Olympic dressage rider Lendon Gray grew up in Old Town, Maine, as a dedicated member of the Pony Club. While she went on to have a highly successful equestrian career as a rider and trainer, and was inducted into the United States Dressage Federation Hall of Fame in 2011, the broad depth of education about horses that she learned in the Pony Club has always remained important to Gray. It inspired her to launch Dressage4Kids in 1999 after she noticed that many young riders she encountered had acquired school master horses to help their learning but lacked a foundation of knowledge of horsemanship.
“All they wanted to do was ride; they didn’t spend time with their horses,” she said.
The idea came to fruition when Gray hosted a Dressage4Kids show named the Youth Dressage Festival that involved a dressage test, equitation class and a written test on riding theory and stable management.
“Each phase was equal, and I was trying to level the playing field for everyone,” she said.
The competition soon grew to over 300 kids and expanded to other classes including prix caprilli (a dressage test with jumps), dressage trail, freestyle, costume classes, lead lines, and practical stable management challenges. Initially, Dressage4Kids was open to riders aged 21 and under, but it has since been expanded to 25 and under.
As funding increased, Gray established Dressage4Kids as a 501(c)(3) non-profit and began awarding scholarships to young equestrians.
The only requirement to apply is to have participated in a Dressage4Kids activity. For example, they could have gone to a show and been dead last!” she said. Gray explained, however, that “the scholarships are for equestrian education, not for competing or traveling.”
The next step in growth, and what enhanced Dressage4Kids' reputation, is the donation of horses that are then leased out to young riders.
“Anyone who leases a horse from us agrees to keep the horse forever,” Gray said, adding that with her permission, a horse can be passed on to someone else. Of the 120 horses donated so far, Dressage4Kids has received everything from fat little ponies to horses that went on to become NYAC (FEI North American Youth) champions or compete at the U.S. Dressage Festival of Champions.
One rider who is flourishing on a Dressage4Kids lease horse is 16-year-old Olivia Martz from Gig Harbor, Washington. Martz’s mom and aunt are both trainers and own Kellenbrook Farms. “As a trainer’s daughter, you're not usually in the best financial situation but you get a lot of opportunities to ride many different horses and most of them were perfect,” Martz said.
Martz was first introduced to Dressage4Kids when she attended a Winter Intensive Training Program in Florida at age 14.
“It was really spectacular. I got to see so many amazing riders and listen to lectures from all sorts of equestrian professionals,” she recalled.
A few months later, her 20-year-old German Riding Pony, Norra, came up lame, so Martz and her mom reached out to Gray to see if Dressage4Kids had any lease horses available. “We had talked to Lendon months earlier about keeping her eyes out for a possible junior horse. We knew that Norra and I had only a year left together before her retirement,” Martz said. Four days later, they received a call about a liver chestnut Brandenburg named Rihanna Ymas, and the match was made!
Martz described the 16-year-old as “such a diva” and said that “she is one of the most challenging horses that I've ever ridden, mostly because it means so much more to me. Rihanna is my heart horse, she is so kind and always tries so hard. She is definitely a queen as her name suggests.”
Rihanna was previously at a Spanish breeding and training barn – competing up to Intermediate 1 – spending her summers in Spain and her winters in Wellington. Since they were partnered, Martz and the talented mare have spent the past two years getting to know each other by competing at local national shows, regionals, and the Del Mar CDI in California.
Earlier this summer, they attended NAYC, “which was way better than I was expecting, she was amazing,” Martz said. In the Junior team test, the pair PR’d with a score of 69%, and in the individual test they PR’d with a score 70% and earned the silver medal. After the freestyle Martz and Rihanna were awarded the Amanda Johnson Pursuit of Excellence Award as the highest overall scoring FEI junior rider this year at NAYC. “It made me feel like I was meant to be there ... It was so spectacular knowing that everything that Rihanna and I have worked on for the last two years had come together,” Martz said of their achievements. Rihanna made one of my biggest dreams come true by medaling at NAYC!”
Martz and Rihanna are now competing in the Festival of Champions in the Junior Team and Individual tests.
“My goal for Festival of Champions is just to take the pressure off, have fun, try our best, and see where that goes,” Martz said.
Gray recalled other success stories from Dressage4Kids, such as Kayla Kadlubek, who rode a donated horse that was chosen to compete in Europe with the U.S. Young Riders.
“I'm also incredibly proud of one young woman who was in the program for two years and came to me and said, ‘you know, I don't want to go to the Olympics. I just want to go home and start a little riding program.’ And that's exactly what she's done,” Gray said. “We need much more of that.”
Undoubtedly, the most notable alumni is Laura Graves, who went on to become the number 1 ranked rider in the FEI Dressage World Rankings and won the bronze medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. “She [Graves] says publicly that the youth festival was fun, and she appreciated it, that's where she started to become serious about dressage,” Gray said.
Of course, the horses’ success stories are equally as important, and some have had a huge impact on multiple riders’ lives. Gray recalled a 15hh Connemara who was donated to Dressage4Kids.
“He would bring a kid from not being able to have a horse on the bit, right up to Second Level, and then when the kid was ready to move on to another horse, we found another person to lease him,” she recalled. “He brought up five kids to that level, which was fantastic.” Another star of the program was a horse called Ritter Benno, who went on to win gold medals at both the National Championships and the North American Youth Championships.
Aside from the horse donation program, Dressage4Kids also hosts several other programs, including Training4Teaching, which offers trainers “educational opportunities about how to teach, not what to teach,” Gray said.
The most successful program, however, is called TEAM, which stands for training, education and mentoring. It involves two-day clinics all over the country that are like a regular clinic with 10 to 12 riders, but also include handouts and lectures.
“Participants have a written test that they have to do, so again, there is a strong emphasis on the education, not just the riding,” Gray said.
The clinics have since expanded into Winter and Summer Intensive Training Programs, which are each three months long. “The Winter session is in Wellington, Florida, they have lessons five days a week, lectures six days a week, and six days a week they do fitness, plus written tests and field trips,” Gray said. “The wonderful thing about Wellington is the opportunities. People have been very generous with us about taking the kids to watch training.”
Martz said that she learned a huge amount during her time in the intensive clinic. “It has taught me responsibility and work ethic. We had assigned barn chores and an intensive day from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., and sometimes a night check. It also taught me the importance of having a team in dressage, not making it an individual sport and working together to get to your goals,” she added.
“I love the clinics,” Gray added. “The thing that's fun with them is I can have a seven-year-old who is learning to canter at the same clinic where someone is working on piaffe transitions.”
Plus, there is a true sense of camaraderie among participants. “They get to know each other and support each other in a totally noncompetitive way,” she said.
Martz agreed that connecting with different people in the equestrian world is one of the many great things about Dressage4Kids. “It gives youth riders so many opportunities to not only connect with people but to ride amazing horses or to get wonderful training that they otherwise wouldn't have the opportunity to get.”
As for the ongoing mission of Dressage4Kids, Gray said, “I'm not looking to churn out international riders, although we have done that, but to give as many people as we can these opportunities. It’s more about bringing dressage to everybody.”
The U.S. Dressage Festival of Champions takes place from Aug. 19-25 in Wayne, Ill.
Photos courtesy of Dressage4Kids