLE SAFETY TIES

“If the baling twine ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” We hear you. But wouldn’t it be nice to never again have to split your plastic twine down to just the right tensile strength, or to untwist the spiral your devious mount finds a way to wind every time? These little helpers ensure a quick-release if your horse panics while tied in the barn aisle or to the trailer, and they’re reusable too. Pictured: Equi-Ping tether, $12.99; and Safe-T-Tie, $11.99 for a set of two; both available at doversaddlery.com.

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THE CLOTHES HORSE A DECADE FROM NOW, WILL YOUR HELMET LOOK LIKE THIS? Concussions: The more we learn, the more we realize how much we don’t know. Sports-related injury studies and protective headgear design are advancing so rapidly it’s hard to fathom what might be the next big breakthrough. But the technology behind the inflatable safety vests that riders have come to embrace in recent years could conceivably be the next step forward in headgear too. In late 2011, the Swedish company Hövding launched its futuristic-looking inflatable helmet for cyclists. Now CE-certified, it’s available across Europe and in Japan. And after a more rigorous but also limited set of tests, Swedish insurance company Folksam ranked Hövding more than three times safer than the average helmet (such as traditional foam-based designs by popular brands like Bell and Giro). Unfortunately for those of us in the States, it’s all seemed an interesting but moot point; five years on, the Hövding still hasn’t been approved for the U.S. market under Consumer Product

HUNTING SEASON ACCESSORIES

If you’re lucky enough to live in a rural area with tons of great rideout, you probably have one major drawback: some sort of hunting season in the fall or winter. Vermont-based Safe Riders Gear is one of many companies creating accessories to help protect you, your horse and all your pets with plenty of hunter’s orange.

Pictured: Safe Riders Helmet Gear (with reflective diamonds on reverse, for night riding), $19.99; and Hunting Season Safe Turn Out Vest, $48, saferidersgear.com. 34 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

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Safety Commission standards, and there’s no sign of if or when it might be. But that’s not necessarily any indicator of the helmet’s quality— it may be because our testing standards aren’t keeping up with the design curve. “Even for conventional foam helmets, the standard testing doesn’t address some elements that science indicates matter when it comes to brain injury and head trauma, including assessment of rotational forces and drop tests of parts of the helmet other than the crown,” a release from Stanford University’s Camarillo Lab (Calif.) outlined in October. Moreover, “The air bag helmet would raise additional testing issues, including the fact that helmets are generally tested on a head dummy without a neck, which couldn’t wear the air bag helmet.” That’s why Stanford researchers have been testing the design themselves. And this fall they announced they’ve found air bag helmets like the Hövding could reduce head accelerations by

The Hövding bike helmet’s crash sensors are designed to trigger and inflate from neck pouch to head-cradling air bag in less than .1 seconds.

five to six times compared to traditional bike helmets. “If our research and that of others begins to provide more and more evidence that this air bag approach might be significantly more effective, there will be some major challenges in the [United States] to legally have a device available to the public,” said Stanford bioengineer David Camarillo in the school’s release. So while it’s likely to be years before an inflatable bike helmet hits the U.S. market, and even more before the technology could be modified for equestrians, who fall from much greater heights, air bags could soon play a key role in preventing sport-related concussions.

“Foam bike helmets can and have been proven to reduce the likelihood of skull fracture and other, more severe brain injury,” said Camarillo. “But, I think many falsely believe that a [traditional] bike helmet is there to protect against a concussion. That’s not true.”

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FEATURE

HOLLYWOOD HORSES From Wonder Woman to Game of Thrones, the Naprous family works with the equine stars of big-name television shows and movies to create the magic you see onscreen. By ANN GLAVAN

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UR TE SY IM AG E CO

OF HB O

single horse and rider gallop headlong toward enemy lines. In slow motion, you appreciate the bounding stride of the horse, the rider’s expression strained in a battle cry. Or perhaps it’s a carriage chase, steel shoes clattering on a sodden cobbled street late at night, a villain in pursuit and rapidly gaining ground. Or is it a quiet moment, a boy and his horse in the early morning light, sun streaming through the stall slats, catching dust and glinting off a shiny rump, as the boy pulls the horse’s head to his chest? These are the moments horse lovers remember from movies—the drama, the action and the heart—and they’re all brought to life by the Naprous family. For more than 30 years, Gerard Naprous and his children Dan and Camilla have owned and operated The Devil’s Horsemen, a stable in Buckinghamshire, England, that provides horses and stunt teams and teaches actors to ride. Two generations of horsemen have bred, bought and trained the horses that have played alongside some of the biggest stars in the business—with some becoming stars themselves in the process. Gerard worked on a film adaptation of Anna Sewell’s classic book Black Beauty. Dan helped bring Joey, the bay colt who charged fearlessly into battle in War Horse, to life. Camilla currently works as horsemaster at the hit HBO drama Game of Thrones. And it all started with a carthorse in the French countryside.

Game of Thrones horsemaster Camilla Naprous helped execute a popular—and Emmy Awardwinning—episode with the “Battle of the Bastards,” which starred actor Kit Harington as Jon Snow.

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FEATURE

LUCIE ROBINSON PHOTO

HELEN SLOAN/HBO PHOTO

“You never really know what a horse wants to do. You’ve got a pretty good idea, but we try and give the horses opportunities to do different things,” says Dan Naprous of training horses for popular movies and shows like HBO’s Game of Thrones.

Gerard Naprous got his start with horses as a child in France, and now, at 69, he’s still involved.

FILM BECOMES A FAMILY BUSINESS Gerard was born shortly after World War II in a rural area outside Paris. His parents weren’t riders; they operated an auto repair shop. “As a kid I liked animals, and I liked horses, and there from an early age I would go to ride the carthorses,” Gerard says, his French accent still strong despite living in England for the past 40 years. Gerard received more formal equine education in his teen years, going to riding school in France where he learned show jumping and dressage in the classical style thanks to a Polish ex-cavalry instructor. “Then, at the age of 18, a friend of mine said, ‘Oh, I know someone who works in the film industry,’ ” Gerard says. “And I said, ‘Oh, that would be nice,’ and I

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meet this gentleman, this French gentleman, who came from Czechoslovakia.” The man gave Gerard his first break in the business. “He had a stable outside Paris with acting horses and driving horses, and there I started in the film industry,” Gerard says. “Of course, starting as a groom.” Along with the usual barn tasks, Gerard was responsible for riding and exercising the horses in his care. He began to learn the ins and outs of the movie business, meeting the various horsemen involved. Gerard traveled to England for work frequently, and in the early 1970s he decided to stay in the country and strike out on his own in the film business. “I came with nothing, and I bought two horses in England in 1973,” he says. “My first horse was named Snoopy. I bought her and trained her to do the trick

SALLY ANNE OULTRAM PHOTO

When Dan Naprous isn’t working on the set of films, television shows and commercial productions, he can be found competing with his team in combined driving, a sport he’s been involved with at the international level since 2012.

riding, the rearing, the lying down, falling, and then I did live shows.” Gerard drummed up business with his live performances and through contacts he made grooming. He started getting small parts in films with his horses. “I bought a lovely stallion, a palomino stallion, a bit like Roy Rogers,” Gerard says with a laugh. “And so you grow and grow, and then I had like 10 horses around me, and then Willow, that was a very big movie. I bought more horses for Willow to do the chariot race.” Willow was the movie that started Gerard’s business in earnest—his “big break,” as he says. Released in 1988, the fantasy film was written and produced by George Lucas, directed by Ron Howard and starred Val Kilmer. The money Gerard made from it allowed him to continue growing the business. Along with providing the horses

for the film, Gerard bought the carriage and chariot equipment needed. In 1979 Gerard’s son, Daniel, was born. Camilla followed eight years later. Dan and Camilla grew up riding with Gerard and their respective mothers, Tina Bernstein and Sally Anne Oultram, both of whom Gerard met through the horse business. Dan and Camilla learned trick riding as children, and they started working on films as teens. Dan’s first movie was the 1989 version of A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court. “I was doubling as a girl in it,” he says and chuckles. “I don’t think I would get away with that now.” Camilla, now 30, did her first live show at 8. “It’s kind of crazy,” she says. “I don’t think anyone lets kids do this anymore, but I stood on my two little ponies—

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FEATURE it’s called Roman riding—and galloped around the arena. That was my first performance, and to be honest I haven’t stopped since.” Formal school didn’t hold much interest for the Naprous children, and Camilla dropped out at 14. “My father said, ‘Do you want to go to Luxembourg to work on a movie? If you’re not going to go to school, you have to go to work.’ And I was like, ‘Yes, hard labor, 20hour days, fantastic. Let’s go!’ ” Camilla says with a laugh. As for Dan, he stayed in school until he was 15. “I always knew I would be in this business,” he says. “I wasn’t really intelligent enough to do anything else. As a kid, I think I wanted to do this or [be] a fighter pilot.”

AND ACTION! These days, the Naprous family’s Wychwood Stud is home to more than 100 horses, thousands of different saddles and bridles, and around 150 different carriages.

If it sounds like a lot, consider that along with providing horses and equipment for movies—Dan, Camilla and Gerard can each work separately on different sets at the same time—Wychwood also hosts live stunt riding shows nearly every weekend. Chariot races, Wild West performances, Cossack trick riding, jousting, the Naprouses do it all. Some of the horses they breed themselves, but most are bought as 3- and 4-year-olds. “We have a lot of Andalusians, Lusitanos, Friesians, and a lot of Hungarian horses at the moment for driving,” Camilla says. “But most of the actors ride Andalusians and Lusitanos. They have that movement that looks good on camera.” The young horses begin their journeys to movie stardom with basic dressage work. It’s on that foundation the “tricks” can be taught—lying down, rearing, falling over. And of course, none of those tricks are any good if the horses can’t perform them in strange places—like on a

ADRIAN MIDGLEY PHOTO

PHOTO COURTESY OF NAPROUS FAMILY

Camilla Naprous has been performing Roman riding since she was 8.

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film set. That’s where the live show comes in. “[The live shows are] super education for them,” Dan says. “If they can cope with 8,000 people cheering and getting excited and flags waving and everything, a film set isn’t really exciting for them. They’re already used to that.” The sheer number of horses works in their favor as well when it comes to training. “Some horses you can turn around in six months, and they can be on set. Others take a couple of years,” Camilla says. “It depends on the horse itself and how good it is in the head.” But the human trainers aren’t the only ones getting the horses ready. “If you watch the younger horses, they learn a lot from the older horses. They are herd animals at the end of the day,” Camilla explains. “If you have a group of 10 horses, and you put one youngster in, it’s amazing how quickly it becomes relaxed in the atmosphere because the others are relaxed and quiet,” Dan adds. Once they’ve introduced a horse to the set atmosphere, the process becomes remarkably like that of an up-and-coming human actor. “They start in the background, and as they do more they come closer to the front,” Dan says. “And some get there very fast, and some take [a] whole lifetime to get there.” There are also different roles horses can play in the movie business. You need well-broke schoolmasters for actors with no experience, athletic mounts for stunt doubles to ride in action scenes, and horses that work at liberty for riderless scenes. “We have a famous saying in England: ‘Horses for courses,’ ” Dan says. “You never really know what a horse wants to do. You’ve got a pretty good idea, but we try and give the horses opportunities to do different things. We try and find what alley suits them the best, which sort of direction to take, and it’s a long process.” Once the horses know their jobs, a member of the Naprous family will meet with a film’s director to ascertain the exact nature of the action. “Occasionally they’ll come up with something we’ve never done before, and then we have to train them up,” says Camilla. “We say, ‘OK, let’s see if we can try that,’ and we’ll go through the process and try to choreograph what the director wants.

I DON’T THINK ANYONE LETS KIDS DO THIS ANYMORE, BUT I STOOD ON MY TWO LITTLE PONIES—IT’S CALLED ROMAN RIDING—AND GALLOPED AROUND THE ARENA.” –CAMILLA NAPROUS “If it is impossible or dangerous, then [computergenerated imagery] will do it,” she continues. “For example, they did a scene on War Horse where the horse jumps over a tank. So they filmed the horse jumping up onto the tank, and then CGI takes over the rest where it leaps completely over, because obviously a horse couldn’t do that.” To make complicated scenes more manageable, they may use multiple animals to play one horse character. For example, when Gerard worked on Black Beauty, five horses played the title role, and when Dan did War Horse, they used 14 horses to play the lead, Joey. “Horses are a little bit like the human actors; they’ve only got so many looks they can do in each performance,” Dan says. “You’ve got to have different horses to give you all the looks.” If a director needs a very specific color or marking on a horse that none of the animals have naturally, Gerard says they’ll dye coats. This also works to match all the horses playing one character. All the training and preparation then comes together on set. One scene Camilla is particularly proud of is the horseback fight between two armies in the sixth season of Game of Thrones, in an episode known as the “Battle of the Bastards.” In the battle scene, character Jon Snow, played by actor Kit Harington, gallops across a field toward a line of soldiers on horseback. Arrows strike his horse, and it pitches forward, sending Snow somersaulting over its ears. “He did all the riding in that sequence except the fall,” Camilla says. The fall wasn’t done with CGI though—the horse does fall forward, throwing the stunt rider off. “They’re all trained up to do that,” Camilla says. The horses are also trained to fall in different ways depending on the effect the director wants.

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FEATURE “For example, when you see Jon Snow fall over in the battle, that’s from a cue from someone on the ground behind the horse,” she says. “There is a guy running behind, which we CGI out.” The stunt doubles can also tell the horse to fall over on his side from cues given on his back. “If you watch the movies, you see them start to pull [the horse’s] head around,” Camilla explains. After Snow falls off his horse, an army of soldiers on horseback come galloping at him, a lone figure in the field. Snow pulls out his sword, and just as it seems he is about to meet his doom, his army catches up to him. The horses collide with horses from the other side, as the battle breaks out. How does Camilla pull off such a convincing amount of carnage and mayhem without putting horses or riders in danger? “It’s cleverly done with camera angles,” she says. “So for example, let’s say I have 20 horses and 20 more horses coming through [at each other], we’ll leave like a two-foot gap in between, so the horses will look like they’re colliding.” As far as the shots of horses getting impaled or otherwise maimed, that’s where CGI takes over. Animators also add more commotion in the background of scenes to make it seem like thousands of horses are battling when it’s only about 80. “I would say it’s 70 percent real, 30 percent CGI in the ‘Battle of the Bastards,’ ” Camilla says. Though no one is playing bumper cars on horseback, the part where Snow is standing in front of a horde of charging horses? That’s real. “We did it with Kit, and the [riders] stopped six or seven feet in front of him from a full gallop,” Camilla says. “That was interesting to do, because obviously you know he doesn’t know horses, and you have like 40 charging, galloping horses coming toward you. It’s pretty scary,” Camilla continues, chuckling at the memory. “We did that twice, but the impact and the shot it made are great, and for it not to be a CGI shot—actually seeing the real character going through the atmosphere of what it would have felt like—it helps the actors with their performances, too.” Did Harington have any reservations about Camilla’s plan for the scene?

