Second to One
Insights into the Lives of Assistant Trainers The Euro Experiment
by Erin Gilmore R
bedded two feet deep with straw. It’s 6:30am and that “box” is one of fifteen to be cleaned before 7:00am, when there will be a short coffee break and then half a dozen horses to groom, exercise and put away before the barn gets a me- ticulous sweeping by noontime. If the preceding scenario isn’t
familiar to you, you’ve never been an assistant trainer who’s headed to Europe with high hopes and a loose grip on reality. The al- lure of working and riding in the land where show jumping is real sport can cause even the most levelheaded assistant to walk away from a cushy U.S. job and search for higher knowledge in a foreign land.
sport and as a business, improves in quality and scope with each passing year. But there’s still noth- ing like experiencing the European system firsthand. However, experience includes
everything from breaking the ice in water buckets at 5am to showing young horses on a national circuit. It all depends on where you land and how wide open your eyes are.
No Illusions Trainer Chrissy Christenson had
no illusions when she decided to work in Europe for one year. By splitting her time training in two different disciplines, she learned how two top systems operate. The 27-year-old trainer is now based
American show jumping, as a Chrissy Christenson
Belgium in 2007, Chrissy spent six months with international dressage rider David Pincus in England, and six months at the barn of Belgium’s most successful Olympic show jumper. During her time in Eng- land, she studied for and obtained her British Horse Society Instruc- tor Certificate while receiving daily dressage lessons in exchange for working student duties. “I wanted to better my horseman-
at the Menlo Circus Club, Menlo Park, CA, where she trains dressage and hunter/jumper horses under the umbrella of Jennifer Dixon’s Dixon Stables. While working in England and
ship skills and gain international certification from a different set of riders,” she explains. “Getting a ton of lessons from a very successful dressage trainer and also earning an international teaching certificate was very rewarding.” But her agreement at Ludo
Philippaerts’ Stal Dorperheide in Belgium was looser – the large, busy sale barn needed riders and stable help, and lessons were not part of the deal. “If you’re an assistant for an in-
ternational rider they’re not often at the barn,” Chrissy says. “And my expectations included seeing how elite riders operate. At one barn I
eality sets in while standing, old-fash- ioned pitchfork in hand, in the middle of a dirty horsebox
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