Back at the start of last year, Nash Gagnon had never competed in a U.S. Equestrian Federation-recognized competition. The teen was working three jobs in his hometown of Gorham, Maine, taking online classes, and saving up in hopes of heading down to Wellington, Florida, for the first time. 

What a difference a year and a half makes.

This month, Gagnon, 19, was named to the U.S. Dressage European Young Rider Tour with his 17-year-old Oldenburg gelding, Happy Texas Moonlight. Gagnon—alongside teammates Alicia Berger and Kat Fuqua—will compete at the Le Mans CDIOY, May 30-June 2 in France, and the Hagen CDIOY, June 11-16 in Germany.

Gagnon and “Mr. Big” (Happy Diamond—Texane, Top Of Class) waited until the last minute to qualify for the team.

 “We are a new partnership, so we wanted to get more time together, and we had to wait forever to get his [Fédération Equestre Internationale] passport papers,” Gagnon said. “So we were kind of crunched to do the last three CDIs to get my qualifying scores. That puts a lot of pressure on the end of this season. But the thing that is just so fantastic about my horse is that he loves his job. I think that’s how we were able to pull it off.”

Though Gagnon and Mr. Big have only been partners since his lease started in October, they wasted no time in climbing to the upper echelons of dressage sport. Hoping to earn his USDF gold medal before stepping back down to the Young Rider level, Gagnon briefly campaigned the “beefy” 17.3-hand Oldenburg at the Grand Prix at the beginning of the winter season.

After witnessing the pair’s success at the highest level, including a 65.87% at Adequan Global Dressage Festival Week 3, Mr. Big’s previous owners Mokum Farm LLC gifted the gelding to Gagnon.

“He’s an incredible horse, and he knows the job,” Gagnon said. “Of course, free horses always come with things you have to fix. Our biggest learning curve has been figuring out the technical ways I can manage him in the show ring and raise his scores everywhere I can.”

“When you focus on those little things, you might be surprised,” he added. “When you get an 8 on your walk pirouette, that’s a coefficient. That score is just as important as having a fancy trot for the short sides. So it’s really about managing the small things.”

While Mr. Big is still relatively new to Gagnon, big horses have been a part of his equestrian journey from the very beginning.

“I started riding when I was really little up in Rangeley, Maine, up in the sticks,” he said. “My neighbors had draft horses that they used for logging, and I just loved them. I would go and see the horses all the time. I would go over there at least once a week, feed the horses, and they would give me bareback rides on these big horses.”

Once he was old enough, Gagnon started taking formal riding lessons with Tanya Rennie at Vienna Farm.

“I didn’t come from a family that could afford this expensive sport,” Gagnon said. “So I did one half-hour lesson every other week until I was 10 years old, which was when I could clean stalls and pay for my lessons. Eventually, I did local schooling shows, and I was on top of the world when I got to go to a schooling show to compete at third level. It was so fun, just a totally different world than what you see down here, for sure.”

Gagnon has always contended with the financial reality of competing in dressage. After accepting a working student position with Jane Hannigan in Massachusetts in fall 2022, he knew that he’d have to save up if he wanted to spend the winter in Wellington.

“The moment I moved to Concord, Massachusetts, I went around to pretty much every restaurant in town, handed them my resume and said, ‘I’m looking for a job.’ I got a job at a Mexican place,” he said. “I did the same when I first came down to Wellington last year. I got hired at Kontiki on the spot, so I worked there three to four nights a week during my first season in Wellington. That’s what paid for my shows in Florida.”

After working to make ends meet all year, Gagnon contested the Young Rider division at the 2023 FEI North American Youth Championships in Traverse City, Michigan, aboard Hannigan’s Dutch Warmblood gelding Eros SSF (UB-40—Oleander B, Havidoff).

Though Gagnon learned a lot at the championship, it came to a tragic end.

“We had to put Eros down the night we got home from NAYC,” he recalled. “After he got off the trailer, he tried to lie down in the driveway, and we knew something was wrong. We found out at Tufts [University (Massachusetts)] that his small intestine had telescoped into his cecum [an intussusception]. Our whole team was devastated.”

The dressage community rallied around him. Gagnon shared his story in a Facebook post that caught the attention of Katja Eilers, who worked for Mokum LLC and encouraged his previous owners to lease the gelding to him.

A few months later, his work ethic earned him the $25,000 Dressage4Kids Christian Kennedy Training Grant, which enabled Gagnon to focus on getting to know Mr. Big this season rather than work multiple side hustles, waiting tables and mucking stalls, on top of his full-time position for Hannigan.

Since being named to the European Young Rider team, he has also started a GoFundMe page and has other fundraising plans in the works.

Gagnon’s primary goal at the moment is to get to Europe. But the Young Rider level is just the beginning for the rider, who has his eyes on even bigger things.

“The U25 Grand Prix is something I’m thinking about, but not necessarily with Mr. Big. He’s just such a solid citizen, but he’s 17. He could get just about anybody up to the Prix St. Georges, and I know someone would love the process of getting there with him. I think that I owe it to him to be able to step down and teach someone else,” Gagnon said. “I know he’d never say no to me, so I don’t want to put him in that position.”