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“He trusts me. We’re good friends. I told him, ‘I promise I won’t run you over,’ ” Camilla jokes. “I said, ‘Come on, it will look so good. It will be on the Emmy’s show reel!’ ” Sure enough, the episode “Battle of the Bastards” won three Emmy Awards in 2016: for editing, writing and directing. Camilla has been working with Game of Thrones for six seasons, and they’re currently shooting a seventh. As for Dan, he named a commercial the family worked on for the 2013 Grand National steeplechase in England as his favorite shot. Ask him why, and he’ll tell you the work speaks for itself. The commercial shows a group of horses racing through the streets of London, jumping cars, picnic tables, soccer goals, into and out of gardens, and through a skate park. Watch the commercial as a casual viewer, and you’re entertained. Watch it with any understanding of horses, and you’re astounded—the shots are beautiful, and the horses aren’t bolting scared. They’re performing. “It really comes down to common sense. It’s just being in tune to the animals and understanding them,” Dan says. “First you teach them to go from A to B in a secure fashion, make sure the horse is comfortable, and then you bring in another prop, and you just build it up. Nothing in particular takes him by surprise, and eventually he will learn to trust you. He learns to respect that you’re not going to hurt him.”

NO DIVAS ALLOWED The most difficult part of Dan’s job isn’t the incredible shots he’s pulled off or the sequences he’s coordinated— horses are not this horseman’s challenge. “I would say hardest part of the job, it would be teaching the actors,” Dan says. Between Dan, Camilla and Gerard, they’ve taught some of the most famous actors in the business to ride. When rifle-wielding Angelina Jolie gallops a Friesian sidesaddle through a forest in the 2003 film Laura Croft: Tomb Raider, it was the Naprouses who taught her to ride—and Jolie did almost the entire scene herself. Les Misérables, Snow White and the Huntsman, Mission Impossible, Monuments Men, Philomena, Downton Abbey, Doctor Who—the list of big-name productions the family

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The Naprous family’s The Devil’s Horsemen company trains their horses to carry inexperienced actors and actresses, gallop in action scenes, and perform at liberty. Here the stallion Dante performs with Dan Naprous.

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An equine actor’s days vary—sometimes it’s long hours of galloping and fight scenes, and other times it’s an easy day of walking and trotting, like actor Charles Dance is doing here on the set of Game of Thrones.

has worked on goes on and on, and it’s not slowing down. Along with her work on the next season of Game of Thrones, Camilla is the horsemaster on the comic film Wonder Woman, set to be released in June 2017. “It’s quite interesting being on Thrones,” Camilla says. “I’ve had most of the cast for the past seven years, and watching their process of riding, some of them get better, and some of them actually weaken as time goes on. “We just shot Wonder Woman, and there we have two weeks to teach each cast member, and then we go off on location to shoot,” Camilla continues. “And one of the actresses, she had ridden a tiny bit, but she was 52. Teaching someone at 52 to ride from scratch is quite hard. It’s fascinating seeing the different characters you come across.” And then there are the stars who are as natural on a

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horse as they appear on screen. “Channing Tatum is amazing on a horse, and Michael Fassbender is brilliant on a horse,” Camilla says. Tatum was in the saddle for his role in the 2011 movie The Eagle, and Fassbender starred in the 2011 Jane Eyre. In the movie business, time is money, and Camilla and Dan don’t always get a lot of it when they’re teaching people to ride. “It depends on how high profile they are,” says Camilla. “Sometimes we’ll fly out to wherever they are to teach them, or if they’re in England they’ll come to our stud, and we’ll teach them at our stud. Sometimes we’ll get six weeks to teach someone from scratch, and sometimes they will have never sat on a horse in their life, and we have two and a half hours to have them walk, trot, canter.” But actor ego is seldom an issue.

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Siblings Dan and Camilla Naprous rarely have time to get in costume on the set of films because they’re so busy directing the horses involved, but they still get their time in the spotlight during trick riding performances with The Devil’s Horsemen.

“It’s fascinating how who they are fades away as soon as they come into the kitchen [at the stud], and we put them on a horse—all of that nonsense is gone away a little bit,” Camilla says. “It’s just you and them and the horse. It really opens them up, and they can’t be maybe the person they want to be, or want to show people all the time, which I quite like about my job. Cut the bullshit!”

JUST A JOB Do Dan and Camilla ever get starstruck by the people with whom they work? Not so much. “You sometimes get awestruck by the sets, like right now we’re in Iceland,” Dan says. “Some of the places you get to go to, you could pinch yourself and go, ‘Am I really here?’ ” The only time Camilla’s felt giddy was when the family

performed for Madonna. “She asked us to come for her birthday and perform for her birthday, and there was a moment when we pulled up in our car at her house and were going, ‘Oh my God, Madonna is walking toward us. Oh my God.’ But apart from that, no,” says Camilla. Dan put it more simply. “It’s a job,” he says. “It’s a lot of paperwork.” As you might have guessed, the movie business is all consuming when they’re filming. “For example, we had an 8 [a.m.] on set today, so my team started at 5 this morning,” says Camilla, who’s currently working from Ireland, where the cast and crew of Game of Thrones are filming. Camilla rented a yard in Belfast for the horses, and she ships them on and off set each day. Days can be long for both the horses and humans involved, but it’s certainly not monotonous. “My grooms go in and feed them, load them up,” she says. “They’ll be on the road at 6, arrive at 7, come off and go into costume, have all their gear put on, and then we’ll be on set at 8. Then we usually wrap at 6, so they’re back at the stables by 8 at night.” When Camilla needs a lot of horses for a particular set, her team will set up temporary stalls to save time with trailering. But other days, the horses are finished by 1 p.m. The work doesn’t leave a lot of time for hobbies, but during spare moments, you’ll still find Dan and Camilla at some sort of horse function. Dan spends his free time training and competing in four-in-hand driving. “It was a choice between dressage or carriage driving, because we tend to do both with the horses at home,” Dan says. “My father knew a legend in the sport named George Bowman, who he’s been good friends with for a long, long time, so through him we sort of got into the carriage driving.” Dan entered his first international driving competition in 2012, and more recently he placed second in the 2016 Hopetoun International Horse Trials CAI** (England) and third at the National Horse Driving Trials CAI** (England). The horses Dan uses for driving don’t cross over into film work, though he says he does sometimes use his indoor driving competition team on set. “I do sort of train them as youngsters, when they’re 4-year-olds, to go stand on the film set, to get used to all that because even competition is like filming,” Dan says.

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FEATURE performances are more manageable. “You don’t have to worry about being responsible for anyone else, so it’s kind of a sense of freedom,” Camilla says, pausing after a moment of sincerity before punctuating it with her dry humor. “I’m sure my knees will probably give up on me at some point, but until then I will carry on doing the shows.” There is a possibility of a third generation of Naprouses carrying on the family film work tradition. “I have not so many ponies, but I have one for my grandson and my granddaughter,” says Gerard, 69, his voice filled with pride. Dan has two children—Felix, 8, and Beatrix, 3—with wife Lucy Naprous, and they have already found their way to horseback, though not in quite the same fashion as Dan and Camilla. As Camilla jokes, they haven’t let the kids Roman ride ponies at a gallop just yet, but she takes a more serious tone when contemplating the future of the family business. “It’s hard to get to that point of: Do you push them or not? We were pushed quite a bit,” Camilla says. “And everything is changing. Like when you look at Pony Club and things now, there’s so much safety involved. It’s kind of sad. When we were kids, we used to play cowboys and Indians, and you would fall off, and you’d get back on! It was all fun; that was what we did, but we’re kind of losing that.” Camilla also worries about the effect a safety-conscious riding culture will have on her ability to find the next generation of stunt riders. “Trying to find boys to ride becomes harder and harder,” she says. “Obviously my generation is quite good—we had a lot of boys in Pony Club, a lot of boys rode—but now, especially in England, it’s very much a girl’s sport. It’s fascinating seeing what will happen in the next 30 or 40 years.” HELEN SLOAN/HBO PHOTO

“You put a certain amount of pressure on them, and the horse from an early age has to understand no matter what ambient pressures are coming in, he will listen to you and have confidence that he has to continue working.” “[Dan] absolutely has a massive passion for carriage driving,” Camilla says. “And it’s hard for him because carriage driving, especially in America, there’s a lot of money in it. It’s a very expensive sport.” As for Camilla’s down time? “I don’t have any hobbies. I just go to work, movie after movie after movie,” she says with a laugh. There is one part of her life Camilla considers a break—her trick riding with The Devil’s Horsemen stunt team. “Luckily, the [live shows] are on the weekend, and usually we only film Monday through Friday,” she says. When she’s the horsemaster on a film, Camilla is responsible for everything—keeping actors safe on horseback, coordinating action and fight scenes with stunt riders, getting the liberty horses to hit their marks in a scene, and overseeing all the horses’ care and travels to and from the film set. Her responsibilities in live stunt

The Naprous family uses their horses in live shows with The Devil’s Horsemen company to help train them before they star in a film or television show like Game of Thrones.

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Landrum Gateway to the Blue Ridge

EATS. ANTIQUES. BOUTIQUES. #LoveLandrum www.cityoflandrumsc.com www.facebook.com/cityoflandrum

8 ANTIQUE STORES, 7 RESTAURANTS, 12 BOUTIQUES, 21 SPECIALTY SHOPS

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SC Exit 1 off I-26 | 15 Minutes from the Tryon International Equestrian Center 15 Minutes from Spartanburg | 30 Minutes from Asheville | 1 Hour from Greenville | 1 Hour from Charlotte

GLOBAL CULTURE

Marwari Horse

The Striking Beauty— And Ears—Of The

Rohitashva Singh Khempur, son of Ravla Khempur owner Hemant Deval, is pictured with his favorite mare at the hotel.

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A trip to Rajasthan yields a cultural education, artistic inspiration and a newfound love of India. Story and Photos By PAULA DA SILVA

arrived in Rajasthan, a semi-arid state in northwest India, with a small group of photographers the week before Diwali. Rajasthan means “Land of Kings,” and it is India’s

largest state by area. Much of it is covered by the inhospitable Thar Desert. •••

Diwali, the Festival of Light, is one of the most important events of the year and is celebrated every fall. Most of Rajasthan’s population is Hindu, and during Diwali, followers pray, feast and exchange gifts. During this festival, farm animals, which Hindus do not eat, are decorated. It was surreal to see cattle, goats, camels and horses painted and covered with ornaments, especially in the countryside. Even the few tractors we saw were adorned with ornaments and embellishments. Though the area is filled with beautiful landscapes and friendly people, I was eager to meet my first Marwari horse.

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GLOBAL CULTURE

A Marwari mare wearing traditional tack walks down the street through a small village in Rajasthan.

Ancient History, Modern Challenges

The Marwari horse acquired its name from its original breeding place, Marwar, in southwestern Rajasthan. The breed’s most notable traits include distinctive curved ear tips that nearly touch in a scimitar or lyre shape, along with a highset neck, which gives the horses an alert look, and a four-beat gait called revaal or rehwal. Marwari horses average between 15 and 16 hands. Between individual horses, conformation seems to vary significantly. We learned a few breeders are now selecting for size, but these taller Marwaris often have less “type.” They’re also not as easy keepers—a downside in a country where food for horses is expensive and sometimes difficult to find. 50 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

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The curved ears of the Marwari horses are their hallmark.

The Marwari horses were great war mounts, and legend says they’ve been bred carefully for their stamina, bravery and loyalty since the 12th century. During World War I, the Marwar lancers assisted the British. The Indian cavalry proved excellent in a charge, and it was hard to stop them, even with modern machine guns, due to the Marwari horse’s courage and speed. But the British dominance of India led to the decline of the breed, which neared extinction. Over the last two centuries, the aristocracy and wealthy landowners have mainly kept the Marwari breed alive. During their period of rule, between 1858 and 1947, the British colonials did all they could to replace the local breeds with Thoroughbreds, forcing castration and even slaughter of hundreds of Marwari horses to stop interbreeding. In more recent times, an export ban on Marwari horses, which was initially created to protect them, has instead limited the breed’s progress. (Though occasional exports were allowed between 2000 and 2008, no recent certifications have been issued.) The ban created a saturated internal market in a country with other challenges for horses—including droughts and economic issues. The problem is compounded by a lack of owner education and access to veterinary care.

A “dancing horse,” shown in traditional tack, does work from the ground, which is derived from cavalry training for combat maneuvers and includes movements similar to the airs above the ground.

This mare’s coat color is called nukri, or nukra for males. These horses have dark eyes, unlike cremello or perlino horses, and they are born white. They are often used for religious parades and big events.

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Rawal Devendra Singh, owner of hotel Roop Niwas Kothi, is pictured with one of his stallions.

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GLOBAL CULTURE The First Meeting

Our first acquaintance with the Marwari horses was at Roop Niwas Kothi, a hotel in Nawalgarh, where our host Rawal Devendra Singh shared both the breed and Indian family traditions with us. We loved talking with him over exquisite dinners, never too spicy and also quite varied. It was there that we were introduced to a drink called kadha, a spiced tea, with a little rum added—an Ayurvedic remedy for a bad cold we all contracted. He taught us many things, like the importance of whorls, or hair patterns, when purchasing Marwari horses. Horses with long whorls down the neck are called devman and are considered lucky. Horses with whorls below their eyes are called anusudhal, and people avoid buying them. At Roop Niwas Kothi, mares spend time outside in a big sand paddock with a pond, socializing and being happy horses. This was one of the few stables we saw during our trip where horses were kept loose. Even some VIP stables we visited had horses tied by the neck and a hind foot, day and night, a common management practice.

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This image was taken during an early morning shoot in one of the pastures around Ravla Khempur.

Marwari coat colors come in many varieties, including pinto.

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GLOBAL CULTURE

Our next stop was Ravla Khempur in Mavli, another charming hotel belonging to horse lover Hemant Deval. This heritage hotel was one of my favorites. The staff and our hosts were great, the meals were delicious, and everyone was so kind and caring. The family’s chief stallion Great Gambler, whose stable adjoined the restaurant, could watch us closely through the glass wall while we had dinner. I’ve never seen anything like it! Ravla Khempur exudes historical ambience and is graced with breathtaking surroundings. You’ve seen this hotel if you ever watched the wonderful movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Ravla Khempur has a great influence on the villagers around it. Sunrises and sunsets in India are just spectacular, and we shared a couple of them with the locals. They resulted in amazing shoots, offering all a photographer could want. While visiting several tiny villages nearby, we were always kindly invited for tea by the locals. These basic interactions left me indelible memories. I’ll return to India soon. 54 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

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“This was my favorite horse in India—great expression and conformation and very trainable with the sweetest disposition,” said author and photographer Paula Da Silva of this Marwari colt seen with his owner at sunrise.

