A Mutual Tip of the Hat:
BEHIND THE SCENES WITH SHANNON PETERS
W
ithout doubt, Shannon Peters is an accom- plished equestrian. She’s also the woman that stands beside dressage Olympian and husband
Steffen Peters. It’s for Shannon that Steffen’s eyes comb the stadium after he finishes a ride. It’s to her that he points when he rides out of the arena. It’s Shannon he hugs after he dismounts, because she’s his wife and sweetie, but also because she’s his coach. Many married couples
wouldn’t survive a game of tennis together, much less working and living together 24/7. Love may be a many splendored thing, but how does it survive the complexity of an equestrian business partnership? Competition in most sports complicate emotions and reason, but when you add the ripe passions of the horse community, the challenges for a long-time, full-time relationship only become greater.
Playing Nice The Peters can indeed play tennis together. And they can successfully run extremely active businesses separate and jointly while living parallel lives in the competition arena. Husband Steffen, who is a USET team member and three- time USEF Equestrian of the Year, is the more familiar of the two. Shannon’s name is not as much on the tip of the tongue. Yet she is a U.S. Dressage Federation bronze, silver and gold medalist. She is also a two-time national championship competitor, first on Luxor in 2007, when the two were crowned Reserve National Champions Intermediare I, and second on Flor de Selva in 2009 when they took home fourth place in the Intermediare division. She loves to train young horses through the levels, one of the most successful being Weltino’s Magic, with whom she
36 January/February 2013 By Patti Schofler
won Reserve National Champion at the 2008 Young Horse Championships. Today Shannon and Steffen run their separate training businesses from a facility they have shared and managed for eight years in southern California. They have been a couple for more than ten years, married for eight. When they met, they each had a viable horse business.
After growing up in Michigan and completing college at the University of Colorado, Shannon ran a dressage training business in Boulder at that time for 17 years. For several months she was wait-listed to ride in a clinic with Steffen. Finally she got a space. When she at last rode with him, they became friends, seeing each other at Arizona and California shows. “I was divorced when I met him. He wasn’t. After his divorce, I saw him at a show and we started talking, and things went from there,” Shannon recalls. After a two-year long
Shannon Peters riding Flor de Selva in 2009.
distance relationship, they set up a trial run with Shannon moving to San Diego. Her reluctance to move was due to her concern about leaving a successful business. “I was
lucky. I had a couple of clients who moved out here and I brought 13 horses with me,” she says. She ended up staying. Today the pair shares the 65-horse
Arroyo Del Mar stable where they each run their own active training business. They both have a busy competition and clinic schedule that takes them together and separate around the country.
For the Good of the Horse When they are at home, their mornings begin with working their individual horses at the same time. “Because our riding and training styles are so similar, it was a natural evolution that we coach each other. There are never any questions.
Courtesy Shannon Peters
SusanJStickle.com
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