PrintAfter dominating the young rider divisions from coast to coast, Kassandra Barteau took her career in an unexpected direction when she reached the senior ranks.
If you’d asked Kassandra “Kassie” Barteau two years ago what she’d be doing in 2011, her answer probably wouldn’t have been painting fences.
In 2009, Barteau was finishing up a storied young rider career. She claimed the national young rider title three years in a row, won individual gold in the freestyle test at the North American Young Rider Championships and represented the United States at the FEI Young Rider Dressage World Cup in Germany, not to mention collecting more than 35 regional championships and being ranked first in the nation from training level to Grand Prix.
As she stepped out into the adult ranks in 2010, it looked like she was set to continue her winning ways. She won the Prix St. Georges test in the Collecting Gaits Farm/USEF Intermediaire I Championship and was regularly taking small tour wins and Brentina Cup blues.
But then the 23-year-old decided to take a chance and make a radical departure from the only life she’d known—riding eight to 10 horses daily and spending ceaseless weekends in competition as an assistant trainer at KYB Dressage in Maple Park, Ill., for her mother and stepfather Yvonne and Kim Barteau.
She left her horses behind and moved to San Diego to assume the role of a working student under the tutelage of Steffen and Shannon Peters at Arroyo Del Mar.
Pulling Up Roots
“Now she’ll call me saying, ‘Mom, I’m painting fences!’ or ‘I just made a huge feed order!’ ” says Yvonne.
Kassie was inspired to write a letter to the Peterses after spending the winter of 2011 in Wellington, Fla., with long time trainer and mentor, Cathy Morelli. She’d spent the previous winter in Wellington as well but had gone home to Illinois for the rest of the season.
During that summer, Kassie began experimenting with supporting herself by teaching some beginner lessons and clinics. But she wasn’t enjoying independence. “I was riding a lot less while I was trying to do my own thing in the Chicago area and teaching some up-down lessons. I was not me. I was much less happy being, in a sense, a normal person,” says Kassie.
So she decided to apply for a working student position.
“I encouraged her, but I was a little worried that maybe they already had a system set up that she wouldn’t fit into,” says Yvonne. “I told her that all you can do is put in a real heartfelt request. She wrote something up and showed it to me, and I said, ‘That should do it.’ Steffen responded immediately.”
The Peterses were impressed by Kassie’s “enthusiasm to learn and continue her education, even with the success she had at a young age,” says Shannon. She did a weeklong trial in March before they determined she was a perfect candidate for their team.
Kassie packed up her Jeep and headed west to sunny San Diego in late April 2011.
All In A Day’s Work
“We make the feed for morning and night, clean feed buckets, water horses; a lot of horses get wrapped at night, so we do that. We make sure the laundry is done, we ice horses, hand walk, treadmill some horses and have certain grooming responsibilities. Really whatever needs to get done—longeing, walking horses down to the arena, anything,” Kassie rattles off the list of things she now does each day.
