My advice for young people who aspire to be top rid- ers is this: you cannot do this all by yourself, so you need to pack up and move over to someone who has already done it. Plan to spend a long time watching and learning. You don’t just get to the Olympics by riding; you get to the Olympics by cleaning sheaths, picking rocks, shovel- ing manure, swiping cobwebs out of corners and riding 20-meter circles. The youth who sit up there today and look like the world is their oyster have put in the hours mucking stalls and more, doing the hard work to get to where they are now. Another important point is that you simply can’t
underestimate the value of experience, in any field. For instance, I have a dear client, Dr. Nancy Binter, who’s a neurosurgeon. She’s been operating on spines for 30 years. Nothing in that operat- ing room comes as a surprise to her. If I’m having surgery, I sure want that lady hold- ing the scalpel. If I have a complicated law case, I’m not going to go to the new associ- ate who passed the bar last week. I’ll go to the partner who’s done this forever. You can’t just become a plumber, whether here in the U.S. or in Germany. You go to school, you become an ap- prentice, and then you pass a test to be certified as a master. In Germany, this system applies to riding as well. You have to be an understudy, a working student, or a student for a long time and earn proper credentials. All European systems go back to traditional German
Steffen is the bridge: he’s a great athlete who’s still in the game with a ton of experience. But the young adults coming up are the ones who fuel the dreams of every kid riding around hoping to be the next Laura Graves. It’s their will, their drive, all that stuff, that will help them suc- ceed—and it’s the people who guide them. It’s Debbie, or it’s me with 30 years of Grand Prix under my belt, or an- other trainer with this depth of experience.
“You don’t just get to the
Olympics by riding; you get to the Olympics by cleaning sheaths, picking rocks,
shoveling manure, swiping cobwebs out of corners and riding 20-meter circles.
COACHING WORKS Ali and her partner Rosevelt have had many successes since we have been together. She drove into my yard in 2002, still grooming for Sue Blinks. On and off I helped her, nothing serious, and she became close friends with Justin and all my group. We always communi- cated and were friendly. But it’s been since 2011 that we became really serious about her horse Rosevelt, and since then they’ve won Devon, Achtleiten in Austria and six or eight global Grands Prix. They’ve got to be number three in the country at this point, and we’ve done all of this together. Every dressage rider who’s doing well
is working with one coach. Name one European rider who doesn’t have a full- time coach. In contrast, we see riders all
riding; they just do. They use people with a lot of ex- pertise and a vast amount of experience to guide their riders. To the best of my knowledge, Anky has had one coach, Sjef Janssen, since 1989. Isabell has had just two coaches in her long career. Now we’re starting to see more of the same thing here
in the U.S.: our younger riders who are shining are con- nected to a family, if you will, of experienced people. Deb- bie is certainly one of the best assets in our country, first as a rider and now as a coach, and her husband Bob also has a lot of experience. They—and the young riders they guide—are an example of how you need the experience of other people on the team to take you the rest of the way. You just can’t do it by yourself. Once in a while someone like Laura rises quickly up
the ranks, but she aligned herself with Anne and Debbie early on in the game, and got connected. Her career so far has been stellar. Kasey has just blossomed in the past year; she’s talented and has a talented horse, but her con- nection to Debbie seems to be the thing that’s taken her to the next level.
74 May/June 2016
the time who ride for three months with somebody, their scores aren’t going up, so the next thing they’re off train- ing with whomever. Or you see everyone running to train with the “official trainer” of whatever. Does it really mat- ter if someone has a title? You need a relationship that works. People say you’ve got to do “X” to get on the national
team but you know who’s on the team? The four best rid- ers. It’s really that simple. To develop your own potential, find a good coach and do what it takes to stick with him or her. You may not win for ten years. You may not win for 15 years. Great success comes from long term relation- ships between rider and trainer, student and coach. His- tory has taught us that these good relationships blossom like trees—trees that bear the most fruit.
An FEI dressage rider/trainer of Long Val- ley, New Jersey, and Loxahatchee, Florida, Michael Barisone has a thriving training business and several horses winning at Grand Prix, including HF Victor, Urbanus and Lauren Sprieser’s Ellegria. Michael was reserve for the 2008 Olympic team riding Neruda. He and his wife, Vera Kessels-Barisone, a Dutch native and Grand Prix dres- sage rider, purchase foals in Holland each year and produce all of their own Grand Prix horses.
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