Chronicle article, june 29 2015 selected pages (1)

JUNIOR & PONY

The Price Of Perfection Is it the show circuit or the type of teenager who chooses competitive riding? Either way, coming of age at the in-gate can be synonymous with stress.

BY MOLLIE BAILEY

W

hen Shelley Campf’s seatmate on an airplane starts making polite conversation and asks what she does for a living, Campf doesn’t mention horses.

“I say I work with teenage girls,” said Campf, who runs Oz Inc. in Canby, Ore. “Training horses, yes, that’s what the business is. But a huge responsibility for that is helping to be a parent in [my students’] lives that’s not a parent.”

Riding competitively imparts a long list of life lessons and practical skills, teaching responsibility, organization, time management, compassion, composure, independence, self-actualization and fortitude, among others. But teenage riders face different pressures than those who have already hit 18 or are still in jodhpurs, whether they’re trying to qualify for a regional championship or win a national final.

“There’s a small window for the very goal-oriented kids to get a tremendous amount accomplished,” said Stacia Klein Madden, who teaches many nationally competitive teenagers at her Beacon Hill Stable in Colts Neck, N.J. “There are [Adequan/FEI North American Junior and Young Riders Championships] and team competitions in Europe and [equitation] finals and indoors and specialty classes like the [George Morris Excellence In Equitation (Fla.)] and Kathy Scholl Equitation Classic [N.Y.]. There are a lot of shortterm goals on the kids’ plates. You’re trying to do that and juggle your school, getting into college, trying to maintain

24 The Chronicle of the Horse

your friendships and your other sports activities. It’s a lot.”

While most riders remember their junior days as a positive time, they don’t forget the stress. And for some it manifests itself in unhealthy behaviors or real problems.

“Being a teenager is a confusing time, and in a sport that requires a tremendous amount of funding it’s even more complex,” said Campf. “I think it’s hardest for the kid who rides regionally and wishes she could ride at Heritage Farm.

“There’s the kid who thinks, ‘The only reason she’s better than me is because she’s richer,’ ” she continued.

“There’s the kid who says, ‘I don’t know why they hate me,’ and the other kids are jealous because her dad bought her three horses, and they just have one.

And there’s an awful lot in between.

It’s a cliché, but I always say, there will always be someone richer, skinnier or more successful than you. It’s about seeing how to fit into this world knowing this.”

The Pressure To Be Perfect

In 2002 Katie Gardner traveled east from California for the first time to compete at the Pessoa/USA Equestrian Medal Finals (Pa.). She was 14, and no one expected her to do very well, so the external pressure was minimal.

To her surprise, she finished second.

Though neither her parents nor her trainers pressured her to win a final, as her junior years ticked on, she started putting that pressure on herself.

“It wasn’t, ‘Oh, I want to do well for me. I want to see if I can do this,’ ” said Gardner, who trained with Jim Hagman at his Elvenstar in Moorpark, Calif., since her earliest days. “It was about

There’s a small window for the very goal-oriented kids to get a tremendous amount accomplished.”

—STACIA MADDEN

what people thought of me and what they expected of me. After I was second at Harrisburg behind Maggie Jayne, it was like, ‘What do I do now? Win?’ “No one put one ounce of pressure

on me,” Gardner continued. “It was me, knowing the financial commitment my parents had put in. Jim hadn’t had a student at indoors really shine, and I wanted the stable to have Spending your teenage years on the show circuit imparts fantastic life lessons, but it has its own stressors, too. MOLLIE BAILEY PHOTO

June 29, 2015 chronofhorse.com 25

JUNIOR AND PONY

It feels so different from being an amateur, where I feel like I have the rest of my life to meet those goals.”

—STEPHANIE DANHAKL

that success. I wanted to do it for them, after he’d worked so many years at it. I had this ridiculous thought when I was 14 or 15 that if I won the finals, I would get a job and a career. I thought that was the only way, and stress grew out of that mentality.”

Now a full-time rider and trainer at Elvenstar, she sees her own students struggle with that same pressure, especially in the equitation. She recalls how having the chance to show in the jumpers gave her a break from the quest for perfection. “[Juniors] get on the horses in the jumper ring and jump in 1.40-meter or 1.45-meter classes with so much confidence and determination, and then go in the eq and can’t function,” she said.