Helping Marwari Horses

he charity Friends of Marwari has started a horse bit donation operation, where donated 4" or 5" snaffle, pelham, curb, bridoon, kimberwicke and pelham bits are sterilized and then distributed at the rural horse fairs in Rajasthan—along with information on good bitting practices— to discourage riders from using thorn bits, homemade bits with sharp spikes or decoration on the mouthpieces, and persuading the local bit manufacturers not to produce them. It may be a drop in the ocean, but every bit helps and gives instant relief to any horse that is the recipient of a smooth snaffle. Over time, the organization hopes to eradicate the thorn bits of India. You can learn more about the charity at friendsofmarwari.org.uk. To help, contact Caroline Moorey at info@ friendsofmarwari.org.uk.w

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HORSE & HOME

AT H O M E WI T H

Melanie Smith Wildwood Farm’s bygone glory can still be felt in Germantown, Tenn. Stor y and Photos By K AT N E T Z L ER

elanie Smith Taylor’s earliest memories of Wildwood Farm are steeped in mystique and magnetism. Long before she’d win Olympic

gold or join the Show Jumping Hall of Fame, Taylor was just a naturally gifted, bareback-loving young horsewoman coming of age in the heyday of equestrian sport in western Tennessee. And Wildwood, in what’s now the Memphis suburb of Germantown, was the crown jewel of it all in the 1960s.

Only a handful of horses remain on the farm these days, enjoying their retirement in huge rolling fields. Melanie Smith Taylor keeps an eye on them from her many-windowed home.

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Taylor

Melanie Smith Taylor and green-thumbed longtime friends Phyllis and Dr. Ray Walther tend a large vegetable and flower garden at Wildwood Farm. This year’s plot included corn, okra, 100 tomato plants and enough zinnias to decorate a wedding.

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HORSE & HOME

As a young girl, Melanie Smith Taylor was enamored with Wildwood Farm, and today she not only lives there, but she is also stewarding the historic property toward permanent protection from development.

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“I remember driving by when I was very young and thinking, ‘That is the prettiest farm I’ve ever seen,’ ” recalls Taylor. Little did she know that now, at 67, she’d have called the historic property home for nearly half her life. Taylor got her first pony at age 2 and grew up foxhunting, riding with the local Pony Club and showing at the venerable Germantown Charity Horse Show. Her horsemanship caught the eye of George H. Morris in the late 1960s, and she trained with him throughout her career, which spanned through the 1980s and took her to the upper echelons of international show jumping.

In 1978, Taylor earned the American Grandprix Association Rider of the Year title—prompting the organization’s leaders to abandon the separate “Lady Rider” category going forward—and her inspiring partnership with the famous Dutch Warmblood Calypso (Lucky Boy—Gamieka, Zilon) garnered individual bronze at the 1980 Alternate Olympics in Rotterdam (the Netherlands), the 1982 FEI World Cup Show Jumping Championship (Sweden) title and team gold at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games. Taylor retired from active competition in 1987 and returned to Tennessee to care for her mother, Rachael Smith, who’d given

The barn at Wildwood was built in the early 1930s and features beautiful windows and doors and an aisle so wide it was often used as an indoor arena when starting young horses under saddle.

Favorite memories of a bygone era still hang in the barn office.

The hayloft of the barn originally included living quarters for grooms, a pulley elevator for lifting and storing carriages, and a lounge area that hosted parties and square dances. In the 1990s, Lee Taylor had the historic barn fitted with a sprinkler system to protect it from potential fire catastrophes.

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HORSE & HOME

While the adjacent polo field has long since grown over and returned to open pasture, recent brush clearing under the farm’s beautiful red oak revealed the decades-old cable used to tie ponies up in the shade and plenty of old balls as well.

Taylor her equestrian genes, as she battled Alzheimer’s disease. She explored new careers as a course designer, judge, breeder, trainer, coach and NBC Sports broadcaster. And Taylor took on one more title, too: wife. Raised in the same tight-knit equestrian community, she and skilled horseman Lee Taylor, who’d grown up on the magical Wildwood property she’d always admired, eventually came to see one another as soulmates. They married in 1989 and embarked on a horse breeding and sales business that kept the farm 60 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

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Melanie Smith Taylor and farm manager Steve Thaemert are passionate about preserving the unusual variety of foliage on the property, including this massive red oak that’s more than 200 years old. A professional arborist helps catalog and care for the trees on the farm.

The farm’s three miniature donkeys, Johnny, June and Cash, were gifts for Melanie Smith Taylor’s mother-inlaw, Audrey Taylor, who moved to Wildwood in the 1930s and lived there until her passing in 2012.

It may be mainly used for storage these days, but the main barn still makes a stately picture for lucky guests granted entry to the private property.

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HORSE & HOME

In remembrance of her Olympic partner Calypso, who died in 2002 at 29, Melanie Smith Taylor salvaged and reused his stall door, halter, bridle and hay rack in one of her guest bedrooms. The walls are even finished with a strawbased texture.

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bustling for more than a decade, with upwards of 120 horses on the property. “We had a great life together,” Melanie said in a 2007 interview. “I was incredibly fulfilled and totally happy. I stepped away from the show world, stopped traveling to be with Lee, and just did enough to keep my judge’s card and occasional TV commentary requests. I just loved our farm, being home and my life there.”

A Legacy To Protect

While it was once much larger, the Wildwood of today is still 350 acres— an impressive feat considering the fierce encroachment of suburban development on all sides. Melanie believes the land once served as a Civil War campground (based on historical records and treasures her longtime property manager, Steve Thaemert, has

Equestrian details abound in Melanie Smith Taylor’s home at Wildwood Farm. With few horses left on the property, she’s removed most of the tack and equipment from the barn but found creative ways to incorporate them in her home decor. The polo mallets belonged to her late husband, Lee Taylor.

The original house on the Wildwood estate was razed, but when Melanie Smith Taylor set about building a new home just a few years ago, she wanted to include plenty of historic and unique details. This floor in the bar area of her living room features wood slabs from trees harvested on the property.

Melanie Smith Taylor and Calypso helped the U.S. team earn show jumping gold on their home turf at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games.

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HORSE & HOME

It’s a pleasant view from Melanie Smith Taylor’s living room.

unearthed thanks to a metal detector). Wildwood’s grand main brick barn was built at the height of the Great Depression, between 1932-1933, featuring stalls so big it was reported to be the only place the Budweiser Clydesdales would stop on their journeys between St. Louis and New Orleans. Lee’s parents, Audrey and William Taylor, were married 65 years. They first met at the Devon Horse Show (Pa.) and settled in Tennessee in the 1930s, and they turned Wildwood into “a mecca for saddle horses,” Melanie says, with the help of famous gaited horse trainer Garland Bradshaw. The 1940s and ’50s saw plenty of foxhunting with the nearby Oak Grove Hunt, which led to the establishment of 64 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

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With a life so full of milestones and memories, a house almost isn’t enough. Melanie Smith Taylor relegated a few of them to the garage.

the Germantown Horse Show in 1947, and steeplechasing across Wildwood’s beautiful rolling pastures. In 1968, the Taylors dispersed all the saddle horses and turned their focus to Thoroughbreds. And soon, thanks to Lee’s polo prowess, the farm had several top-quality polo fields, and the family even stepped in to host the U.S. Open of Polo one year when problems arose with its usual setting in Oak Brook, Ill. Melanie and Lee had been married for 16 years when he succumbed to a brain tumor in December of 2005, but she forged ahead with their shared dream to establish a horsemanship training program, TaylorMade Horsemanship, and she also helped create the U.S. Hunter Jumper Association’s

Emerging Athletes Program. In addition, at the behest of her old friend and mentor Morris, Melanie took on the role of U.S. Equestrian Federation Developing Rider Tour chef d’equipe, earning the Chronicle’s 2007 Show Jumping Horseman of the Year title. Today Melanie continues an impressive travel schedule for clinics and television commentaries, but she’s also devoting more of her time and energy to stewardship of Wildwood. While her plans for the farm haven’t been finalized yet, she’s exploring several avenues to secure it from any further development. “We’re really trying to preserve not just the land, but the trees and the plants and the wildlife,” she says. “The things that are just getting lost these days.”

Wildwood serves as a retirement home for several horses, including a few sent south from Buffalo, N.Y., by Melanie Smith Taylor’s friend Susie Schoellkopf. But these two aged pals are the last remaining homebreds on the property, and they share the most picturesque pasture on the farm.

This sign, made from what’s believed to be a Civil War-era wheel frame found on the property, welcomes visitors to “Doxnwood,” Melanie Smith Taylor’s cheeky name for the home she shares with her eight long-haired dachshunds. Melanie Smith Taylor is well known in the horse world for her borderline obsession with longhaired dachshunds. She owns eight at a time, and she had this daybed built in her office, so they have plenty of room to sun themselves while she works.

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PHOTO COURTESY TREC-USA

FEATURE

The U.S. team of from left: Angela Moore on Cubana, support team member Celia Spillmann, Paula Nelson on Ideal, Lauren Spillmann on Kenia, Mary Harcourt, and Stephanie Church on Marinus completed the TREC World Championships in Spain aboard borrowed horses.

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SEEING SUNNY SEGOVIA

Through Gray Ears The author completes the TREC World Championships in Spain and forms a partnership she will remember forever. By STEPHANIE L. CHURCH

“Oh, no! You’ve gone and got a holiday crush!” my

friend Malene declared, her eyes tearing with empathy as I stroked Marinus’ neck and attempted to hold back my own waterworks. I’d be saying goodbye to Marinus the Spaniard within the hour. He and I had spent nearly every waking moment of the previous 10 days together, and we’d already walked through good times and bad— but mostly overwhelmingly good.

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FEATURE He was tall and handsome, and as we stood together in line for the closing ceremony parade of countries, he turned to glance at me—and sank his teeth into the American flag beside us. Marinus was not a man with a quirky sense of humor, but rather a cheeky 6-year-old rose gray Thoroughbred-crosslooking sport horse. He was my leased mount for the world championships of a sport called TREC. Marinus was the bravest and most willing young horse I’d been paired with in decades. He was no stranger to the show jumping arena or the arid, rocky terrain around Segovia, Spain, but there were aspects of TREC that were new to him. And there were also gaps in my knowledge and experience, so we’d worked hard together in the previous week to prepare ourselves for one of the more challenging experiences of our lives.

The acronym TREC stands for Techniques de Randonnée Equestre en Compétition, which translates roughly to Horseback Riding Techniques in Competition. The French designed this three-phase sport to test the skills of equestrian tourism guides. Its signature phase, the mounted orienteering phase (POR), involves navigating almost 30 miles of unfamiliar territory using a route copied from a master map. A rider heads out at a designated speed with a watch, map, compass and required safety gear in saddlebags, but no GPS permitted. There are checkpoints along the way, where judges check time and direction before the rider takes off at the next directed speed. The goal is to navigate the course accurately and to hit the optimum time. The second phase is Control of Paces (COP or MA), which involves cantering a 200-meter path as quickly as possible, and then returning at the walk as fast as possible, without breaking gait. This demonstrates communication between horse and rider, adjustability of gait and finesse. The final phase, the Trail Obstacle Course (PTV), is a hybrid of a training- to preliminary-level cross-country course and a trail class on steroids. It’s a timed course with 16 obstacles selected from a list of 32. The horse-and-rider pairs go over traditional cross-country jump combinations in addition to challenges such as ducking under “low branches,” a series of poles set 20 centimeters higher than your horse’s withers, or stopping in a chalk-marked circle, taking your hands off the reins, and keeping a horse immobile with only voice and core, seat and leg. The sport is popular and the riders competitive, in Europe. People ride TREC over there the way eventers, dressage riders or hunter/jumpers do here. So how on earth did I end up riding among the elite of the sport? It’s a tale of being in the right place at the right time. EDDI WABNITZ PHOTO

Navigating cross-country obstacles as part of the TREC Trail Obstacle Course was the final challenge for Stephanie Church and Marinus at the world championships.

What Is TREC?

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Why Not?

PHOTO COURTESY OF TREC-USA

Way back in 1997, I was a junior at Averett University (then College) in Virginia, and conversations between the French and Virginia Tourism board led to a team from Averett traveling to France, training for a week in TREC with the sport’s originators, and then competing in the world championships in Saint-Pierre-d’Albigny. My big accomplishment there was nailing my mount’s shoe back on about halfway through the POR—while I was lost—using a fence tool as a hammer, and clinchers and duct tape to cover the sharp edges. We found our way and finished sound, with all four shoes, and the French farrier was impressed with my work. Our team completed the event upright, intact and smiling. We brought TREC back to the United States, putting on a clinic and a small TREC event the following year. Our team leader and college riding program director at the time, Mary Harcourt, planted the seed of TREC in her home state of North Carolina and kept it watered, and since then many others have discovered the sport and become competitors, ambassadors and officials. Nineteen years later, TREC USA has a dedicated group of members based mainly in North Carolina and Virginia who train and compete in local and regional events. Every four years or so, TREC USA organizes a team for the world championships, and they find suitable horses to lease, organize training and housing, and then compete. The U.S. team is usually the only one with leased horses, making us the underdogs. Mary reached out to me in late March of this year, wondering if I’d be interested in doing TREC again. I’d never been to Spain and hadn’t had the pants scared off me in a few years, so of course I said I’d consider it. Just to be sure I still enjoyed the sport, I took my mom’s Belgian-Quarter Horse mare, Honey, to a spring training weekend in Virginia with Kim Stoddard, TREC USA President and our eventual team chef d’equipe. Within a few hours, the map reading and pace adjustment came back to me, and I was hooked. Spain it would be. I hiked with maps for the next several months to prepare for

“We stood on cobblestones in the shadow of the Roman aqueduct, listened to speeches in several languages, and watched traditional musicians and dancers perform,” said Stephanie Church (right, on Marinus, with Paula Nelson on Ideal) of the TREC World Championships’ opening ceremony, which took place at the Aqueduct of Segovia.

the orienteering, and I participated in conference calls to select our horses, housing and other details. In late August, a week ahead of our competition start, I arrived in Madrid with one suitcase full of clothing and another full of American-themed team gifts (read: bourbon, because I live in Kentucky) and riding gear for the event. For the POR phase, riders are required to carry everything from a headlamp and halter to a first-aid kit and hoof boot, so it was a lot of stuff, some of it a bit random. For example, I had no idea what breed or size horse I’d be riding, so I selected a midrange boot size and hoped for the best. C H RO N O F H O R S E .CO M

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FEATURE Part of TREC is the Mastery of Paces phase—cantering a 200-meter path as quickly as possible, and then returning at the walk as fast as possible, without breaking gait—which Stephanie Church negotiated on Marinus.

