2019: a Record-Breaking Year!
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THE DRESSAGE FOUNDATION DRESSAGE News An annual magazine about the members of The Dressage Foundation’s Century Club. ISSUE 24 / FEBRUARY 2020 2019: A Record-Breaking Year! Team #419: PJ Hardin and Max-a-Million Photo credit: Carole Fuller THE NEWS | ISSUE 24 | FEBRUARY 2020 C e n tu ry Club The Century Club News is published by A Year to Celebrate DTHERES DRESSAGESAGE FOUNDATION, INC. Hello, Century Club Friends! 1314 ‘O’ Street, Suite 305 As we look back on 2019 in this issue, Lincoln, NE 68508 we celebrate a few fun “firsts.” We (402) 434-8585 welcomed our first Century Club [email protected] www.dressagefoundation.org members from Idaho, Tennessee and Nebraska (The Dressage Foundation’s TDF is a non-profit tax-exempt home state!). We celebrate 54 new corporation [IRS Code Sec. 501(c) (3)]. All donations are tax-deductible Teams—the first time we’ve reached this to the extent allowed by law. number of new Teams in a year! Of course, we also honor and celebrate all of the Century Club members, past and present. The early members set the stage for the program as we know it today. Some of you may remember The Dressage Foundation hearing about the Club in the late-90s, as it was just getting 2020 Board of Directors started. Steady growth in the 2000s meant that more riders were sharing their inspiring stories and encouraging others to ride for Beth Baumert (CT) President & CEO Century Club membership. This past decade, and the rise of social media, has brought Maryal Barnett (MI) the popularity of the Club to new heights. We are honored to Chairman share your stories and we are grateful for the donors who enable Lendon Gray (NY) us to do so. Vice Chairman Cheers to 2020 and the new decade ahead! Fern Feldman (CT) Secretary Ryan Shumacher (CA) Treasurer Jenny Johnson Barbara Cadwell (FL) Executive Director Nicole DelGiorno (NJ) Ralph Dreitzler III (WA) Sarah Geikie (CT) Rebecca Hafner (MN) Nancy Hutson (CT, FL) Carol Lavell (FL) Michael Poulin (ME) Karin Reid Offield (MI) Diane Skvarla (FL) 2 THE NEWS | ISSUE 24 | FEBRUARY 2020 C e n tu ry Club Team #375: Susanne Meyer and Omarcus Susanne Meyer of Newburyport, Massachusetts (and winter resident of Aiken, South Carolina), and Omarcus, a 22-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding owned by Joanne Lawton of Morrisville, Vermont, completed a Susanne Meyer: 79 | Omarcus: 22 | Combined: 101 Century Ride at Stable View Farm in Aiken, just 17 days before Susanne’s 80th birthday. Between ages 15 and 37, Susanne was away Omarcus was imported from Denmark as a from horses. She graduated from Ipswich successful Grand Prix jumper. He fell to his High School, UVM, received an MSW from knees when the plane landed and the injury BU School of Social Work, married, had two ended his upper-level career. The scars on his children, worked as a forensic evaluator at Boston knees were masked with dye and Omarcus was Children’s Hospital and Massachusetts General subsequently offered for sale. He had the good Hospital, skied and raced Porsches. fortune to be noticed by Jeff Halvorsen of Florida, In 1976, Susanne attended a Brown Ledge who immediately recognized the horse’s desire reunion, which rekindled her love of riding. She to connect. Within weeks, the dye wore off brought a camp horse home for the winter and and within months, Omarcus’ lameness became within three months, had purchased a small evident. Jeff spent the next two years rehabbing horse property. When the camp horse returned Omarcus and solidifying an incredible bond. to camp, she bought her first horse, a Canadian Forced by life events to part with his horses, Thoroughbred/Oldenburg mare on whom she had Jeff offered to give him to Joanne, who had to countless adventures. take him that day because it was so painful for Susanne and her husband hunted with Myopia Jeff to part with this special horse. Joanne in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Susanne began picked Omarcus up sight unseen and has had eventing at age 50 on Bill Gray, a New Zealand him for nine years. Omarcus is a true gift to Thoroughbred and former USET horse. For the all who know him. He is intelligent and kind, past 25 years she has been an inveterate trail rider, with nothing to prove, often softly breathing in having ridden her current horse, Hitting Hard your ear. (aka Dr. Pepper), 1,920 miles since June of 2015. Susanne grew up in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Susanne thanks: Joanne