“There’s this pressure to execute beautifully and without flaw.”

Janet Sasson Edgette, Psy.D., is a clinical and sports psychologist who also works as a therapist specializing in adolescents. A lifelong rider and author of several books that focus on equestrian sports psychology (Heads Up! and The Rider’s Edge), Edgette sees that riders inclined toward perfectionism find a natural fit in the show ring. She argues against using the term “perfect” much at all.

26 The Chronicle of the Horse

Katie Gardner remembers the stress of her last few junior years, and she uses that knowledge to help connect with her students. MOLLIE BAILEY PHOTO

“Perfectionism is exacerbated,” she said. “We’re saying, ‘Go find eight perfect distances, and you’ll be champion.’ We’re not saying, ‘Go in there and be effective’ or ‘workmanlike.’ ” Kip Rosenthal, who runs Benchmark Farm in Bedford, N.Y., and has a Ph.D. in clinical counseling psychology, eschews that term as well.

“Excellence is attainable; perfection is not,” she said. “You’re going to make mistakes. I tell my kids, ‘If you don’t make any mistakes, I’m out of a job.

Your mistakes are my job security.’ ”

The Ticking Clock

There’s one refrain that comes up time and again when we interview amateur riders: They all say riding is much more fun now that they’re not juniors.

“When you’re 14 you think, ‘I’ve got four more years,’ ” said Edgette. “But once you start counting three and down, it gets in your head. It’s the same thing as when you want to fall asleep but can’t. It takes on a life of its own.”

Stephanie Danhakl, 28, spent four years at the pinnacle of the circuit as a teenager, living the kind of life so many

young riders dream about. She had a string of top junior hunters and won championships at shows like Capital Challenge (Md.), USEF Junior Hunter Finals—West (Calif.), Menlo (Calif.) and Lake Placid (N.Y.).

Danhakl, who calls Pacific Palisades, Calif., home but lives in Philadelphia, relished every moment of those four years, grateful to her parents and trainers who helped her along the way.

But as much as she loved the sport, the sheer amount of practicing—four lessons a day after school and riding 10 horses a day on the weekends—was a lot to balance with the rest of her life. By the time she hit 18 she was torn between wanting a break and not wanting to see her horses sold, even though she’d had a longstanding agreement with her parents that that would happen.

Danhakl spent six or seven years out of the show ring and came back with a renewed appreciation for the sport.

“You just think, ‘Oh, this is my last junior year; I have to be champion at indoors or get a ribbon at Medal Finals,’ ” she said. “It feels so different from being an amateur, where I feel like

I have the rest of my life to meet those goals. If I don’t have a great indoors one year I can do it the next year or the next year. When you have a special horse that’s different, of course. Then there’s more pressure to perform.”

It’s not just about achieving certain milestones before aging out. Many riders know the sport won’t play a central role—or any role—in their immediate future.

“Riders are hearing, ‘That’s it’ from their parents,” said Edgette. “ ‘After this it’s college, and when you’re done with college you’re on your own.’ There’s a real grieving process. And sadly you grieve before you lose things. It goes on as you’re in your last year, and it can really compromise performance. You think, ‘This is the last time I’ll show at Lake Placid,’ or, ‘This is the last time I’ll go on the road with the barn.’ ” Madden felt pressure to end on a high note to validate her sacrifices.

“I remember very clearly that foreign feeling,” she said. “I’d had horses in my life my entire life, and now where was I going to apply to school? ‘OK, I have to apply here because it’s near this trainer.’

I remember thinking that my junior career was going to be deemed unsuccessful, and I’d have no entrance into the sport if I didn’t have a good ending to my junior years. In a small way that proved true. I was accepted into good schools. The minute I was finished with Maclay Finals [in 1987, which she won] I was offered a job to stay in the sport.”

based solely on her build to boost a team score sounds shocking.

“It’s so difficult,” said Rosenthal. “In some ways it is a beauty pageant on horses. Long-legged, thin girls tend to do better than the ones who are built a little stocky.”