Make Me A Match

PHOTO COURTESY OF TREC-USA

Our leased horses were at Hípica Eresma, a tidy, well-appointed show jumping stable just southeast of Segovia that also offers riding vacations in the scenic surrounding terrain. Team USA was five members strong: I’d be riding with Angela Moore, Lauren Spillman and Paula Nelson—all from North Carolina—in the team competition, and Mary would ride as an individual. We were to select six mounts from a pool of possible horses, so we’d have a spare if we ran into compatibility or lameness issues during training. When Angela and I arrived in Segovia the others had already selected our mounts. Four were school horses, and two belonged to boarders—five grays and a bay. Kim and my teammates thought I’d be best suited to Marinus, a boarder-owned horse, mainly because of his size— he’s 16.3, and I am 6' tall—and the fact that I like a horse who is willing but might need a little bit of encouragement and confidence. They were right. I fell “in like” immediately, splashing through streams and cantering large circles around a sagebrush-dotted field during our first ride. And “in like” was enough to launch our six days of training on obstacles and maps, which included a few hours of riding in the morning, a break for siesta, and then a few more hours of training in the evening.

GETTING TO KNOW YOU

Our obstacle training sessions were a discovery process. For a relatively young horse, Marinus was brave and bold. And it seemed as if he was getting a kick out of showing me what he could do. For instance, on Day 2 we were practicing “circle of immobility” on the ground successfully: He was standing in the arena or field with me about six feet away, watching me and minding my verbal cues—because body language isn’t allowed—for him to stand still. He was game to walk and trot under the “low branches.” But I had a difficult time getting him to trot in hand; it felt a bit like trying to drag a 1,200-pound pony away from shoulder-high grass, with lots of clucking and begging 70 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

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“Vamos, vamos!” (“Come on, come on!”) Mounting from a mounting block or rise could be tough, as he would swivel away, and, given his height, I didn’t want to always mount from the ground. And he didn’t know why on earth I would want to touch a gate from his back, much less open it, pass through it and close it without letting go. On the trail, Marinus was fearless. Well, almost. The two things he didn’t like were unnaturally round bushes and certain menacing boulders. It was a bit of a crapshoot figuring out which vegetable or mineral would cause him to hit the brakes or scoot sideways, and so it became an exercise of scanning the surroundings for possible bogeys and riding him forward and confidently. A litany of calming “You’ll be fines,” though not in Spanish, eventually forged our bond. So did menthol drops. One particular day, on our first map training ride without help from Rafael Sanchez, who assisted us throughout the week, Paula and I rode for about three hours. We navigated down one pilgrimage trail, across a cattle-spotted field— complete with giant bull—to another animal trail, under a giant highway bridge, past the distillery—they’re making bourbon there, too—and back to Hípica. When we arrived at the farm, a teenage girl bounded over to Marinus with a handful of what looked like menthol cough drops. She fed him the treats and hugged Marinus, and I figured out this must be his owner. He clearly was motivated by these minty morsels, so I bought my own bag and began a twice-daily routine of carrot and mint stretches and learning how to bow. Marinus was a six-trick pony by the time I left.

STEPHANIE L. CHURCH PHOTO

With each passing day of training, I figured out more of Marinus’ aids—a kissing sound produced an immediate canter from the walk, for instance, whereas my normal leg and seat aids did not—and he figured out what the tall American wanted. Calm lateral work translated to correct execution of the slalom obstacle at the walk, think pole bending, and opening and shutting gates with precision. We still had to shout “Vamos!” and stomp our feet a lot, but eventually Marinus would trot in hand. And I could complete low branches without knocking the poles down with my helmet or ample posterior. Eventually each time I approached Marinus’ stall, he turned with his ears pricked, as if to ask, “What crazy and/or fun thing are you going to ask me to do today?” I also learned to anticipate Marinus’ spook-scoot. Change throws him off, as happens with many horses. One day Hípica staff took a front-end loader and moved an existing large log jump closer to another, so we’d have an in-and-out, or a “road crossing,” in TREC terms, to school. Marinus and I were practicing an obstacle course, and as we exited the slalom at the walk, he noticed the spot on the ground where the log used to be. In utter surprise, he leapt into the air and threw in a little buck while he was at it. I stayed on, did a little s-curve, so as not to cross my path, and rode him through. It wasn’t pretty, but we did it. I

“He had to settle, alone, with unfamiliar horses passing or coming near from time to time, and I had to put aside my worries that I would get lost and not make it home before dark,” said Stephanie Church of her borrowed TREC mount Marinus.

recognized how responsive and willing he was, even through the surprises, and “in like” turned to smitten. The solo map training that week was equal parts exhilarating, because we were out alone in the rich golden light of magic hour, and terrifying, because we needed to be back to familiar territory by dark. I don’t know how many solo treks Marinus had done on his own, but at first we had difficulty moving forward without a peer group. We worked through wobbly moments, marched through the potential spooky spots, and all the while I studied the horizon line and learned landmarks that would help me find my way during the competition. La Mujer Muerta (“the dead woman”), for instance—a subrange of the Sierra de Guadarrama that looks like the profile of a sleeping lady—was due south. The one patch of bright green in the desert region, the golf course, was northeast. One part of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route, or Way of St. James, began to feel like home because it was how we would reach other cañadas, or animal paths used for centuries for moving sheep. C H RO N O F H O R S E .CO M

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FEATURE Riders, including Mary Harcourt on Mirlot, could orient themselves with a view of the La Mujer Muerta mountain range during the TREC World Championships.

Our team drove around Segovia, and we familiarized ourselves with the surrounding towns and landmarks. We had no idea where the actual POR route would be. We had trained only in the southeast to east portion of the city, but we’d be familiar enough with the lay of the land that we wouldn’t get hopelessly lost. On our first solo training ride, Marinus and I took a relaxed canter up a long, slow incline into the Segovia sunset light. I was able to neck rein him with one hand and capture video using my iPhone with the other, something I’m able to do with my own horse. It’s then I knew we were a strong team and were going to be fine, whatever the competition organizers threw at us.

The Test

On the eve of the championship’s start, we arrived to colorful flagadorned stables and uniformed teams with horses doing half-pass in the warm-up arenas. The atmosphere was intimidating, but our little team soldiered 72 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

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on with our embroidered navy polos and hats, marching our smart grays and bay into the stable and hanging our own flags. We hacked out and explored some of the avenues to trails that would take us away from the competition site. We had both the castle fortress Alcázar of Segovia (incidentally, one of the inspirations behind the Walt Disney Cinderella Castle) and the stunning gothic-style Segovia cathedral in our sights, and the combination of the two was one of the most stunning vistas I have ever seen on horseback. The next day we passed our vet jogs—imagine lots of foot stomping and “Vamos!” for Marinus—and POR equipment checks. Our support team member, Celia Spillman, braided Marinus’ mane, and we tied her home-crafted red, white and blue pom-poms into Marinus’ and Ideal’s (Paula’s horse) manes for the opening ceremonies. Paula and I joined mounted pairs from other countries and made the hour and a half trek into the streets of Segovia proper. There we met our other teammates on foot, to crowds cheering and waving flags. We stood on cobblestones in the shadow of the

Roman aqueduct, listened to speeches in several languages, and watched traditional musicians and dancers perform. Marinus’ proud owner watched the festivities from behind the barricade, snapping photos of her big gray. Then we marched home, stomach butterflies on full alert for the next morning’s POR. I won’t lie. Walking into the map room and seeing the official route nearly caused me to pass out; I had 20 minutes to copy it onto my own blank, uncreased map with shaky hands and a light head. But as I began to circle landmarks I knew I’d see off in the distance, my confidence grew. Everything from that moment— when I walked outside the map room to meet Kim and Celia and climbed atop Marinus—to about the second hour of our ride was a blur, but I followed the correct route past the motocross area and into unfamiliar territory, where Marinus and I had the biggest test of our new relationship to date. He had to settle, alone, with unfamiliar horses passing or coming near from time to time—there were four official maps,

STEPHANIE L. CHURCH PHOTO

“Marinus was the bravest and most willing young horse I’d been paired with in decades,” said author Stephanie Church.

so we couldn’t just follow one another—and I had to put aside my worries that I would get lost and not make it home before dark. Highlights of our ride included navigating through a long, curved train tunnel, which was completely pitch black inside except for a single light bulb; cantering down an animal path on which we

Saddle Up In Segovia Would you like to see the Segovia landscape from horseback, but a guided inn-to-inn ride with breaks for Rioja wine sounds like it’s more your style? Hípica Eresma offers the “Segovia: History at a Canter” ride through Equiberia, with knowledgeable and hospitable guides. Learn more at equiberia-andalucia.com/SegoviaHistoryofaCanter.php. (And please go give Marinus, in the boarder barn, a peppermint for me.) C H RO N O F H O R S E .CO M

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FEATURE The young Marinus coped with crowds and flag-holding riders during the opening ceremonies of the TREC World Championships in Spain.

STEPHANIE L. CHURCH PHOTO

had trained; watching Marinus dunk his entire head at the water trough near Revenga; and trying to creatively consume my sandwich while he danced circles. Again, there were more beautiful vistas—a few familiar, many not—but all with the La Mujer Muerta in quiet repose nearby, reminding me where due south was. Sure, there were a few scary boulders and unnaturally round bushes to spook about, but Marinus was a champ, willing to go wherever I asked. We met new friends along the way, including Malene, my friend who called my holiday crush on Marinus, and who kept me laughing when I was ready to cry from exhaustion near ride’s completion. The funny thing about TREC POR is that you’re not sure where the route will end—you just keep following the map and, ideally, look forward in expectation. About 7 ½ hours in, Marinus and I were navigating solo across an open space with no clear path on our map. I was having trouble finding the path, and exhaustion turned to frustration. We climbed a hill. I dropped the map. I had to dismount and remount. Marinus was over it. I was over it. But once settled back in my stirrups, map in hand, I took a deep breath and exhaled, acknowledging that Marinus and I were, yes, both rather spent, but we’d be fine and best get moving along. I navigated toward where I thought the correct path was, crested a hill, and I saw Mary and a checkpoint. As I approached the checkpoint judge, he looked at me with a wide grin and said the two most beautiful words I’d heard all day: “You’re done!” I figured I had at least another hour of map reading ahead of me. I hopped off, burst into tears and gave him a big hug. 74 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

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He laughed and said, “Be happy! You finished! Now go have a cerveza and be happy.” In the end, Marinus and I found our way, despite missing a couple of checkpoints. Our scores were nowhere near those of the champions, but we finished, and in and of itself that’s an accomplishment. As I hand-walked him more than a mile to the vet check, where our teammates and support crew awaited, I took a selfie with my point-and-shoot camera to prove we had survived, before an official unsealed my phone. (We could carry a phone in case of emergency, but it had to remain sealed for the duration of our ride.)

Cementing The Partnership

The next morning, Marinus and I were both tired, but we gave solid performances in the Mastery of Gait, and then, my favorite, the obstacle course. Marinus impressed me with his performance through the first “road crossing,” which lurked in the shadows at maxed-out preliminary size. He crossed the broken bridge in the water with no question, cleared the sizeable and spooky ditch without a pause, and I believe we made it through the low branches without knocking any of the poles down with my derriere.

STEPHANIE L. CHURCH PHOTO

Author Stephanie Church saw much of the countryside surrounding Segovia through the gray ears of Marinus.

We did our best on some challenging obstacles that tested even the riders who do TREC year-round. Most importantly, Marinus and I had a blast, and he finished sound and happy, which was my goal. Our final obstacle was a one-stride road crossing, which Marinus cleared with confidence and scope, finishing with energy to spare. We celebrated with carrots and menthol drops, of course. As we waited for the closing ceremony festivities to start, my teammates discussed whether any of our horses would be suitable for carrying the U.S. flag. This was one desensitization exercise we had not practiced. I offered to try and took the flag slowly from Celia, laying it over my horse’s neck. I don’t know if Marinus was too sleepy to care or just that wonderful, but he didn’t bat an eye. I moved the flag around, so it would make some noise, and then draped it over his hindquarters—still no flinching or offer to spook. Within moments we were cantering around the warm-up arena with the stars and stripes billowing behind us, as if he’d been a flag-bearer all his life. We lined up for the closing ceremonies, and that’s when it hit: the awareness that I’d be saying goodbye soon. There were held-back tears, inevitable waterworks, and a lap around the arena to the theme from The Magnificent Seven as we

celebrated a giant goal met. Back at the barns I untacked, brushed and then hugged Marinus—who at this point offered a dramatic bow or carrot stretch anytime I saw him—fed him treats and said goodbye. I bolted out to the parking lot with an armful of gear, thankful it was getting dark so that I could hide my tears. Goodbyes aren’t my thing. But I walked away knowing I’d have a fun holiday crush to remember. Also, Marinus has an owner who adores him even more than I do—one who will continue to take him on epic rides in that Segovia sunshine— and that’s all that matters.

Learn More About TREC While TREC is a part of European equestrian culture, it’s still relatively new in the United States. There are regular mounted clinics and competitions in North Carolina and Virginia. You can join TREC USA and take part in online and in-person clinics, and learn more about bringing TREC to your area at trec-usa.org.

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LIFE BETWEEN THE EARS SEEING THE WORLD WITH

“Life Between The Ears”

ELANOR MOWBRAY JONES/@ENDURANCEELLA PHOTO

Contributors to the “Life Between The Ears” social media accounts transport us to the world’s most interesting and beautiful places—all viewed from the saddle. Each issue, we share a few of their images.

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BEINTA JÓGVANSDÓTTIR/@BEINTAJO PHOTO

SAKSUN, FAROE ISLANDS Beinta Jógvansdóttir grew up in the village Saksun on the island of Streymoy—where the picture was taken—but she currently lives in the capital city of the Faroe Islands, Tórshavn. She’s the first educated farrier on the Faroe Islands. Jógvansdóttir learned the trade in Sweden and then returned to the islands. She keeps her horses in a stable in Tórshavn during the winter and moves them to Saksun in the summer. “[Saksun] is magical. I’ve ridden there almost every day for my whole life. It never ceases to amaze me how beautiful the area is,” said Jógvansdóttir. “I mostly ride out in the nature. Sometimes I compete with gaited horses but only on a basic level, for fun.” Jógvansdóttir got her first horse, a mixed breed pony mare, when she was 4. “I started hacking out on my own at the age of 6,” she said. “I’m the only one who was interested in horses in my village, so I rode alone for almost 30 years. It can get a bit lonely riding on your own, so I usually take my other horses along on the rides. They just run along.” In this photo, Jógvansdóttir is riding Hrímir Frá Stafafelli, a purebred Icelandic horse. “He was born and raised in Iceland but was sold to Austria, then Denmark, before he ended up with me on the Faroe Islands,” said Jógvansdóttir. “He is a very friendly and sweet horse. His gaits are excellent, so it’s a real treat to ride him, especially in tölt, which is one of the two extra gaits the Icelandic horses have.”