Lawton for inviting Her love of horses began at age three, when her her to ride her beautiful horse; Charlotte Bayley- uncle frequently led her around bareback on his Schindelholz for her invaluable dressage lessons, plow horses. At age seven, Susanne attended her ongoing encouragement and marvelous a riding camp in Maine, and at age 10 began humor; Lisa Darden for the opportunity to ride spending summers at Brown Ledge Camp in in her beautiful arena; and finally, Omarcus, for Burlington, Vermont, where she rode on the being such a sweet boy. Drill Team and competed in shows. At age 14, Susanne and Omarcus completed Intro Susanne went on her first fox hunt with the Level Test C on February 9, 2019, to join the Myopia Hunt Club. Century Club. 3 THE NEWS | ISSUE 24 | FEBRUARY 2020 C e n tu ry Club Team #376: Ellie Metelits and Pluto Chantella I first met Pluto Chantella (Chanty) when he was 15. He performed in the Lipizzan Stallion Show, which was closing, and they were selling the stallions. My trainer knew I was looking for a small, trained horse and there were several to choose from. I rode five but Chanty won my heart (he also had a smaller barrel than the others). He was vetted, gelded and I purchased him. Shortly after he was in training, he developed a large lump on his side with a high fever. He was taken to Peterson and Smith, where he went through a great deal of testing and treatment. We almost lost him. Finally, after 11 days in the hospital, “Baytril” did the trick. Chanty always takes care of me and I him. Even if I haven’t ridden him for several days or weeks, he is always a gentleman. Because of health reasons, I have been delayed from getting my bronze medal. I only need two scores at Third Level, and I hope to get them this spring. Our Century Club Ride was held on March 20, 2019, and we rode Third Level Test 1. Chanty is my buddy and we have fun together. We have a great partnership. Everyone should have a horse like Chanty — he is my dream horse. Ellie Metelits: 79 | Pluto Chantella: 23 | Combined: 102 4 THE NEWS | ISSUE 24 | FEBRUARY 2020 C e n tu ry Club Team #377: Robin Jaccaci and Dance With Me Robin Jaccaci, 79, of South Strafford, Vermont, rides Dance With Me (Danny), a 23-year-old Oldenburg gelding. Robin’s riding career began with her mother’s dream of her daughter becoming an accomplished rider. Robin began riding as a six-year-old under her mother’s tutelage. Robin always borrowed horses and never owned one until she married. Realizing riding and horses were her passion, her husband bought her a horse and built her a barn. This set the stage for her 73-year riding career. Robin moved to Vermont and evented for years, but in later years decided to pursue dressage, which brought her to Florida for the winters. This is also when she bought five-year- old Danny from her neighbor. She has devoted the last 20 years to training Danny and showing him again. She credits help from the Central Vermont Dressage Association and BREC Robin Jaccaci: 79 | Dance With Me: 23 | Combined: 102 Dressage in Ocala, Florida. Robin and Danny rode First Level Test 2 on March 20, 2019, to join the Century Club. Ellie Metelits: 79 | Pluto Chantella: 23 | Combined: 102 5 THE NEWS | ISSUE 24 | FEBRUARY 2020 C e n tu ry Club Team #378: Mary Strasser and Huzaar My story began six decades ago, when at the ripe old age of ten, my parents signed me up for riding lessons. Soon I had my first horse, an Arab/Quarter Horse cross who was lame more often than she was sound, but she was mine and I was in heaven. Growing up in Minnesota in the 1950s, we were lucky enough to have a wonderful dressage instructor by the name of Max von Bluecher, a true master of dressage, and it was under his tutelage that I learned to Mary Strasser: 72 | Huzaar: 30 | Combined: 102 ride. All through grade school and high school, I spent my summers at the barn, and it was at Huzaar (aka Hewie), the most incredible equine this barn that I made life-long friendships that I I have ever had the good fortune to ride. Hewie still cherish today. We took lessons, went trail is a 30-year-old Dutch Warmblood, a grandson riding, competed in local shows and learned to be of Lucky Boy, born and raised in the Netherlands responsible, caring horse owners. and imported to the States at the age of nine. And then life happened! Off to four years Before I owned him, he had a long and prosperous of college, marriage and a career as a flight career as a Grand Prix jumper, both in Europe attendant with Pan American World Airways and the States.