Of course there are plenty of riders at the top of the equitation classes who aren’t tall nor particularly slender, and few women competing in grand prix

classes fit that mold. The trainers I talked to all tread carefully around this topic, well aware it’s a sensitive one.

Don Stewart trains legions of teens out of his Don Stewart Stables in Ocala, Fla. He talks to parents if he thinks a rider’s fitness or weight is a problem, and he lets them decide how to handle it. (“I’m not exactly leading by example,” he pointed out with a laugh.)

Madden’s voice goes from easy-

The Cult Of The Slim

In an interview with the Chronicle, one college coach told an editor that to pad his team’s walk-trot roster he found himself “in the cafeteria stalking tall, skinny people to fill that spot.”

That comment stood out to us at the magazine and to many readers as well, but it’s certainly not the first time we’ve heard that being slim and excelling in the equitation division go hand in hand.

Effective riding is paramount, and looking good while doing it is desirable as well.

Granted, there’s a lot less to judge in a walk-trot competition than in an equitation final, so it makes sense to appeal to the aesthetic side of judging.

But recruiting a completely green rider June 29, 2015 chronofhorse.com 27

JUNIOR AND PONY Horses Helped Me Heal

F

or Laura Jones*, horses helped her battle against anorexia and put her on the path back to health.

Jones was about 16 when she started adapting her eating habits. It started with skipping the occasional meal to work out, or eating just an 80-calorie yogurt for dinner.

“One day I looked in the mirror, and I hated myself,” she said. “I would see my other friends who were younger or smaller than I was and think, ‘I need to look like they do. They’re riding well and prettier than me.’ ” Once she’d figured out how to lose weight she started obsessing over numbers: the number on the scale, the calories in her lunch versus the calories she would burn if she worked out instead, her current dress or breech size versus what it was a year ago.

In the spring of 2013 she took a bad fall in a lesson, knocking her out and breaking and paralyzing the right side of her face. She was out of the saddle for two months recovering from the injuries.

“Obviously it was hard for me in a lot of ways,” said Jones. “I couldn’t really eat, and to most people that would be horrible, but I was so out of it and on so many drugs I didn’t really notice. People were bringing me ice cream, because it was easy to eat, and I was thinking, ‘Oh no, I’ll gain weight.’ ” But when Jones finally got out of bed and stepped on the scale she found she’d lost five pounds. While the goaloriented Jones stayed out of the saddle to recover from the fall, she threw herself into her disease.

When she came back to the barn a few months later, everyone noticed she’d lost more weight, but they knew she’d had the accident and didn’t worry.

At first her friends at the barn gave her positive reinforcement about how great she looked, but soon her breeches sagged off her frame. Eventually she bought a new hunt coat—in the same size as the 12-year-old at the barn.

Other trainers started expressing concern to her trainer, but Jones still

28 The Chronicle of the Horse

denied any problem.

But the horses couldn’t lie. One weekend she fell off in the warm-up ring, then got back on and was jumped loose over a big oxer and hit the dirt again.

Again she had an excuse: It was a careful horse and their first show indoors together. Then she went in for a classic round and found herself too weak to steer her horse to the jump coming out of the turn, and she fell off again.

She tried to blame the fall on her horse spooking, but her trainer knew better.

“She said, ‘You look way too weak to ride,’ ” Jones recalled. “She knew what I’d been eating; I spend a lot of time with my trainers. She told me to go take my horse for a walk, cool down, and [come back and] find her. That was the realization point. That was when I finally thought, ‘OK, I think I have a problem.’ ” She had a long talk with her trainers, who agreed to let her keep riding if she sought help, but visits to the doctor and therapist didn’t help at first.

Finally she was administered an electrocardiogram, which revealed serious heart problems. She was admitted to an eating disorder in-patient program that day after losing 30 pounds in a little more than half a year.

Jones’ therapist honed in on her goaloriented nature and told her to identify something to work toward to convince her to eat. That was easy: riding.

“I’d been doing this because I’d always been so competitive in riding and compared myself to other people,” said Jones, now 20. “I’d think if I was skinnier I’d look better on the horse in the eq or ride better. I wished I had the eq of other people.