UPPSALA, SWEDEN The gray ears in this photo belong to Silver Dearest, an Arabian mare ridden by Elanor Mowbray Jones. The two completed Fédération Equestre Internationale 120-kilometer endurance rides together before Jones lost “Silver” to a stable accident in August. “Silver was the most beautiful and sweetest angel ever lent to the earth, and she helped get me through my mom’s battle with breast cancer. I am so incredibly grateful for all the pictures and videos I took on our many adventures together, so that I can carry those memories along with me in my phone and look at them on my walls,” Jones said. “In the wonderful years she was mine, we had time to compete in three countries, ride in countless cities, get second at the Swedish young rider championships, twice we were awarded the prize for best young rider duo in Uppland, and she won a prize for best Swedish endurance mare.” Jones, who lives in Uppsala, Sweden, often rides with her mother, Sherry. They breed horses and train and compete in dressage and jumping. “I am an endurance rider with my heart set on someday taking part in the world championships,” said Elanor. “But my mom and I pride ourselves in how multitalented our horses are.” Elanor and Sherry have four Arabians: Shahina, Arshaq, Nipeta and Popgun. “The picture is taken on a riding path just outside of Uppsala,” said Elanor, 22. “The path used to be an old railroad track that went between Uppsala and Enköping, but the city remade it to be a riding and bicycle path as part of the nature reserve. This particular path is almost completely straight and moderately sandy, so it is perfect for training. Along it there are plenty of other different sorts of great riding paths that one can turn off to, so I used to start off on it every day. I would say that Uppsala is by far the best place to ride in the world.” Uppsala is the fourth largest city in Sweden and home of Uppsala University, which was founded in 1477 and is the oldest university in Scandinavia. The Fyris River flows through the city, and there’s also a large park, Stadsskogen, which translates into “the town forest.” Elanor combines riding and competing with her studies at Uppsala University, where she’s getting her bachelor’s degree in biology. She also blogs at enduranceella.wordpress.com. “I want to become a scientist just like both my wonderful parents, who also love horses,” she said.

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LIFE BETWEEN THE EARS

MATILDE BRANDT/@MATILDEBRANDT PHOTO

JESSIE HALLSTROM/@RANCHLANDS PHOTO

MOSCA, COLORADO Zapata Ranch in southern Colorado is a 103,000-acre bison and guest ranch owned by The Nature Conservancy that borders the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. The ranch is home to herds of cattle and bison in different areas. The bison herd is managed as a conservation species, freely roaming 50,000 acres. Jessie Hallstrom took this photo as she rode one of the ranch horses, Cinco, to help move the bison herd to the north side of the ranch before they were shipped to their sister ranch in South Dakota. Hallstrom is the sales and marketing coordinator for Ranchlands, the ranch management company that co-manages Zapata Ranch with The Nature Conservancy. She’s lived and worked there for four years. “Ranchlands is a large-scale ranch management company where we partner with conservation-minded owners to implement ambitious conservation programs that co-exist alongside our own cattle operations,” Hallstrom said. “In addition to our diversified cattle business, we run a series of complementary land-based businesses including hospitality, hunting and fishing, and ecotourism. We currently manage six properties. The Zapata is a very special place to call home.” Hallstrom rides western and doesn’t compete, but she works the livestock on the ranch when necessary and has a Quarter Horse she rides for fun.

VESTBY, NORWAY Matilde Brandt and her Friesian gelding Batman are Instagram famous, with more than 222,000 followers, and Brandt chronicles their adventures there and on her blog at matildebrandt.no. “The place [in this photo] is a forest close to my stable and my favorite hack. We have this amazing track with dense forest on both sides— perfect for a canter in the snow! I have had so many amazing rides on this trail,” said Brandt. Brandt originally bought Batman to compete in dressage but then started focusing on bridleless and at-liberty work and trick training. “I combine classical dressage with a tackless approach, but we both enjoy a hack in the Norwegian wilderness—with the bridle still hanging in the stable,” she said. “I do not compete, but I have tried endurance, dressage, jumping and show driving. No competition on the planet will give me the amazing feeling of being completely connected with my horse out in nature, or on a calm morning in the arena playing with collected trot and canter transitions side by side.” Brandt, 23, works in digital marketing. She has owned Batman, 12, since 2009. “He is my everything,” she said. “I don’t focus much on the riding part, but I can tell you what I love most about Batman! I love his honesty; he is always 100 percent honest with me, and he is my mirror, the mirror of my soul. His personality is beautiful, and he is extremely intelligent and emotionally sensitive. “We are very connected, and we have been through a lot together, so we know each other well,” she continued. “I can feel how he feels, and he really reflects my emotions. If I have a day with lots of bad energy, he will simply walk away. If I’m sad, he will always be calm and protective. If I’m scared and insecure, he is scared and insecure. If I’m brave, he will be brave.”

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LOUISA MURCH-WHITE/@WITHAWESTERNTWIST PHOTO

ALBERTA, CANADA Louisa Murch-White competes in cutting in Canada, and this photo is through the ears of Mates Special Lady, a 12-year-old Quarter Horse. “ ‘Lady’ is my first show horse, and for me that has been very special and has created a true partnership between the two of us,” said Murch-White. “Lady is so easy to be around and such a nice horse in general. She’s kind of funny. She’s the queen of the barn and demands everybody’s respect, including the humans. She’ll ‘talk’ at you a lot if you don’t feed her first! From the show pen to trail riding, and everything in between, she takes everything in stride and will do anything you ask of her, which makes her just so special and really one of a kind.” This photo was taken as Murch-White rode Lady in a field behind the De Winton, Alberta, farm where she works. “I took the photo during one of those misty, foggy, frosty mornings in Alberta, where you can’t help but think that the frost looks like diamonds on the grass and the trees,” she said. “I always love frost because it just sparkles and catches the light, and I came around the corner of the field to this sight, with the two fences paralleling each other, and how it almost looks like it goes on forever, and thought, ‘How beautiful is this, and how lucky am I?!’ and snapped the photo!” Murch-White works for a professional cutting horse trainer as a loper. “I assist in the day-to-day chores and work on the ranch, as well as preparing, grooming and riding the horses in training for my boss,” she said. “I go to shows, where I am lucky enough to have the opportunity to also show my own horse, and I also do all the social media and promotion of our Quarter Horse breeding stallion, Reys From Heaven.” Murch-White blogs at withawesterntwist.com, documenting her life and adventures in showing cutting horses. “With A Western Twist is a lifestyle blog that caters to anyone in the horse industry and is a super fun and creative outlet for me at the same time!” she said.

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CODY MULLENAX/@WASATCHWOODY PHOTO

LIFE BETWEEN THE EARS

SANDY, UTAH Cody Mullenax works a 9-to-5 job as a product specialist for an engineering company in the mining industry, but he spends every moment he can riding in the Utah backcountry. “I mainly ride for pleasure; my father’s property sits on the edge of a recreation riding area called Bell Canyon,” he said. “So that’s the most common spot for us to ride, condition horses and break bad habits. When the warmer weather is here, you can typically find us getting lost in the backcountry of Utah’s many mountain ranges. Our favorite tends to be the High Uintas [Wilderness].” The ears on the left in the photo belong to Woody, Mullenax’s 15-year-old palomino Quarter Horse. “She’s packed with attitude. What mare isn’t?” he said. “My favorite thing about her is that she’s a mirror image of myself. She presents herself as stubborn, mean, tough and nothin’ to mess with, but on the inside she’s just a softie wanting nothing more than some good chin scratches and horse cookies. “From the moment I put a saddle on her, she’s tested every aspect of my character, mainly my patience and persistence. But after years of one-upping one another, we reached an agreement that we are both equally stubborn, equally tough and equally resilient,” he added. “And since that agreement, we have made a lot of memorable trips together. Not to say that it’s perfect between us—she’ll still walk me into the occasional low-hanging branch just to make sure I’m awake at the wheel. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.” The other ears in the photo are Smoke (center) and Alley, and this photo was taken on Antelope Island, Utah, on the White Rock Loop trail. “Every New Year’s Day my father Larry, fiancé Camille and I come and ride the loop as a New Year’s tradition. It’s typically a day of freezing temps, buffalo encounters and a little hair-of-the-dog from the night before, with plenty of laughable memories along the way. But it’s a perfect way to start off the new year,” Mullenax said.

RICK DAHMS PHOTO

Sharing Life Between The Ears

Since 2008, Life Between The Ears founder Kristine Dahms has posted stunning photos shot by riders in all corners of the world with one hand on the reins and the other on the shutter. Dahms mines photos with the hashtag #lifebetweentheears, contacts the original poster of the image, then features the photo, complete with educational details about the place that’s portrayed. Life Between The Ears photos appear on a LBTE Facebook page, an Instagram feed, a dedicated website (lifebetweentheears.com), a Twitter feed and a Pinterest page (all under lifebetweentheears account names). Dahms—who lives in Vashon, Wash., with her Welsh Cob, mini horse, pygmy goats, two dogs and two cats—rides dressage and takes quite a few photos herself on the picturesque Vashon-Maury Island. Dahms has taken some of the Life Between The Ears images from cyberspace to print, creating three lines of greeting cards with selected photos from her social media pages. A portion of the proceeds from the card sales goes to the Equine Land Conservation Resource (elcr.org). Cards are available at lifebetweentheears.com/retail.

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Come Show with Us!

2SPRING 0 1SERIES7

SPRING 1 April 6-9

SPRING 4 May 10-14

SPRING 7 May 31-June 5, CSI 3*

SPRING 2 April 12-16

SPRING 5 May 17-21

SPRING 8 June 8-11, CSI 5*

SPRING 3 May 4-8, CSI 3*

SPRING 6 May 24-28

4066 Pea Ridge Road, Mill Spring, NC 28756

| (828) 863-1000

| www.tryon.com

HISTORY

BELLE BEACH: A HEAD O F H ER T IME Author of the 1912 book Riding And Driving For Women, Beach was once considered the world’s greatest equestrienne. By ELIZA MCGR AW

Photos Courtesy of APPLEWOOD BOOKS/R IDING AN D DR IV ING FOR WOMEN

“I

t does not take me long to make friends with a horse,” 20-year-old Belle Beach told a reporter in 1900. It was an understatement. Beach could hop on a horse she’d never seen, pilot him sidesaddle around a course of high jumps

and win a blue ribbon. She galloped horses in the hunting field, using cotton thread for reins. She taught riding, trained horses and won more than 2,000 blue and red ribbons over the course of her 20-year career. Unlike many competitors of her era, Beach wasn’t a debutante or matron. She was hired by families like the Whitneys, Vanderbilts and Harrimans, who paid her to ride. At the horse shows—Newport (R.I.), Bryn Mawr (Pa.), Chicago—she soared over jumps and galloped hitched teams around sharp corners. She was hailed as America’s best horsewoman, and she wrote the prescient Riding And Driving For Women, published in 1912, before filing for bankruptcy and dying of unknown causes in 1926.

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Belle Beach’s favorite mount was a mare named Lady Bonnie, a black saddle horse. “To my mind she came as near perfection as any horse in the world,” she wrote in Riding And Driving For Women.

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HISTORY A WORKING HORSEWOMAN

Beach’s mother, Emily Beach, taught riding in Manhattan, and Belle was raised before a backdrop of Gilded Age wealth, style and a Roosevelt-fueled passion for horses. Horses offered these women exercise, freedom and style, and some kept one stable of horses in the city and another at a country home. An industry developed, with ladies’ saddle horses and children’s ponies added to livery stables and riding academies. Emily, who led strings of children trotting through Central Park each morning and could find a quiet mount for even the most timid rider, was a key part of New York’s riding scene. An 1894 Los Angeles Times article positioned Emily as the first riding teacher who catered to women. Emily wouldn’t tell the reporter how much money she earned, but the article lists some indicators she made a decent living: She rented an entire floor of a fashionable boarding house; she had a Great Dane and an Angora cat; and she gave parties for her young daughter. Class—with the perplexing non-servant but non-equal posi-

tion a riding teacher held—was in the mix, too. The reporter mentions Emily was “as much a member of society as any one can be who is not actually put down in the calling and ball lists of McAllister’s 400 [society list].” More evidence of class confusion: Horses, the reporter writes, are Emily’s “profession, pastime and passion, though it was not obvious by the way she carried herself like a true lady.” In other words, you couldn’t tell that she was different than the other ladies dressed in black habits and cantering around the indoor ring. Belle grew up in the middle ground her mother carved out. Sometimes they competed against each other. Even as a young woman, Belle was an authority. When she was 20, a Chicago reporter asked what she thought of the local horse show. Belle said that the audience shouldn’t hiss when they didn’t like the judges’ decisions. She wasn’t impressed with how everyone looked either. Back home, she said, some of the competitors would have been sent back to the gate in their western getups. But life as a working horsewoman wasn’t easy. Once Belle was

She was an expert in the saddle, but Belle Beach also drove four-in-hand teams and offered advice for doing so in her book.

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ponying a horse in Newport on her way to give a lesson. The horse spooked, she was dragged, and she injured her hand. That meant lost saddle time and income. Horse shows centered Belle’s world. She traveled the country, riding others’ horses and driving their teams. The shows were enormous social occasions that brought out the upper class of entire cities. Shows offered women a place to exhibit the riding skills they’d practiced and a focus to the social season, even for people who didn’t ride. By 1898, there were 26 horse shows, more than in any previous year. The National Horse Show, held in Madison Square Garden, was the largest and most formal, and was a time for its own fashions, dinners, balls and outings. “Mrs. Alfred Vanderbilt, Miss Hopeton Atterbury, the Military—a few horses, a Roman background—that’s the Horse Show,” said one article. (The Vanderbilt driving team horses were named Venture, Vanity, Viking and Vogue.) A 1903 cartoon showed the spectators, judges and horses all craning toward President Theodore Roosevelt’s daughter Alice in her box. Her father despaired of how she marked the year by society functions; he liked riding to be a hardier, more outdoorsy pursuit. Magazines like the Horse Show Monthly chronicled who went to which shows and won. But even with the frivolity surrounding it, riding was serious. Emily told a reporter that riding had a moral side, because “a girl who looks into a horse’s face and into his honest eyes will be a better girl and a truer woman.” A typical day of classes might include: draught horses shown to halter, novice harness horses, Thoroughbred saddle horses registered in the stud book, appointment class, ladies qualified hunters and four-in-hand driving teams. Fresh flowers perfumed the air, and mounted police performed, galloping 12 abreast, then suddenly stopping to wind into a formation of smaller and smaller circles to whooping cheers. Ring grooms wore pink coats, and people leaned over the rail, others pressing behind them to see. Spectators wore ermine, diamonds and lace collars. At one Chicago show, Belle won the combination class for riding and driving, which had 28 entries. She was the only woman. To see “a living example of perfection in riding clothes,” wrote Emily Post in an etiquette book, “go to the next horse-show where Miss Belle Beach is riding and look at her!” She was “part of her horse, cool, calm, reposeful, perfect of seat and poise, guiding her mount by a telepathy of a clear, wise mind and light hand, rather than by physical strength and ill advised generalship,” reported the Monthly.

