re and After SNOWMAN
WT: How did you start riding? HD: I started riding very young. My dad had horses for the farm and the brewery he owned, deLeyer Brewery, in Sint- Oedenrode, Holland. Deliveries were made with horses. I tested the horses out to make sure they were suitable to use, which gave me good experience training many differ- ent horses. My father had an indoor ring and the 4-H boys practiced and trained in it. I started showing in the 4-H shows when I was six years old. We jumped three horses at a time and they put me in the middle. That way I didn’t have to steer too much.
WT: What were the horses like then? HD: My dad bred and raised them, and they were good horses. Some had Thoroughbred in them. I helped train the ones we bred, and I was the test pilot for any my dad acquired. During the war, the Germans took all the good horses and we had only what was left.
WT: I understand that your family was active in the resis- tance during World War II. Can you tell us about that and what you did to help? HD: Around the town we had cellars where we would hide and feed Jewish families and help get them across enemy lines to the Allies. We hid the cellar doors with hay and manure so the Germans wouldn’t even look there. The Germans knew my father was helping the Jews and tried to take him captive, but we hid my father as well. One night, the Germans drove into our farm without their car lights on, trying to surprise us and to find my father. After that, we moved him to another farm four or five miles away to live with some 4-H friends. He lived away from my family, but still was active in the resistance. At one point the Germans blew up a bridge, strand-
ing hundreds of horses. They were standing there starv- ing. We took them across the river to our farm fields where they could graze. After the war, we kept a few and I showed some of them. One of the horses we rescued we named Petra. She jumped like a bloody hunter and she won big shows. When I left to come to this country in 1950, I gave her to my brother Jan.
WT: What did you want to do when you grew up? HD: As I was the oldest son, I always thought I would take over my father’s brewery. But I hated the brewery. I wanted to raise and train horses, and compete with them at high levels.
WT: Why did you come to America? HD: If I wanted to start my own business and not take over the brewery, I knew I would have to make a fresh start. My brother Joseph took over the brewery and now his son is in charge of it.
One day, an American paratrooper was killed in my
town. My sister got his name off the tags and wrote to his family to tell them where and how he died. This began a relationship with this dead soldier’s family. I had planned to go to Canada in order to get to America (it was very diffi- cult after the war to emigrate from Europe to the U.S.), but this family in North Carolina wanted to sponsor me. They were tobacco farmers with a farm of about 140 acres near Greensboro, North Carolina. They taught me how to farm tobacco. It was hard work, but I learned how to do it.
WT: How old where you then and how did you get to train- ing horses? HD: I was 22 when I came to the United States. The tobacco farm had two work horses, and I played around with them and got them jumping. I would show them in local shows sometimes on weekends. Mickey Walsh [a renowned stee- plechase trainer] was at one of the shows and told me that I should pursue my dreams and ride for a big horse farm. I told him, “I don’t know if I’m good enough.” He said I was plenty good enough. I worked on the tobacco farm for a couple of years. [Indus- trialist] David Hugh Dillard’s brother saw me riding one time and knew I was looking for a job. He hired me on his farm in Lynchburg, Virginia, to train his horses. Eventually, Captain Vladimir Littauer [a well-known author and riding master] saw me ride at Sweet-
briar College and suggested I look at the Knox School on Long Island, New York. I signed a one year contract with Knox in 1952 and stayed for 22 years.
WT: You found Snowman at New Holland Horse Sale in Pennsylvania in 1956 as a farm work horse. It was right up your alley to take a work horse and teach him to jump. Did you think he would be good? How did you do that?
HD: I put him in the field at Knox School. When they would go to feed the horses, he would jump out and go into his stall! So I saw that he had potential to jump. I started with a lot of cavalletti work. Then I started training him to be a jumper.
Warmbloods Today 23
Corbis
Harry deLeyer Collection
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