“But at this point I was literally killing myself, and I didn’t get to ride,” she continued. “I said to myself, ‘I need to ride. This is my life.’ I made that goal my first night, to get out of the hospital and get on a horse by show season.”

In treatment Jones realized how lucky she was to have a passion to motivate her to take care of herself when she met her non-horsey peers.

After she got out of the hospital she focused on staying healthy and gradually worked to get her riding back to where it was before she was admitted.

Jones still struggles, and now that she’s processed so much she sees—and avoids—unhealthy behavior around her. She won’t eat out with friends who embrace her former habits, like ordering a salad with dressing on the side and picking at it. In the fall she watches many of her former friends adopt the so-called “big eq diet”— cutting down on food to look better for equitation finals.

At horse shows she’s on the lookout for the signs that encouraged her disease in the first place.

“I was walking around a horse show with a really tall girl in shorts, and we passed by a barn where some people were sitting out,” she said. “They didn’t know she rode, and one of them said, ‘Oh my God, with those legs you need to be on a horse.’ I’ve been at the back gate when someone says, ‘Oh, that’s horse abuse’ when there’s a heavier rider going.”

Jones credits the horses 100 percent with helping her get better.

“When I was in the hospital they told me I could have killed myself,” said Jones. “You realize that every day is a gift, and so is getting to go and ride.

I may not have everything or as much as some people, but I’m very blessed, and I realized I should be thankful.” *Editor’s note: We’ve changed this rider’s name and omitted certain identifying details to protect her privacy.

TO READ the 2011 study about “Prevalence of Eating Disorder Risk And Body Image Distortion Among National Collegiate Athletic Division I Varsity Equestrian Athletes” visit: ncbi.nlm.nih. gov/pmc/articles/PMC3419156/ TO SEE a toolkit by the National Eating Disorders Association geared at athletic coaches and trainers visit: nationaleatingdisorders.org/sites/default/ files/Toolkits/coachandtrainertoolkit/ index.html

going to decisive when she speaks on the topic. She’ll only bring up the issue in reference to fitness if she sees a student struggling in performance, as she did when she instructed a thin student—who subsisted solely on French fries and was too weak to ride well—that she needed to take better care of herself.

Gardner defers to Hagman to handle those potential conversations, as they hit a bit too close to home for comfort.

During Gardner’s last two years as a junior the already slender rider dropped 15 pounds. Karen Healey, who helped train her alongside Hagman, talked to her about it, but Gardner brushed off the conversations. She stopped eating balanced meals, grabbing bowls of cereal and not eating well enough to keep herself strong. She was happy to slim down, but her delicate frame didn’t do her any favors. Things didn’t go her way at indoors during her last year, and she mentions her win at the BET/USET Talent Search Finals—West (Calif.) as an afterthought.

“I was constantly wanting to better myself, going along with the perfectionist part of it,” she said. “I started riding [professionally] with Peter Lombardo right after college, and I was too thin.

I couldn’t do it. I was tired. I got headaches. I was grumpy. I finally figured out when I was thinner I couldn’t do it. The weight I am now I can maneuver horses around, and I feel better.”

A Cultural Concern

None of the riders I talked to said a trainer directly instructed her to drop weight to win. Most remembered pointed or offhand comments from other riders, trainers and barn mothers about other riders’ builds.

The obsession with thinness isn’t new, and it’s pervaded social media.

Glorifying eating disorders became such a problem on Instagram that the photo-sharing app has a webpage dedicated to getting help. In the horse world the “big eq diet,” i.e. slimming down through extreme measures, has become a meme whose use ranges from meanspirited to ironic. Take Twitter posts like @TrilliumHunter’s: “Watching eq thinking ‘who wants a salad?’ #saladtillforever #bigeqdiet #Iwannabepretty.”

After experiencing how distorted body image and low self-esteem affected her and her friends, Kate Kosnoff started a blog called ridersforwellbeing. com. Kosnoff, 19, advocates healthy selfimage and supporting fellow riders on her blog. Within weeks the blog was featured on half a dozen equestrian media outlets.

“After my first post I got an incredible response,” said Kosnoff. “So many people were touched by it. People started to reach out to me to talk about their personal experiences, and I suggested they write for the blog.”