To see “a living example of perfection in riding clothes,” wrote Emily Post in an etiquette book, “go to the next horse-show where Miss Belle Beach is riding and look at her!”

LEADING A MOVEMENT

By 1909, with Belle leading the way, women were in nine of 10 classes at the Riding and Driving Club in Brooklyn. Women had yet to win the vote, and many suffragists used horseback riding, with its connotations of freedom and independence, to cement the idea that women could lead. Belle rode in a suffrage parade alongside others in tri-cornered hats decorated with green and gold pompoms. One trainer noted that the event showed how many New York women could now “ride well enough to manage a horse in a public thoroughfare to an accompaniment of drums, music and cheers.” The Beaches, similarly, had spearheaded the idea that women could ride young, mettlesome horses as well as schoolmasters. Because of her pioneer status, it seems odd that Belle clung to her sidesaddle long after many women switched to riding astride. But she never viewed the sidesaddle as confining. In fact, she preferred it. “Women are not built like men physically, and do not and cannot get their grip on the horse in the same way,” she told a reporter. She once wrote that she would give a little instruction in “cross-saddle,” since many insisted on using it, especially if they were “in some parts of the West,” or “roughing it.” As late as 1916, Belle believed riding astride was a passing fad, though she did think it was alright for her students to go without C H RO N O F H O R S E .CO M

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HISTORY Despite holding many modern opinions, Belle Beach, author of the 1912 book Riding And Driving For Women, still believed women should ride sidesaddle instead of astride.

After 20 years as a famous horsewoman, Belle Beach slowly slipped out of the public eye before dying alone of unknown causes in 1926.

corsets when they were in the saddle. Belle held some other retrograde opinions. She didn’t believe tail docking harmed horses, for example. She said she’d seen many long-tailed horses get in accidents when their tails caught in the reins. In both this and the sidesaddle, she opposed Teddy Roosevelt, who advocated women riding astride and demanded the White House horses have natural tails. Belle’s favorite horse was a mare named Lady Bonnie. It’s unclear who Lady Bonnie’s owner was, but the horse represented perfection to Belle. She was a black saddle horse—Belle found too much chrome, especially a bald face, flashy and unsuitable for women—with small ears, a well-developed topline and a coat like velvet, as Belle wrote. Her long neck meant her rider could use a long rein, and her canter was straight. Belle adored her. “Her intelligence, her eagerness to do her part, her great though perfectly tractable spirit, and her wonderful manners made it a pleasure to know her and a privilege to be her friend,” she wrote. In 1906 Belle married fellow horseman William Charles Bain, a Boer War veteran who fought for Scotland. But by December 1912, they had divorced—Belle charged nonsupport, and rumors flew about a lover Bain had left in South Africa—and Belle went to court to get back her maiden name. That same year, Belle’s book came out from Scribner’s. It was 86 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

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dedicated mysteriously to her “friend,” and it opened with a Walt Whitman quote from his poem, “The Beasts,” which is about how the non-human elements of animals—that they are “placid” and “do not lie awake in the dark”—appeal to the poet. Even with the sidesaddle doctrine, Belle’s book is still relevant, with sections that prefigure some of today’s ideals. For example, a rider should control “her horse with a spirit of love instead of adopting the brutal method of controlling him by fear,” Belle wrote. Its lingo invites familiarity: “Equally bad is the horse with no mouth at all, for he is often a rearer or a jibber,” Belle wrote, advising the reader on the type of horse to buy. Other sections deal with more minor details. “Never ‘cluck’ to your horse,” Belle wrote. “It is a very bad habit to acquire, and, when you are riding in company, the other horse or horses are sure to hear you and to increase their gait.” She warns against flourishing a whip and issues very clear ideas about turnout: Ascots should only be worn with a plain bar gold pin; drivers should always have a lap robe; and only use a brown webbing girth if riding informally, in the country. Only “lazy grooms” liked dark girths. Riding And Driving For Women was well-reviewed and is still considered an equestrian classic. And larger issues were at play. It’s easy to imagine Belle-the-suffragist when she wrote, “If a woman and a man are both going to the same

Belle Beach, trained by her mother Emily Beach, showed horses for the Whitneys and Vanderbilts across the country and in London.

fence, she should not expect him to pull up and allow her to go over first or to treat her otherwise than as he would another man. It is not field etiquette.” Yet in the years after the publication of Riding And Driving For Women, things slid downhill for Belle. In 1913, a storage company seized her possessions for nonpayment. By 1914 she filed for bankruptcy, saying she owed the Harriman National Bank $875 and Mrs. Condé Nast $75. In 1917, Belle was stopped on Riverside Drive after a car crash. She was accompanied by an unnamed man. Belle “was never any beauty, but she could sit a horse with no end of grace,” wrote a reporter. And in 1922, she was listed as instrumental in a horses’ aid society, which went around New York identifying and feeding hungry cart horses. After that, Belle’s name mainly stayed out of the papers until 1926, when she died alone in her Great Neck, N.Y., apartment on Jan. 8. A friend claimed her body. She had been sick; there were rumors of suicide. “World’s Greatest Horsewoman, Forgotten, Dies in Obscurity,” stated one headline in the Democrat And Chronicle of Rochester, N.Y. “In less than 10 years ‘the greatest horsewoman in

the world’ had been forgotten,” the article concluded. It was a surprising end for a former celebrity, who ushered in such a dynamic, exciting time for women and horses. As a working athlete, Belle occupied a crucial space in the show rings of the early 20th century. Unlike her students and clients, she relied upon her riding for more than social status or exercise. As America shifted its focus from horses to cars, Belle found a way to use the craze for horses as athletes instead of helpmeets, hitched to phaetons instead of wagons. As one of the first people to write a manual specifically for women, she helped revolutionize the idea of riding and riding instruction. Her grace and style led trainer Tom Bass—the first black man to show a horse in Madison Square Garden—to name his prize show mare “Belle Beach.” And throughout her life, Belle never lost sight of the partnership at the heart of her work. “That which takes but a moment to tell has taken me years to learn,” she wrote in her book, “learned as a pupil; learned as a teacher; learned by observation; learned by exhibition, by many a triumph, by many a heart-break; much of it a pleasure, much a hard task, but repaid always by my comrades through it all—the horses.” C H RO N O F H O R S E .CO M

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TRAVEL

Vive La Différence A day out with staghounds in France’s Villers-Cotterêts forest sets an ancient equestrian pursuit to music. By H.C. BR IGHT

Photos by SAR AH FARNSWORTH

The hounds met in the late morning on this November day, assembling deep in a forest at a crossroads called the Croix Bacquet. It’s one of many such crossings in the historic forest of Villers-Cotterêts, about 50 miles northeast of Paris. By joining a pack of staghounds—in this case, the Equipage de Villers-Cotterêts—in this woodland, we were following a long and lofty French tradition: King Louis XV even hunted here after his coronation in 1722. 88 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

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The French horns carried by the staff of the Equipage de Villers-Cotterêts aren’t just decorative. The hunters’ wide variety of horn calls report every stage of the hunt through an ancient forest.

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TRAVEL Stag hunting may have started centuries ago as an aristocratic pastime, but these days it’s not limited to members of high society. As our small party of experienced American foxhunters arrived, we saw all sorts of people gathering via all manner of conveyance: on foot, in cars, on bicycles, and in the case of one Villers-Cotterêts regular, a well-muffled scooter. French hunting, a spectacle that had been refined since medieval times, is the ancestor of the English style of mounted chase. But even though it shares some of its characteristics with the traditional English hunt, the French version has its own distinctive flavor. At the Croix Bacquet, there were not only the usual hounds and horses, but also carbon fiber bicycles, tricorne hats, French horns and men wearing gilded swords. Welcome to the chasse à courre! As the hunters and followers nibbled on snacks before getting down to the day’s sport, the “tufters”—the hounds and their handlers who went out at dawn to scout out signs of mature red deer stags in advance of the hunt—straggled up, too, having worked up an appetite on their search. After the staghounds piled out of their trailer, everyone gathered around for the rapport: The tufters lined up, and each told Christian Ferte—the hunt’s président, or deputy master—what he found (or didn’t find) on his reconnaissance in the misty dawn. Those who thought they’d found evidence of a good stag tried to “sell” what they found to Ferte, and there was plenty of banter until the hunt decided where to draw, or begin the hounds’ search for game. The quarry: the red deer, somewhat like an American elk but slightly smaller and considered by many hunters to be the greatest game. Even before the chase began, there was pure, historic pageantry. The more experienced hunters and some of the professional staff at French hunts carry full-sized, valveless French horns over their shoulders, so that the horns wrap around them. Before hounds move off, the hunters play the hunt’s fanfare—each hunt has one—along with fanfares from packs that have members visiting the meet as guests. When the hounds moved off into the forest, there was no organized, controlled field of followers like we see in the United States. In France, each hunt follower goes where he thinks he’ll have the best chance to spot the quarry and hounds, so when our hunt rode away from Croix Bacquet, 30 horses, 20 cars and 100 people on foot and bicycles spread out all over the place. It looked chaotic, but in fact it worked, thanks to something all the visitors remarked on: Once a hunt starts, everyone is fully focused on the hounds. There’s a saying in mounted hunting, with much truth, that some people ride to hunt and some hunt to ride, but in the French woodlands the latter group seem largely absent. 90 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

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VillersCotterêts huntsman, or piqu’avant, JeanLuc Corroyer (mounted) and the staghounds prepare for the hunt to begin.

The French bring their own style to the hunting field, where you’ll often see riders in traditional hats and boots that are taller than the usual English hunt boots, as worn here by Mrs. Marie-Christine Lagache.

Today’s hunters and hounds in the Villers-Cotterêts forest are following a centuries-old tradition.

In France, stag hunts can draw 100 followers, who use practically any kind of conveyance to keep up with hounds, like these cyclists who joined the Villers-Cotterêts field. C H RO N O F H O R S E .CO M

Villers-Cotterêts hunt followers always know where they are in the forest, because every intersection of paths has a name, and signposts point out which clearing lies in which direction.

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TRAVEL

A VillersCotterêts hound at the end of the hunt day.

Villers-Cotterêts huntsman Jean-Luc Corroyer leads the hunt’s staghounds, who are only allowed to pursue mature stags.

Villers-Cotterêts huntsman JeanLuc Corroyer checks to make sure all of the staghounds are accounted for at the end of the day, after the stag has escaped the forest.

We found that everyone was listening, watching, trying to figure out what was going on and what might happen next. People might pause for a snack and a chat, but their eyes and ears were always cocked toward the forest and the hounds. At this point, when hounds and their piqu’avant—the huntsman, Jean-Luc Corroyer—vanish into the woodland, the newcomers among us discovered that the French horn isn’t merely a ceremonial relic, a curious departure from the relatively small, straight horn you’ll see an English or American huntsman carry. The French hunters don’t use radios or cell phones, and once the hunt begins, they relay crucial information via horn music. 92 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

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Everything that happens during a hunt has a specific tune to go with it. All through the day, horns echoed through the woodland. In the forest, unless a follower happens to be right beside the hounds, he can’t see the action. And once hounds get rolling on a scent, they’re tough to locate by ear as well. Their cry reverberates back and forth among the trees, and it can be misleading; sometimes it sounds as if you are right in the middle of the action, even if you aren’t. But for those who know the tunes and their meaning, the horns describe the chase’s unfolding story—whether the hounds have found game, what kind of stag he is and when he crosses a

French trotting horses who have retired from the racetrack—like this one piloted by a VillersCotterêts rider known simply as Belette—are popular staghunting mounts.

The setting sun frames a Villers-Cotterêts hunter at the end of a long day, which saw the field travel 28 miles through the forest in pursuit of a stag before he got away.

road, runs along it, goes to water or gets away out of the forest, as our stag did on this particular day, after leading us on a sixhour chase. Eyes and ears were good enough for Charlemagne, so they were good enough for us as we sped along the forest allées on our hired horses, most of them ex-race horses of the trotting variety—popular hunt mounts in France, because as a visitor soon finds, during the chase endurance matters more than sprinting. The field covered 28 miles along the spider’s web of pathways, each path wide enough for two horses ridden abreast, that cut through Villers-Cotterêts. But, on this day, our stag left the forest. They do that now

and again, and once they do, it’s tough to catch them up again; the stags have superior speed and strength, as well as intimate knowledge of the territory, and they evade capture for a living. Shadows were lengthening, there were only a few people still up with the hounds, so they gave him best. It was a pleasure to see the tired hounds piled up, the hunt staff making sure everyone was accounted for and loading that last one who’s just too tired to take another step—the universal end of the hunting day. We turned for home, too, as weary as the horses and hounds, but with hound and horn music still ringing in our ears. C H RO N O F H O R S E .CO M

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CITY GUIDE

CLASSIC SOUTHERN MAIN STREET:

FRANKLIN, TENNESSEE By TRICIA CONAHAN

t’s said that if you’re standing in downtown Franklin, you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a country music singer or songwriter—or someone who wants to be one. This charming historic town, just 14 miles south of Nashville, is a hotbed for country music, fine dining, antiques and Southern hospitality. It’s also situated in the heart of horse country. Nestled in the rolling hills of Middle Tennessee, Franklin is surrounded by bucolic horse farms, many of them the country estates of horse-crazy Nashville celebrities. It has the state’s only fenced polo arena and is just minutes away from Brownland Farm, one of the Southeast’s oldest and most popular hunter/jumper show grounds. In 2014, the readers of Garden & Gun magazine voted Franklin “the best Southern town in the nation.” With its brick sidewalks and Victorian buildings, downtown Franklin is considered one of the best main streets in America. The town offers up a pleasing mix of Civil War history and current-day Southern sophistication, all within a 16-block National Register district of carefully restored homes. And then there’s the music. Located so close to Music City, Franklin’s culture is indelibly stamped by country music. Many of the downtown restaurants have a stage in back and offer nightly live performances. The historic Franklin Theatre attracts talent from across the country and across music venues; the annual songwriters’ charity concert there is a must-have ticket for locals and visitors alike. And the town’s multiple street festivals—from Brewfest, to the monthly Art Crawl, to the holiday-themed “Dickens of a Christmas”—all feature local musicians and bands. When strolling around downtown Franklin, look closely at your fellow pedestrians. Behind those sunglasses and under the cowboy hat, that might be a country music star you’ve just passed. Or maybe a future one.

