My Dressage

The Pressure to Succeed

Dressage pro Lauren Chumley had to learn that failure is part of the process. Today she passes that message along to students and clients alike.

To encounter Lauren Chumley is to experience a friendly, polite turbojet. For instance, she uses the time during our evening phone interview to take one of the horses she has in training at her facility in Pittstown, New Jersey—an event horse, by the way—for a walk.

That’s right—an event horse with a Grand Prix-level dressage trainer/rider. Chumley says she’s not afraid to be bold, and she’s also not afraid to fail.

“I don’t get embarrassed any more because I recognize that we’re all out there trying to figure it out,” she says.

Chumley has not always been this philosophical about the reversals of life.

“I like to tell people I have failed on the biggest stages. My first [Dressage at] Devon, I went when I shouldn’t have gone. I had this really difficult horse. He was the love of my life, but he was incredibly difficult. Hardest horse I ever rode in my life, still, to this date. I went in the CDI at Devon, and he’s very noisesensitive, and he was a psychopath. He reared in the pirouette. He ran away. I literally almost fell off. It was hilarious. I got straight ones from the judges. I got something like a 54 [percent]. I was last.

“I was so embarrassed,” Chumley continues. “This was years ago. Somebody took a video of my ride and posted it on YouTube as along the lines of ‘The Worst Dressage I’ve Ever Seen.’ Yeah, I was cyberbullied before it was cool. I was mortified. I’m thinking, ‘I’m never gonna recover from this. This is the end of my career.’ And guess what? Nobody cares. If you can help the person that’s in front of you [taking a lesson], that’s what matters….I have a 40-stall barn in New Jersey, and it is full.”

Chumley conveys this grace to her students.

“I have a working student who is about to do her first Prix St. Georges on a self-trained horse. She’s extremely nervous, as it’s a big step. I’ve been trying to tell her not to put a ton of pressure on herself because I really believe that a big part of a rider/trainer’s development is being allowed to fail so that you can learn.”

Accordingly, “I try not to put too much pressure on my students and working students when they show,” Chumley says. “They are their only competition. Even when a working student shows my personal horses, I tell them it doesn’t matter if they get a bad score. No one will be upset. I think allowing them that room to breathe is very important.”

Chumley herself is grateful for that breathing room, saying that she’s “been very lucky to have clients and owners who understand and have allowed me the space to learn and grow.”

That space doesn’t just materialize, Chumley stresses. “I think a big part of being a professional is managing client expectations. Everybody wants to win. Everyone’s spending a lot of money. I don’t say to the lady with the really nice German Riding Pony, ‘You know what, we’re gonna win the championships.’ I’m not going to win. He’s been doing Grand Prix for three months….[B]eing very open and honest in your communication with your clients, it’s important.”

When both trainer and client have realistic expectations, Chumley says, it makes for more-positive experiences—and more satisfaction with the horse, too. Of that green Grand Prix pony, she says, “The fact that we got there [to the championship show] is awesome. That was the goal, to qualify, and we qualified. I had one really decent ride that I was pleased with and one ride that wasn’t so good….My owner was wonderful. She was like, ‘You know what? We set a goal, and you made it. Anything past that was icing, and we’ll just do it again next year. We’ll set new goals.’”

“So you come back again and try again. You just have to keep trying. I think that’s the most important thing—that you just keep trying, and you keep moving forward, and you have people around you that support that. Because that’s the only way to learn.”

BIG STAGE: Lauren Chumley rides her KWPN mare, Leeloo Dallas (Gaspard de la Nuit – Voque, Negro), at the 2021 US Dressage Finals presented by Adequan®

By Katherine Walcott

Katherine Walcott is a freelance writer based in Alabama.