Mill Spring, N.C. - Mary McCormick is one of the United States’ most decorated vaulters. This is her fourth appearance at the WEG; she also represented the U.S. in 2006, 2010, and 2014. McCormick grew up in Sonoma, Calif., where her mother was a marketing director in the Northern California wine business and her father was the tour manager for the rock band the Doobie Brothers. Her parents were not involved with horses, but Mary discovered her passion for the sport at a local vaulting club, the Tambourine Vaulters, in 1992.
McCormick is the founder of Silver Star Vaulters in Nashville, Tenn., and also is a member of XM Equestrian. She was the United States Equestrian Federation’s Vaulter of the Year in 2009 and 2011.

How did you get started in vaulting?

I was about nine years old, and, in a way, I’d been rehearsing for vaulting my whole life. I was obsessed with horses and climbing on the furniture and just being a regular monkey as a kid! I heard about this awesome sport, and I knew right away that it was the sport for me. There was a small club in the town I grew up in, and it was really accessible. You didn’t have to own your own horse; you could just be part of the club. I started, got hooked immediately, and never looked back.

My family didn’t come from a horsey background, and we didn’t have a lot of money to spend on a horse, so the fact that I didn’t have to have a horse to do vaulting was one reason I was able to get involved. The way the clubs work is that most of them own the horses, and when you start, you pay a membership fee, but you’re able to participate in the care of the horses, take lessons, and be a part of classes without the responsibility of owning your own horse. Which is awesome, because it makes it accessible to people who might not be able to get involved in horse sports otherwise.

If you want to get involved, get on the American Vaulting Association’s website at americanvaulting.org and get in contact with a club. Most people who have clubs are really excited and passionate about the sport and love to share what they have. Give it a try! You won’t regret it. It’s a very safe sport. The horses are amazing, and it’s so much fun.

 

How did you create your own training regimen that helped you get to such a high level of the sport?

I learned how to vault and got started with clubs. Then I moved to Tennessee when I was a teenager, but there weren’t any clubs there. So I started my own club and kind of got myself to this level by just being really motivated to excel in the sport however I could. I explored the different kinds of training I needed: the physical training, the mental training, and bettering myself as a horse person in general, so I had a better understanding of horses.

Something that’s really interesting about vaulting is that it’s demanding physically, mentally, and in terms of your skills. You need strength, so I got in a gym and did weight-lifting. I got into yoga, because you also have to have good mental awareness of your body. I did dance classes—I took adult ballet and Zumba—to become more graceful and learn how to present myself with music. And I’ve taken dressage lessons, natural horsemanship clinics, you name it. It’s never boring—there are always lots of different ways you can improve the components of your vaulting.

 

What do you think equestrians who do other horse sports can gain by trying vaulting?

I started off in vaulting and then got into riding, and an advantage I had from starting out in vaulting is that I had a really good feel for the horse. When you don’t have to focus on controlling the horse and you’re just thinking about yourself and managing your own body, it really liberates you to pay attention to the way the horse moves and the way your balance affects their movement.

I think the coolest thing I’ve found in my vaulting career is that you can do things physically that you couldn’t do by yourself, by learning to harmonize with the horse and use their power. That feeling, for me, is true freedom.

 

What kinds of riding are you doing these days and how is your vaulting experience informing that?

I am an avid dressage rider. I take a lot of lessons to benefit my own knowledge on the horse and also to help my vaulting horses with their fitness. Dressage is really helpful in teaching a horse to carry himself correctly and to have the proper frame they need to have in the circle. Vaulting has helped me, because I can take physical cues from the instructor pretty easily; I have a lot of body awareness through the training that I’ve done. So if they say, “Move your right hip forward, keep your left elbow back,” I can make quick reactions to what the instructor is saying.

There is so much value to this kind of cross-discipline training. And it’s fun! It’s nice to do something that takes you out of your comfort zone a little bit.

 

What kind of horse makes a good vaulting horse?

Any horse can be a vaulting horse, if they have the temperament for it. That’s number one, for sure. They have to be calm, confident, and able to tolerate what we’re doing on them. It’s helpful if they’re big with a big, broad back, so that there’s space for us to vault and so their balance isn’t affected by our movement and what we’re doing. Ideally, you’re looking for a horse that has nice gaits: good suspension in the canter, good self-carriage, the ability to hold themselves with good balance on the circle. That’s all helpful for them and it’s also helpful for us, because it allows them to have a really consistent, smooth gait that we can utilize.

 

You spent some time performing with your longeur, Christian Ramos, in a traveling equine circus, too. How did that contribute to your vaulting?

The circus was an amazing experience. I’ve always been really fascinated by the history of the circus. They were standing on horses and going around in circles before we had it as a sport, so working with families who have been performing with animals for 10 generations and learning how they train and prepare their animals was a really neat experience. Christian’s uncle owns a circus in Florida called Circo Espectacular; it’s a Mexican circus.

As an athlete, it really pushed me out of my comfort zone, because you don’t get to prepare the same way as you would for riding or vaulting in a regular competition environment. It’s a theater, and you have to conform to the requirements that are set by the producer. So sometimes you don’t get a warm-up, sometimes the space is not ideal. Learning that I can cope with that and how to cope with it was really valuable and gave me a lot of confidence as an athlete.

The best part was learning about the performance aspect and shifting gears away from focusing on the technical parts of vaulting, which is a lot of what we do when we compete. Instead, I was focusing on making a routine that had highlights and really showed my passion for what I was doing and how I connected with the horse, and on being able to show that to the audience. It definitely made me a better performer.

There’s so much tradition in the circus, and I learned that not all training methods are the same as what I had been doing. There’s a lot of liberty training [training a horse without tack], so I learned a lot about body language and how your positioning in the arena can affect your horse. It’s all really similar to natural horsemanship, and it was absolutely fascinating to me. I learned how to communicate better with my horses. It was a fairy-tale experience.