T By Kendra Hansis
with her through pony club, her years spent eventing and her experience as a working student in a dressage barn. Just after graduating from law school in 2005, Alice was diagnosed with cancer. Instead of giving up on horses, she looked to them to help her heal. “Once I had completed treatment, I made it a goal to live long enough to be able to compete at Dressage at Devon,” she says, and set her sights on the three-year-old Materiale class. Alice started shopping for a horse and, since “good horses
A
under saddle are super expensive,” decided to buy a foal. In 2006, her search led her a little over an hour away from her home to Rolling Stone Farm in Pennsylvania and a black Hanoverian colt named Somer Hit. It was as though the horse in that long-ago ad was looking back at her. Although she wasn’t specifically looking for a Hanoverian,
the traits she consistently finds in these horses explain why Alice now owns several. “Hanoverians are typically pretty, rideable and have good gaits,” she says, and have “at least a respectable jump, even if they are bred for dressage.” In addition to Somer Hit (Sandro Hit/ Rotspon), Alice bought another foal in 2006, Epona (Escudo/ Fabriano), a filly bred by Noah and Christine Cohen, as a “fun” horse to foxhunt and event. “She’s the only foxhunter I know who can also piaffe and passage,” says Alice. She also bought Feinest (Feinbrand/Wertherson) a four-year-old mare that year, “thinking that if I wanted to try to train the foals successfully it would be good if I had a little experience, since I had never shown above First Level dressage.” Te pair competed to the Intermediare II Level by the time
the mare was seven, winning Adult Amateur USDF Horse of the Year awards at that level in 2008. Alice also owns Faberge (Fidertanz/De Niro), a 2009 mare bred by Marydell Farm; Schumacher (Stedinger/Hohenstein), a 2010 gelding bred by Roseknoll Farms; and Ambielle P (Ampere/ Rascalino), a 2012 filly bred by Prosperity Farms. Alice credits her horses’ success to their trainability. “To train
a horse you need to be able to continually ask a question until the horse finds the correct answer. So, you need a horse that will both have the patience to be asked the question repeatedly, rather than running off or becoming argumentative, and one that will continue to try to answer the question rather than ignoring the aid.” In her opinion, Hanoverians are very well-suited for upper-
50 March/April 2013
lice Tarjan vividly remembers an ad in one of her childhood horse magazines featuring a black Hanoverian admiring itself in a mirror. Te image stuck
rgh t og G
o e Lkuhoi asnls:
Trough the Looking Glass: Alice Tarjan’s Hanoverians
level dressage training. “Te Hanoverians that I have experience with are quiet enough to ask them questions to which they do not know the answer, but also responsive and tractable enough to try to understand what the rider is asking. Further, they are built for the job so they find the job relatively easy, and they have a desire to please and to understand the rider.” For these reasons, Alice considers daily training her true joy. “I love the feeling of accomplishment when one of the horses learns something new,” she says. Tis inspiring rider has had some wonderful success
competing her Hanoverians. Notably, she won the 2012 six- year-old division of the Markel/ USEF National Young Horse Dressage Championship. Tat she achieved this as an amateur speaks as much to her dedication and hard work as it does to Somer Hit’s abilities and character. She describes him as “a very laid back horse with a great sense of humor.” Winning the Six- Year-Old Championship was very special, perhaps only equal to the feeling she had when she realized her dream to compete Somer at Dressage at Devon as a three-year-old, where he won both his dressage suitability and materiale classes. “I was happy I was cancer free and it was really exciting to have won at such a prestigious show. It was a huge sense of achievement.” She credits her Hanoverians for making the journey more enjoyable and gratifying. v
Photo: Somer Hit (Sandro Hit / Rotspon) and Alice Tarjan winning the first Young Horse Championship at Dressage at Devon, 2010.
Hoof Print Images
American Hanoverian Society
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100