After working for the Chronicle’s 2009 Overall Horseman of the Year Steffen Peters for more than five years, and for his wife Shannon for more than a decade, farm manager Kate Gillespie has learned plenty of skills to bolster her résumé.

But ask Gillespie, who’s an advanced-level eventer from South Africa, the most important lesson she’s learned from working with the S. Peters Dressage team, and she won’t list horse-care tricks or secret training tips. Instead, she and almost everyone on the support staff at Arroyo Del Mar in San Diego, Calif., have learned a much more important life lesson.

“The grass is not always greener on the other side!” Gillespie said emphatically. “Steffen really treats his people well, and no one ever leaves. I would never leave here. You’d have to drag me out.”

That sense of contentment is shared by all of Steffen and Shannon’s 14 employees, from assistant trainers and working students to grooms and stall muckers. Each individual fulfills an integral role on the team, and the Peterses are quick to give credit to the entire group whenever they’re in the spotlight.

“You can never do well on your own—you have to have a hell of a team behind you, especially when you’re traveling as much as we do,” Steffen said. “I always say, when people ask what my job is, that I train horses, I teach, and I pay the bills. I do the budget and things like that. I enjoy that. But I don’t believe in micromanaging, and I really trust the people that work for us. We just have a wonderful camaraderie with outstanding teamwork.”

Steffen and Shannon have built their support team with that keen awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses in mind, as well as those of everyone around them. They make their own rules based on what’s best for the horses and best for the individuals caring for them.

“What I learned from Steffen is to be patient, and to not always be desperate to try to get to some point at the show or something,” said Steffen’s head groom, Rafael Hernandez. “He always tells me, ‘Let’s just do our own thing,’ and we always go from there.

“He can get stressed out a little bit at shows and get serious, but he doesn’t get angry,” Hernandez added. “He’s really easygoing to work with. If something’s not working, he’ll just say, ‘OK, let’s try it this way.’ And he really listens when you talk to him.”

That sense of freedom and mutual respect carries the team through the busy and stressful times, of which there were many in 2009. But in between the big competitions and the hectic travel schedules, the Peterses always make it a priority to reward their staffers whenever possible.

Every three months or so, Steffen and Shannon host a cookout or barbecue for their staff and clients, and in the summers they make regular trips to a nearby lake for water skiing, tubing and Jet Skiing. Steffen’s also been known to hire a limo to take his grooms to a football game or whisk his barn staff away to Las Vegas for a few days of fun.

“He’s really good about making sure everyone’s not just slaving away all the time,” Gillespie said.

That motivates everyone on the S. Peters team to go above and beyond the call of duty, from assistant trainers Lientje Schueler, Rebecca Rigdon and David Blake to night watchman John Zucker. Veterinarian Rodrigo Vazquez and therapist Tom Meyers have also proved invaluable to the team, traveling the world with Steffen and his horse Ravel.

“We always say this is a team sport in every way,” Shannon said. “We have such a great support team here that if somebody’s having a tough day, there’s always somebody willing to pick up a little slack. If we didn’t have that, I’m sure the whole thing wouldn’t work, and it would be overwhelming at times, but when you have such a great time like we have, it all works itself out.”