even more wearing. Learning how to manage a tired horse is an important skill for riders at this level. “I’m not Boyd [Martin] or Phillip [Dutton], who each has
a string of four-star horses—this is only my second four-star and so a huge part of it is figuring out how to ride a tired horse,” says Maya. “You can’t learn about that from reading books; it comes from years of experience and I don’t have a lot of experience with it yet. On cross-country he wasn’t the same horse as at the beginning of the course, but he was so much better than last year and trying hard all the way to the end of the course.” Fitness is something that Maya says she is constantly
working on for both herself and her horses. Because she only has one horse at the four-star level, she doesn’t get as much mileage as she would like at this level. While she doesn’t like to run Cody more often than necessary, it’s essential that she keep their fitness up and give herself plenty of time in the saddle, espe- cially over bigger jumps. “I ran a few more CICs, just so
I would know how to react in the moment. He has a deceptively huge stride and is so game on cross coun- try—he really covers the distance in the combinations. Our only career run-out was last fall at Plantation Field, because he jumped into a combination too boldly and didn’t quite see the fence. And because of his personality, he likes to have the last say!” For her own fitness, Maya added some longer canter sets to her young horse Mowgli’s routine, to make sure that she had the endurance for a 12-minute cross-country course. “I didn’t do a ton of extra riding this spring but eventually I’d like to get more horses in my string, just to have more saddle time. When you don’t have a ton of horses, it’s tricky to be able to keep your eye and stay in the game. Mowgli was a great sport about it and I think we’re on the right page with him, too.”
A YOUNG TRAINER’S LUCKY BREAK
Maya, who hails from Whidbey Island in Washington state, started riding Cody as a young horse for his owners, Jon and Dawn Dofelmier, who are both farriers. Maya and Cody came up the levels together. With him, she was named to the 2012 USEF Developing Riders List and later the High Performance Training List.
ABOVE & OPPOSITE PAGE: Maya Black and Doesn’t Play Fair celebrate their personal best placing third at Rolex Kentucky’s four-star this year.
20 July/August 2016
Originally Dawn intended to compete Cody herself at the
lower levels after he had a couple of years of training with Maya. She is busy with her business, however, and Cody needed more time and attention than she could give him. The Dofelmiers also saw that Cody was enjoying himself and seemed to have the potential to do the upper levels, so they agreed to keep him with Maya. “We’re farriers, so we do not have a great deal of money,
but we come as often as we can and do as much as we can,” Dawn says. “I come once a month to shoe him and we visit events and we groom when we’re at the events. People ask me every day what it’s like to own a horse like Cody, espe- cially after her success at Rolex. We’ve known Cody since he was born, when I offered to purchase him. I’d suddenly lost my mare to colic and he was supposed to replace her for me.” “Maya has been training our horses since she was 16 years old, and from the beginning it was a given that she’d have him for at least two years. He’d never been out of an indoor arena and hadn’t seen a jump in his life,” Dawn continues. “Here we are basically five years later riding this road. In ways it’s been a blessing because we don’t have any expecta- tions for Cody. Everything he’s done has exceeded my expectation, that he’d be my novice horse—which we’ve still never done.” When the Dofelmiers bought
Cody, Maya was working in England for Irish eventers Mark and Tanya Kyle. When she came back, Cody became her project. “Dawn had my older two-star horse at the time,”
Maya says. “If she pulled her out of the field to ride her, she could be a bit wild, too, but she knew her job. She was a lovely mare who won the two-star at Jersey Fresh eight years ago. They still have her, and she’s living the life and enjoying herself.”
LITTLE BIG MAN
Maya describes Cody as a small horse with a big personality. “He’s really been like that since he was born,” she says. “He’s always been the trouble-maker and is quite strong-willed. He doesn’t hold back as far as his opinions and expressing himself!” Cody is a Holsteiner bred at Half Track Farm in Stan-
wood, Washington, a small dressage facility. (He was sired by Camiros out of a Coriander mare.) At Half Track, they aim to produce overall sport horses, not just eventers; Cody has a full sister competing in dressage. His breeders are still involved in Cody’s career and traveled to Kentucky to cheer him on.
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