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On almost 200 acres just minutes from downtown Franklin, Brownland Farm, a privately-owned facility, is one of the best-loved horse show destinations in the Southeast. Shaded by dozens of mature hackberry, walnut and oak trees, the farm boasts four competition rings, 400 permanent stalls and a four-acre multi-use grass field. Brownland’s U.S. Equestrian Federation Premier-rated shows attract an average of 500 horses per week. Competitors from across the country come for the weather and the competition and stay for the Southern hospitality. The venue stages a $25,000 grand prix on each week of their Premier-rated horse shows, with larger purses at the Nashville Country and Nashville Classic horse shows in May. In addition, Brownland has created a unique format for its hunter derbies: Competitors ride the classic round in one ring, exit and trot over to an adjacent ring to immediately complete their handy round. 1155 Hillsboro Rd. Franklin, TN 37069 (615) 791-8180 brownlandfarm.com

LILI WEIK PHOTOGRAPHY PHOTO

BROWNLAND FARM

VISITFRANKLIN.COM PHOTO

FRENCH’S SHOES AND BOOTS

If you own a horse and you travel to Franklin, you definitely have one destination shopping experience: French’s Shoes and Boots. With 12 locations across the state, French’s is known for its mix of high-end and more affordable boots and shoes for men, women and children. Sure, you can shop here for some fancy footwear— French’s offers a wide selection of Lucchese cowboy boots to scratch that itch. Need some bling on your belt? French’s stocks belts from Nocona, Justin and Ariat, from sturdy to flatout fashionable. How about a novelty T-shirt declaring “I Love You like Biscuits and Gravy”? French’s has that, too. For most English riders, the appeal of the Franklin store is the back of the store. There, French’s regularly stocks English paddock boots and field boots from Ariat that are heavily discounted—up to 60 percent off. This inventory rotates regularly, and the boots are either lightly used, new but slightly damaged or just off-season. Spend an hour digging through the random sizes and styles, and you might just score your next pair of show boots for pennies on the dollar. 328 5th Ave. North Franklin, TN 37064 (615) 599-6965 frenchsbootsandshoes.com

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CITY GUIDE

VISITFRANKLIN.COM PHOTO

GRAY’S ON MAIN

Chef Jason McConnell is Franklin’s home-grown culinary hero. He grew up in Rives, a rural area in northwest Tennessee. His family had a horse training business that required extensive travel, so young Jason toured across the Southeast, sampling from the kitchens of culinary masters across the region. McConnell is now the proprietor of four of Franklin’s prized establishments: Red Pony, 55 South, Cork & Cow and McConnell House, an event venue staged in a former Franklin jailhouse. The Red Pony has found its place in equestrians’ hearts. Founded in 2006, this Main Street restaurant keeps its game fresh by changing its menu six times a year. McConnell focuses on “sophisticated Southern food” that is constantly influenced by his travels to Morocco, Hong Kong, Thailand and other ports abroad. Try the Red Pony B.L.T., which features bacon, lobster and tomato served over Yukon gold ravioli, with truffled corn cream. Or the bacon-wrapped elk, with potato and cheese chili relleno, blackberry mole and roasted garlic sour cream. The restaurant has received Wine Spectator’s Award of Excellence for the depth and breadth of its wine list. But Red Pony projects an upscale laid-back atmosphere. Housed in a 100-year-old building, the restaurant is warm and inviting and has retained authentic details like the original horsehair mortar that binds its brick walls. Reservations required. 408 W. Main St. Franklin, TN 37064 (615) 595-7669 redponyrestaurant.com

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RED PONY

Walk into Gray’s On Main, and you immediately feel that someone got it right. The original wooden floors, tin ceilings, antique mirrors and photos of past Franklin residents pay homage to the history of this 1876 Victorian building, which for years was a pharmacy. But the energy, music scene and sophisticated Southern dining signal that Gray’s is a central part of today’s downtown Franklin. The food is upscale Southern fare, with an emphasis on locally sourced ingredients. The chef will serve you steak or fish, but the more popular entrees include buttermilk fried chicken, braised beef short ribs and low-country bouillabaisse. Eating dinner at Gray’s with a local? You’ll start your meal with popular appetizers like bacon-wrapped figs, fried green tomatoes or fried pimento cheese balls (served with moonshine pepper jelly). On the second floor, Gray’s mixologists are becoming local celebrities in their own right. This craft bar honors the brandy culture of the late 19th century, with hand-mixed cocktails like Gray’s awardwinning “Anthem Spirit” cocktail. The second floor also hosts the music hall and stage, with a variety of live performances by Franklin’s and Nashville’s upcoming artists. Reservations are required. 332 Main St. Franklin, TN 37064 (615) 435-3603 graysonmain.com

VISITFRANKLIN.COM PHOTOS

CARTER HOUSE AND CARNTON PLANTATION

The fields just south of Franklin are witness to one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. In late 1864, more than 30,000 Confederate troops, having just failed to capture Atlanta, were marching towards Nashville. Union forces were sent to Franklin to slow their advance; they commandeered the Carter family homestead as a battle headquarters. Historians consider the Battle of Franklin to be the last great conflict of the American Civil War, an assault more ambitious than Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg. It was a huge Confederate defeat, and most of the 10,000 casualties were from the rebel forces. Now, thanks to the designation of more than 200 acres of the battlefield as a historic site, visitors to Franklin can relive this historic event. At Carter House, you can still see hundreds of bullet holes that riddle the home and its outbuildings. Carnton Plantation (approximately 1.25 miles away) is now restored and on the National Register of Historic Places; you can visit the back porch where several Confederate generals died. Adjacent to Carnton Plantation is the McGavock Confederate Cemetery, the largest privately-owned military cemetery in the nation.

Carter House

Carnton Plantation

1140 Columbia Ave. Franklin, TN 37064 (615) 791-1861

1345 Eastern Flank Circle Franklin, TN 37064 (615) 794-0903

boft.org/visit

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CITY GUIDE

VISITFRANKLIN.COM PHOTO

In the summer of 1937, the Franklin Theatre opened, showing afternoon matinees to Depression-era audiences. The movie house continued to be a central part of life in Franklin until 1970, when it closed its doors—a victim to the growth of mega-theaters. Unwilling to let this historic landmark slip away, the Heritage Foundation of Franklin and Williamson County raised more than $8 million to buy and renovate the classic building. Now with modern lighting and state-of-the art sound systems, Franklin Theatre presents movies, music and live performances and is once again the entertainment destination of Franklin’s Main Street. A wide variety of musical artists have graced the theater’s stage: Sheryl Crow, Neil Thrasher, Amy Grant, Rickie Lee Jones, Vince Gill and more. You can also catch comedy, magic shows and other live performances. 419 Main St. Franklin, TN 37064 (615) 538-2076 franklintheatre.com

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FRANKLIN THEATRE

Head west out of Franklin on Hillsboro Road, pick up Old Hillsboro Road and drive through miles of country estates and sprawling horse farms on a 15-minute trip to Leiper’s Fork, a tiny postage stamp of a village. Known as “The Fork” to locals, this historic, picturesque town is the jewel of Williamson County. It’s perfect for a lazy afternoon of shopping, antiquing, food and music. At its core, this is an artist community. Wander into the Copper Fox Gallery, which offers pottery, glass, leather, wood and traditional media that spotlights the work of Southeast artisans. The nearby David Arms gallery, housed in a rustic barn, showcases the Tennessee artist’s expansive portfolio of symbol-rich acrylics on canvas. Or stroll into Leiper’s Fork Gallery, which presents an eclectic range of fine art. Leiper’s Fork has plenty of other shopping, from Finds in the Fork (which sells cigar-box guitars) to Serenite Maison (European antiques) to country mercantile West & Company. And then, of course, there is the original Puckett’s Grocery. Slide onto a counter stool and order an award-winning burger or “meat and two sides” for their famous BBQ. Munch on some buttermilk biscuits, then stay for the evening jam sessions. Every night except Monday, Puckett’s has live music. Thursdays are Open Mic Night, where anybody might show up to sing—including Wynonna Judd. Reservations required. Care to stay the night? Nearby Full Circle Farm will put you up in a barn loft, with windows overlooking the fields and horse paddocks. Private riding lessons are available. Traveling with your own horse? There’s hospitality for your steed, too. Or stay at any number of quaint hotels and B&Bs in or around Leiper’s Fork; choose from the Nest, the Red Horse Barn, Picker’s Cottage and more. visitfranklin.com/see-and-do/leipers-fork

PHOTO COURTESY OF IVEY CAKE

LEIPER’S FORK

IVEY CAKE

Let’s address the first question: Yes, there is an actual Ivey. She was a college graduate in 1999 who hated her nine-to-five job, so she began experimenting with cake recipes in the kitchen of her tiny apartment. A few years of sticky research later, Ivey Childers opened her own cake and cupcake store in downtown Franklin. The rest is sweet history. This tiny store packs a punch when it comes to quality, unique flavors and variety. It’s hard to adhere to the trainer-induced diet when you’re staring down a huge display of gorgeously baked cupcakes: “Beach Bum” (salted caramel), “Hot Mess” (chocolate and chocolate ganache), “Breakup” (red velvet cake) or “Good Kisser” (chocolate with mint butter cream), among many delicious others. The store’s best-seller? It’s the “I Do” vanilla cupcake with vanilla buttercream, which was served at the wedding of country megastar Carrie Underwood. If your trusty equine partner has been particularly good of late, order up a baker’s dozen of Ivey’s “People Pleaser” cupcake. It has carrots and cream cheese frosting—just order it without the walnuts and raisins. Special orders are available on 48 hours’ notice; call 615-942-6259. 100 4th Ave. North Franklin, TN 37064 (615) 595-4353 iveycake.com

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FEED ROOM The Patron Saint Of Horse Show Food

By LISA SLADE

Dr. Steven Berkowitz (left) is a well-known presence at Plantation Field (Pa.) and Fair Hill (Md.) Horse Trials thanks to his veterinary services and grilling and baking prowess. Here he feeds Olympic eventer Boyd Martin.

hen Steven Berkowitz, VMD, started attending three-day events as a treating veterinarian about 10 years ago, he’d find a quiet place for himself and his dog, and he’d read the Sunday newspaper or some magazines. Nowadays, when Berkowitz rolls up to the show, he’s quickly surrounded by friends. They’re ready for him to fire up his grill, or they’re seeking one of his famous sweet treats. At Plantation Field (Pa.) or Fair Hill (Md.) Horse Trials, it’s not uncommon to see Boyd Martin or Ryan Wood trotting around cross-country warm-up still polishing off a burger or brownie. “They would serve you hoagies for lunch, and I’m not a big hoagie person. And because I was usually hiding somewhere, sometimes I wouldn’t get lunch,” says Berkowitz, a veterinarian at Unionville Equine in Pennsylvania who’s also often caught snapping pictures of his favorites riders in addition to feeding them. So he decided he’d pack a grill and make a burger for himself. 100 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

AMY K. DRAGOO PHOTO

Veterinarian and eventing enthusiast Dr. Steven Berkowitz draws crowds with his famous burgers and baked goods.

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BERKOWITZ BURGERS

Burgers are a horse show food staple, and Berkowitz brings his 18" Weber Smokey Joe Charcoal Grill along with him to make sure they’re perfect every time. “It’s foolproof, and it’s very portable, and everyone loves the charcoal taste,” he says.

INGREDIENTS: Ground beef (80/20) Your favorite meat seasoning (Berkowitz prefers seasoning salt from the Country Butcher Fine Foods Market in Kennett Square, Pa.) Potato rolls American cheese

1. Season ground beef. If you don’t have a favorite seasoning, salt and pepper work too. 2. Form beef into patties. “I make sure I handle the meat gently and don’t squeeze it too tightly, so the burgers stay juicy,” said Berkowitz. 3. Grill each side for six minutes. 4. Place one slice of American cheese on the burger and serve it on a potato roll.

“When I first started, people would see the smoke from the grill and be like, ‘Hey, can you make me one?’ Now I’m making 12 to 18 every time I go somewhere,” he says. “At Fair Hill, I think I made two dozen burgers. It gives me something to do, and I like feeding people. I’ve met so many more people now that I would never have become friends with otherwise. It’s

really become a fun thing.” Berkowitz gets most of his baking inspiration from food blogs and online recipes, or even the backs of flour bags, and then he tests them on the riders. But he has a secret tip, too. “I put sea salt on everything when I’m done,” he said. “I get coarse sea salt, and it adds an extra crunch—everyone loves it.”

THREE-LAYER BROWNIES

LISA SLADE PHOTO

These decadent and Internetfamous brownies more often go by the moniker “slutty brownies” on food blogs. This is the made-from-scratch version of the recipe recommended by Berkowitz, but if you prefer to use pre-made mixes for the brownies and cookies, you can find those recipes online.

INGREDIENTS: One package of regular Oreo cookies, or use a specialty flavor of your choice

For the brownie layer: 10 tbsp. unsalted butter 1 ¼ cups white sugar ¾ cup cocoa powder ½ tsp. salt 2 tsp. vanilla extract 2 eggs ½ cup flour

For the cookie dough layer: ½ cup unsalted butter at room temperature ¼ cup brown sugar ¾ cup white sugar 1 egg 1 ¼ tsp. vanilla extract 1 ¼ cups flour ½ tsp. salt ½ tsp. baking soda ½ tsp. baking powder 1 cup semi-sweet, milk or dark chocolate chips

1. Prepare brownie layer: A. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. B. Add the sugar and cocoa powder once the butter is melted, whisk to combine and then remove saucepan from heat. C. Add salt, vanilla and eggs and whisk again to combine before adding the flour. Set pan aside. 2. Prepare the cookie dough layer: A. Cream the room-temperature butter, white and brown sugars with an electric mixer. B. Add the vanilla and egg and mix again. C. Add flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda, and mix on low. D. Add the chocolate chips. Set mix aside. 3. Assemble the brownies: A. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. B. Prepare a 9" x 9" pan with cooking spray, or line the pan with tin foil and then spray foil with the cooking spray for ease of cleaning. C. Press the cookie dough into the bottom of your baking pan. This will form the bottom layer of the brownies. D. Add a single layer of Oreo cookies on top of the cookie dough. E. Pour brownie mix on top of Oreos and cookie dough. F. Bake for 30-45 minutes, testing with a knife after 30 minutes. Once knife comes out clean, allow brownies to cool for an hour or two before cutting and serving. C H RO N O F H O R S E .CO M

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FOX FACE COOKIES

An adorable favorite with the eventing crowd, these cookies would be equally at home during a hunt brunch or evening barn party. The star shape is their secret. Berkowitz makes his own Royal Icing with milk and powdered sugar before using food coloring to achieve optimal shades, but you can also purchase premade icing in the different shades. There’s a fox face decorating tutorial available at thebearfootbaker. com/2012/06/fox-face-your-a-star.

