PrintThe Florida equestrian community comes together to helpa hardworking young rider after a tragic accident.
Madison Myers experienced the holiday spirit of giving in spades this year after a tragic car accident took her horse’s life in October.
Myers considered the big bay gelding her horse of a lifetime, and she’d purchased him with her own money just a year earlier. After Holden On (“Holden”) was killed, in the midst of dark clouds, a silver lining emerged as several equine professionals banded together to help Myers, donating their time, skills, equipment and even a horse.
Now Myers, Valkaria, Fla., is looking toward the future with her new mount, though her recent loss still weighs heavily on her mind.
A Horse Called Holden
Myers, 16, started riding almost 11 years ago and bought her first horse in 2002 to do 4-H and local shows. By early 2007, she realized she’d gone as far as she could with him and had a desire to do bigger equitation
classes. By working as an assistant barn manager at a local farm, she saved around $15,000. She started horse shopping but hadn’t found the perfect horse after a year of looking.
In June of 2008, she looked at another prospect. That one didn’t work, but the trainer offered to let her try a
second horse, even though he was more than she could pay.
“As soon as I sat on Holden, I said, ‘Yes, this is it,’ ” Myers remembered. “He was perfect. Even though he was way out of my price range, the economy helped me out. I made the trainer the only offer I could make, and he took it.”
Though it was love at first sight for Myers, her trainer Bridget Imparato, based at Showtime Horse Sales in Beverly Hills, Fla., initially didn’t feel the same way about the Holsteiner gelding.
“At first I thought she quite overpaid for him,” Imparato said. “His feet were in such bad shape that he couldn’t wear shoes for a year. But she patiently did flat work and fed him well and waited for him to get healthy enough.”
Per her farrier’s request, Myers left shoes off of the horse for a full year, allowing him to grow enough hoof wall to properly hold a nail again. After a year of flat work, Myers started work on their jumping, only to find another issue with Holden—he was a stopper.
“I think he’d just been in a bad management program,” Imparato said. “I think they’d been jumping him on those bad feet, and he learned to be a little uncooperative.”
However, Myers persevered and soon had Holden comfortably and confidently jumping around 3'3" courses at home and showing in the 2'6" and 2'9" classes. The pair competed at a few local shows, earning ribbons in equitation and hunter classes.
“He was really going well,” Imparato said. “They were looking forward to doing more medal classes next season and [U.S. Equestrian Federation] rated shows.”
With her horse finally going the way she wanted, Myers applied to the U.S. Hunter Jumper Association Emerging Athletes Program, a series of training sessions held with Olympic Games gold medalist Melanie Smith Taylor. She barely missed making the cut and decided to participate in a Melanie Smith Taylor clinic, Oct. 3-4 at Heritage Horse Shows (Fla.), to help her chances of being accepted in the future.
After two days of excellent instruction, Myers and her mother, Marion, packed up their truck and trailer to make the drive back home to the Orlando area.