She’s heard from teens, parents, trainers and former juniors impressed with her honesty about the challenges to focus on a healthy self in the show world. For Kosnoff one of those moments came to her personally when she was trying on a show coat and asked her trainer what she thought.

“She said, ‘Well I think it will look better once you lose 10 pounds,’ ” recalled Kosnoff, Indianapolis.

“I was 16. That’s a pretty vulnerable age.”

Of course at the elite level of any sport there’s pressure to have the right body for the job. Pam Keenan, whose daughter Lillie won three equitation finals and nearly every hunter and jumper accolade available as a junior, has three children who each excelled in their chosen passion.

From her perspective, equestrian culture has the least cultural emphasis on weight and fitness. The professional ballet career of her older daughter, Glenn, took off at 16, and Pam described the pressure to have “the look” necessary to excel in ballet as pervading and over-

whelming. Her son, Bill, was a hockey prodigy despite a slender build, and he worked hard to put on weight and build muscle early.

“As a 20-year-old he had two back surgeries,” she recalled. “He was lifting weight he never should have lifted as a 15- or 17-year-old. I watched it and so did his father. You do get so caught up in your kid willing to die for what they want to accomplish. The rest is hindsight.”

Quantifying A Problem

The hunter/jumper world is rife with rumors of riders suffering from anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and other extremes (see sidebar “Horses Helped Me Heal”). But it’s hard to quantify how big a problem eating disorders are within the equestrian world, as those types of illnesses hit young women disproportionately hard

Kate Kosnoff created the blog Riders For Well Being in an effort to combat unhealthy body image in the equestrian world. MORGAN MATTERS PHOTOGRAPHY PHOTO

June 29, 2015 chronofhorse.com 29

JUNIOR AND PONY

“We’re always talking about the big picture,” said Stacia Klein Madden. “I never talk to a kid about winning a final. I talk about being ready, being prepared.” MOLLIE BAILEY PHOTO

anyway.

When I asked Edgette about eating disorders, she paused and chose her words carefully before telling me that very few people suffering come in for treatment. Over the years she’s treated several ED clients in her practice (which doesn’t focus on that specialty), most of whom have been riders and dancers.

The closest thing to a scientific study of teenage equestrians and weight I could find studied NCAA equestrians.

A 2011 study published in the Journal of Athletic Training evaluated 138 collegiate riders (mean age is just under 20), concluding that disordered eating risk in riding is similar to other aesthetic sports—like gymnastics and figure skating—and greater than those in nonappearance based sports. Interestingly, the trend was more pronounced in western riders than English ones.

According to the study, “Athletic trainers working with these athletes should be sensitive to these risks and refer athletes as needed to clinicians knowledgeable about disordered eating. Professionals working with this population should avoid making negative comments about physical size and appearance.”

Psychologists point out that, at the core, eating disorders are about control.

It’s easy to see how that could apply to 30 The Chronicle of the Horse

a competitive young equestrian who wants to excel but sees roadblocks everywhere. She can’t control her financial situation, and therefore can’t control how many lessons she takes, horse shows she attends, or horses she can ride. She can’t control her natural talent or external factors like horse illness and injury or family and social changes. She can control what she sees in the mirror though, and, if she locks into the skewed logic that thin riders do better, she can make slimming down a real priority that potentially turns into a disorder.

Edgette explains that even if there are proportionally more women suffering from eating disorders within the equestrian world than without, it’s not necessarily a causal link. It also has to do with who’s attracted to the sport in the first place.

“I’d say proportionally a higher percentage of teenagers who ride suffer from issues like perfectionism and control and a desire to be thin than in the regular teenage population,” said Edgette. “A little bit of that desire for control is good, but not when it owns you.

This sport draws the person who likes the precision and micromanagement.

The contrast between the exalted and the dirty appeals to a certain person who comes out for the sport.”

Failing And Flailing

Our sport lionizes tough trainers and earning one’s stripes, with George Morris’ no-nonsense style informing teachers’ methods. How do you reconcile the discipline of the system that produced the back-to-back Olympic team gold medals in 2004 and 2008 with the coddling, overscheduled culture of the 21st century? Where’s the line between tough love and just being tough?