INGREDIENTS:

1. Prepare sugar cookies according to recipe, cutting into star shapes before baking. Allow cookies to cool fully before icing. 2. Start by making the lighter orange face of the fox, leaving room for the white nose and darker orange or brown ears. 3. Once the first layer of icing sets, anywhere from a few hours

SARA LIESER PHOTO

Sugar cookie mix, or your favorite from-scratch sugar cookie recipe Star-shaped cookie cutter White icing Dark orange or brown icing Lighter orange icing Black icing to overnight, add the darker orange/brown ears and the white face. These two layers shouldn’t touch, so there’s no waiting time required between them. 4. Finish with a drop of white frosting, topped with a dot of black frosting, for the two eyes.

STILL HUNGRY? B

erkowitz has many more favorites than those featured here. He also often makes Millionaire’s Shortbread, and you can find his go-to recipe at cooksillustrated. com/articles/336-millionaires-shortbread. Flourless peanut butter chocolate chip cookies (kingarthurflour.com/recipes/flourless-peanutbutter-chocolate-chip-cookies-recipe) are simple and delicious, as are Rachael Ray’s chewy brownies (rachaelray.com/recipe/chewy-brownies).

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BOOK REVIEW Learning To Fall By ANNE CLERMONT

nne Clermont’s Learning To Fall is an entertaining and fun debut novel. Set within the world of competitive show jumping, this coming-of-age story focuses on underdog protagonist Brynn Seymour and her efforts to win one of the most elite grand prix classes in the world. Motivated by a tragedy, Brynn balances her final year of veterinary school with trying to keep her family’s training barn afloat. You’ll find yourself rooting for her as she navigates the sometimes-unsavory aspects of the show jumping circuit in terms of unethical competitors and trainers—and the unpredictable pitfalls of life with horses where a simple misstep can result in injury, derailing weeks of training. Clermont clearly knows her way around the sport and horses—she ran a show barn for years and has a bachelor’s

Tall Tail: A Mrs. Murphy Mystery By RITA MAE BROWN

have been a Rita Mae Brown fan since college. I love her Mrs. Murphy mysteries—co-authored by her cat, Sneaky Pie Brown—for their wit and whimsy, although the talking animals may be a bit too cute for some. Her newest, Tall Tail: A Mrs. Murphy Mystery, continues her more recent format of blending Virginia history with the current political and economic affairs of Albemarle County. If you’ve never read a Mrs. Murphy mystery, you might be better off beginning with an earlier one, but for those who are already fans, Tall Tail is just purr-fect. If you aren’t familiar with the long-running

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series, you are in for a treat, especially if you read them in order. Brown writes intelligently and well about farming, horses and woodland creatures. Her books are full of animal husbandry and foxhunting information, always accurate and interesting. In Tall Tail, Mary Minor Haristeen, a Virginia farmer and veterinarian’s wife, together with her dog and two cats, solves a recent murder rooted in the slave trade, and in the process uncovers a deep, dark family secret. While this isn’t my favorite in the series, it is a good bedtime or beach read. —Clarissa Edelston

degree in animal biology along with an MBA—and she introduces the reader to a cast of characters familiar to anyone in the equestrian world. While some are a bit clichéd (the wealthy playboy rider and love interest), others are multidimensional (the two-time World Cup winner-turned-yogi). The strength of the book is found in the author’s ability to describe the experience of competing at the elite levels—or what I imagine it to be like. Likewise, her understanding of the relationship a rider must have with her horse, along with the temerity required for any worthwhile endeavor, is nicely interwoven in the narrative. If you’re looking for a good beach book, Learning To Fall is an engaging, quick read with villains, romance, a plucky heroine and, yes, plenty of horses. —Jennifer B. Calder

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CHARITY SPOTLIGHT

This Old Horse, founded in 2012 by Nancy Turner at Wishbone Ranch in Minnesota, has already assisted dozens of retired, injured or neglected horses of 30 different breeds.

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A CLOSER LOOK AT:

This Old Horse

Founder Nancy Turner rescues neglected, injured and retired horses at her Minnesota sanctuary, but the organization also benefits human members of the community. By JULIA ARNOLD

Photos by TONI THOMAS PHOTOGRAPHY

ow much are old horses worth? If you ask Nancy Turner, she’ll say they’re priceless. Wishbone Ranch, home of the nonprofit rescue and sanctuary This Old Horse in Hastings, Minn., offers respite for unwanted, injured and retired horses. Those equines then serve as ambassadors for the positive effect of horses in peoples’ lives. “These horses owe us nothing,” said Turner, founder and president of This Old Horse. “The mission here is to honor [them] for the work they’ve done.” Turner founded This Old Horse in April 2012 after volunteering for a therapeutic riding program. Some of the horses that had been donated for the program couldn’t continue working, but Turner quickly realized they had plenty of value. “It’s pretty rigorous working with unbalanced riders, for the horse,” said Turner, 60. “They were retiring two I’d worked with in my volunteering, and I was shocked by how wonderful they

Currently 40 horses call Wishbone Ranch, where nonprofit organization This Old Horse is based, home. Another 60 are in foster care.

were. I ended up taking in four of them, and my mom was 82 at the time and terrified of horses. One of these horses connected with her, and we got her on. My mom is now 88, and she rides every week—walk, trot and canter.” Though Turner tried to convince the people at that organization to start something like This Old Horse, they declined, so she decided to do it on her own—though she admitted her initial business plan didn’t make it seem possible. But she soon realized she’d have plenty of support. “It can’t be down to math. It has to be down to love. Instead of forming a place, you form a community,” said Turner, who added that she just signed up her 1,000th volunteer. “You say, ‘Does anyone else think this is a good idea, and can you help?’ It’s changed the focus of it. Barns have cultures—some are show barns, or some have teenagers and cliques—and the culture of our barn is just to be welcoming. It feels more, not in a religious sense, like a church.” This Old Horse currently has 40 horses at its main campus, 60 in a foster program and an additional 100 on a wait list. Horses arrive at Wishbone Ranch due a variety of situations, though it’s often because their owners can no longer care for them due to financial hardship. Other horses find themselves in need of a new home because, due to injury or age, they no longer suit an owner’s desire for showing or racing. Turner, her staff and volunteers light up talking about their experiences working at Wishbone Ranch. They’ve witnessed and contributed to countless unforgettable transformations where horses arrive starving, injured or anxious, and then they slowly begin trusting people and enjoying life again.

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CHARITY SPOTLIGHT

Big (left) and Gigi, both former race horses and descendants of Triple Crown winners Secretariat and Seattle Slew, respectively, became fast friends when turned out together at Wishbone Ranch.

“People go, ‘Where are your rescue horses?’ And I go, ‘Those fat ones there.’ We can tell our story only so far, but you go look at the horses, and they really tell it,” said Turner. The group has helped horses of 30 different breeds so far. In November 2016, This Old Horse received an unusual request: to take in seven blind mustang stallions from the rare Gila band in South Dakota. The International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros couldn’t maintain enough land for their herd of more than 800 animals, and the horses needed homes quickly. “These seven stallions had formed a social group and were considered virtually un-adoptable,” said Turner. “We were asked, ‘Could This Old Horse take all seven of them?’ ” This Old Horse took the seven stallions, plus two mares. “In the end, it was a simple yes that changed the fate of what we now call 108 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

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‘The Magnificent Seven,’ ” said Turner. “They’re almost magical in a way. We had an outdoor with pipe fencing, because we didn’t want them out with electrical fencing getting zapped, and they have figured it out. They’re seven wild blind stallions, and they act like a herd of mares; they’re grouchy to each other, and they pin their ears and eat all day.” Blind horses require specialized care, and the staff at This Old Horse is raising money for a permanent habitat for the group, with even better fencing and shelter to accommodate their lack of sight. The horses that can no longer be ridden spend their days grazing and enjoying the company of other horses. If a horse heals from his physical issues, he may be incorporated into the Wishbone Ranch lesson program, which helps raise money for their care. Riders with special needs are welcome, as some instructors are certified by the Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship. Volunteers at This Old Horse can also earn lessons for helping at the farm. With its 43 acres, This Old Horse can only accommodate so many equines, so Turner developed the “Pasture Prime Partners” program, where friends of This

Old Horse with safe, high-quality pastures provide summer grazing opportunities for some of the horses that are healthy, retired and relatively uncomplicated. After the horses, still owned by This Old Horse, spend the summer grazing, they return to Wishbone in the fall. If appropriate for their condition, other horses are placed into foster homes, though This Old Horse retains lifetime ownership of them. But not only has This Old Horse improved the lives of horses, they’ve also enriched the lives of countless people. The volunteers, donors and staff are part of a close-knit tribe. One volunteer opportunity is the High Hands Grooming Club, which ensures all horses receive care and affection. The club gathers to groom, pamper and assess the horses in a social environment. Experienced horsemen interested in a weekly fix and beginners who want to learn grooming and groundwork basics are welcome. Working with the Special Olympics Equestrian Team provides another rich volunteer opportunity. The people who come together at This Old Horse quickly feel the sense of community. “In the beginning, the catalyst was to love and honor horses,” said Turner. “What sustains us? That there are so many of us that do.”

LEARN MORE: Visit This Old Horse online at thisoldhorse.org or check out the group’s Facebook page at facebook.com/ThisOldHorse.

GET IN TOUCH: Contact Nancy Turner at info@thisoldhorse.org or (651) 437-1889.

GET INVOLVED: You can donate through This Old Horse’s website, and there you can also sign up to volunteer, become a Pasture Prime Partner, fill out a foster application, and purchase logo gear that benefits This Old Horse. See more at thisoldhorse.org/donate.

with the Chronicle this winter. The 20”x20” PILLOW is 100% cotton, made in the USA, and features an insert made of 100% recycled polyfill. Its shell has a concealed zipper for easy care and can be machine washed and dried. $40.00 The 60”x80” THROW is woven with 100% cotton, machine washable and dryable, and made in the USA. $80.00

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BEST OF WEB & PRINT

What’s Hot On The Web u Advice To Present And Future Barn Kids Meghan Holland grew up as the typical “barn rat”—in the aisle or in the saddle every chance she could get. So as she leaves her junior years behind and heads to college, she shares some poignant advice for fellow young riders in a list of wisdoms. “6. Remember that the reason all of us started riding in the first place is because it’s fun, and we love the animals,” she writes. “So if you need to take a day or two to ride in a halter or go on a meandering trail ride, that’s perfectly OK. The horses need mental days sometimes, too. “7. Never, ever, get caught up in any sort of petty drama with other kids at the barn. Take that negative energy and channel it into improving your riding. “8. Ride without stirrups without being told to.”

CARTOON BY JODY LYNNE WERNER

These are just a few of her nuggets of advice: coth.com/article/advice-present-and-future-barn-kids

u Amateurs Like Us: Saying

Goodbye, For Now

u The Judge’s Card: The Original Emojis Humor columnist Jody Lynne Werner knocks it out of the park with this graphic depicting the symbols hunter judges might come up with if they were allowed free rein in creativity and honesty. Because who hasn’t had a round that might have left a “clean-up on aisle six” notation on the card? See all of them: coth.com/article/judges-card-original-emojis

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Amateur rider Piper Johnson pens a heartfelt blog for the Chronicle about her decision to let the horse of her dreams move on to another home. “Riding Dooney, I felt inspired again, and important, and respected, and so, so proud. Of myself. Of my dream horse. “More important, I felt connected to the earth and the sky and the dirt and the grass. I cherished the sun on my back and on his coat, warming him and making him shine. I soaked in warm days, felt the exhilaration of cool breezes, and would tolerate freezing feet to watch him discovering fresh snow,” she writes: coth.com/article/amateurs-us-saying-goodbye-now

RANDI MUSTER PHOTO

Don’t Miss In The Magazine u Tougher Qualifications New Between Rounds columnist Ronnie Beard argues that our equitation championships need tougher requirements in his article “Making The Equitation Finals True Championship Tests” (Nov. 21, p. 60). He thinks the courses should be tough—and the riders who show up should be prepared to meet the challenges. “The riders need to learn the importance of correctly qualifying for championships at the beginning of their career if they hope to continue in the sport,” he says. How many riders should compete in the finals? What should the qualifications entail? How long should a day at the championships be? Get in on the conversation started by this respected trainer, coach and judge.

u “We’re Not

LINDSAY BERRETH PHOTO

Good Enough”

Jonathan Holling makes a bold statement about U.S. eventing, insisting that the riders, trainers and the overall culture aren’t what they should be in his column in the Nov. 21 issue (p. 70). Do you really have the skills to be competing at your current level? Should you truly be producing your own horse? Is your coach willing to tell you like it is—and are you willing to hear that criticism? “The ‘move up mentality’ is pervasive in our sport, and it’s causing some very scary and dangerous riding each and every weekend,” he says. You can’t call yourself a horseman, he concludes, if you’re riding at a level above your ability.

u Champions Of

Preservation

Just outside the nation’s capital, members of the Potomac Hunt are working to keep their rural landscape intact. The Masters of Foxhounds Association honored Potomac with the MFHA Hunting Habitat Conservation Award this year, and Mollie Bailey explores the unlikely story of a real estate developer who’s heralded their preservation work (Nov. 28 & Dec. 5, p. 28). “I wanted to put [deals] together that would protect the hunt,” says Mike Rubin, an avid foxhunter who’s purchased— and placed into easement—farms around the Potomac territory. “I do it because I feel a powerful connection to the environment and to living creatures.”

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PARTING WAYS

Hang In There Photo by ARND BRONKHORST An awkward jump by Picasso d’Oreal at the last element of the first water in the Boekelo CCIO*** (the Netherlands) on Oct. 8 left French rider Marie-Caroline Barbier clinging to his side—to no avail.

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THIS IS

My Horse

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Ike was 17 the night we won our third consecutive Hunter Derby Finals, but he felt like he was 6 years old again! I get a little emotional thinking about it because he tries so hard for me. I know how lucky I am to have him in my life, so I'm particular about everything for him, including his nutrition. His diet makes a big difference in how he feels and performs- that's why I trust Platinum.

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Articles inside

Seeing Sunny Segovia Through Gray Ears

Hollywood Horses

At Home With Melanie Smith Taylor

The Striking Beauty—And Ears— Of The Marwari Horse