“I don’t think that kids today in general are allowed to fail and flail and figure

it out,” said Rosenthal. “I think things are done for them, that they don’t learn how to do for themselves. Like a little kid learning to tie a shoe, we just say, ‘Let me do it for you.’ We do it all the time. We don’t allow them to muddle; we pick them up and put them onto the next step. To me that’s what creates wimpiness.”

Edgette points out that teaching style has a major psychological effect on young riders.

“There’s this idea that saying something louder, or with an edge or sarcastically will get it into the rider’s head now, and that they’ll be able to respond more to the directive,” she said.

“No one does well when humiliated. It just damages the relationship, and it’s unkind and uncivil.”

Campf and Stewart both cite fear Don Stewart uses humor to keep his students laughing during stressful times.

MOLLIE BAILEY PHOTO

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JUNIOR AND PONY of embarrassment as a major driver for their students. Campf tackles that by keeping it positive at the in-gate, saving analysis about a bad round for back in the barn and emphasizing effort over results. Stewart’s developed a keen sense of humor to alleviate tension, especially at stressful moments.

“It’s very difficult if they take it too seriously,” he said. “They put enough pressure on themselves; if you can get them to relax you get way better results.

When there’s a lot at stake at the big classes, trying to keep the temperature level low isn’t easy. Kids feel the excitement; they know the depth of the work, want to excel for themselves, and show off. For me, if they can laugh about it a little bit, that’s always good. That’s a life lesson; we’re trying to teach those.

“When we were walking the course for [the ASPCA Maclay Finals (Ky.)] I would come up with some of my oneliners,” he continued. “I’d say, ‘If you’re still on at this point,’ and, ‘If you chip at this jump look up and smile at the judge, so you’re at the front of the chip line.’ ” Madden tries not to let her students feel too much stress about any one round.

“I try to make the sport in our barn, at least, a team sport,” she said. “So that if someone’s having a bad day they can feel like they’re involved in someone It takes a lot of work to stay focused on personal growth in a competition environment.

MOLLIE BAILEY PHOTO

32 The Chronicle of the Horse

else’s good day a little bit. We’re always talking about the big picture. I never talk to a kid about winning a final. I talk about being ready, being prepared.

I reference winning classes during the year when we’re preparing for finals. I try to make it feel like they’re doing it for themselves, growing as a person and growing as a rider.”

The Big Picture

It takes a lot of work to stay focused on personal growth in a competitive, allencompassing sport. But that’s what Rosenthal hopes her students will take away.

“If you are stressed out and focus on people who have more than you have, you’re going to be frustrated,” said Rosenthal, who frequently teaches sports psychology clinics for riders.

“That’s going to happen all through your life. You have to be comfortable in your own skin. You have to set up goals that are a stretch but attainable. If you’re going to be in a subjective sport, like eq or hunters, you could have the best round you’ve ever had, and the judge may like three other people better.

That’s something you can’t control.

“When I’m giving a lot of seminars I’ll say, ‘When you rode the first time, do you remember why you went back again?’ ” she continued. “ ‘Do you remember when you went to your first horse show, do you remember why you went back? It’s three

letters, starts with F and ends with N.’ That’s how it should be.”

Having worked with teenagers within and outside the horse show world, Edgette said riders can escape some of the pitfalls that drag down their nonhorsey counterparts.

“If you’re riding you’re not usually immersed in the social dramas at school,” she said. “That doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of social media activity among their rider friends. But riders are busy getting up at 4 a.m. and riding and working. They’re less immersed with family and school in general. They have a whole other part of their life.”

That’s similar to the refrain Madden hears most often at the end of November.

“My experience with kids having a drug issue or eating issue because of stress has been minimal,” she said. “I think there’s a huge stress problem with adolescents, period. I don’t single it out at all in the equestrian world.

“Time and time again I have had fathers come up to me at the end of their kid’s last junior year and say, ‘I would spend the amount of money that I spent with my child riding all over again,’ ” said Madden. “It taught them discipline, passion and working with their peers; kept them out of the malls; and gave them focus and a reason to get up in the morning. Parents tell me they wish their other children had the same passion.”