The Washington-bred Hanoverian is a rising star for Regina Agren.

It took two years for Contendion to get a spot in Regina Agren’s barn, but now that the young gelding has finally settled into her program, the trainer would be loathe to let him go.

Owner and breeder Judy Pappin’s patience is paying off in spades, as Agren and Contendion stepped on to the national stage earlier this season and now have a regional championship title to their credit.

The 6-year-old Hanoverian (Contendro—Wandy) capped off a banner year at the Great American/USDF Region 6 Championships, held in conjunction with the Northwest Dressage Championships at DevonWood Equestrian Center in Sherwood, Ore., Sept. 25-27.

“I’m sure he’s here to stay for a long time now,” said Agren, who rode Contendion to the Region 6 open second level title. “I think he’s one of a ‘horse of a lifetime’ kind of horses. He’s kind of got it all. I’m very lucky to get to work with him.”

Pappin, Vancouver, Wash., bred, raised and showed Contendion in-hand herself, so when it came time to put him in training under saddle, she looked for someone special to continue her labor of love.

Agren came highly recommended by several of Pappin’s friends, who were already Agren’s clients at Alpha Riding Academy in Castle Rock, Wash. The family-oriented business flourishes solely by word of mouth, and Agren has a waiting list to get into her 20-stall barn set on 6 acres.

“Judy kept calling me and saying she had this horse to get into training, and I kept saying, ‘I’m sorry, I just don’t have any openings!’ ” Agren said. “By the time we finally got him in last year, he was a little bit behind—just barely going training level. It was hard for him to canter the 20-meter circle and then make it down the long side.”

But Contendion had obvious talent, so Agren set simple goals at first. The gelding exceeded them all as the weeks wore on, progressing from cantering in a straight line to simple changes to flying ones. By August, less than a year after his first show with Agren, Contendion was contending the 6-year-old Markel/USEF National Young Horse Championship. After traveling 2,000 miles to Wayne, Ill., for the competition, the gelding placed ninth overall.

“He’s kind of what I think of as your good old-style Hanoverian—he’s pretty mellow and sensible, but he’s always ready to work,” Agren said. “He loves to please you. He’s just a ‘yes’ kind of guy. That’s why we were able to make it to the young horse championships.”

At the Region 6 championships, they earned blue in all three of their second level classes, but Contendion scored his highest mark—70.83 percent—in the test 4 championship class.

“He’s very solid for second level this year,” Agren said, noting that she hopes the gelding will finish in seventh place in the U.S. Dressage Federation national standings. “He goes in the show ring and is all business. He doesn’t care about the flowers or the announcements; he just goes in and does his job. We hope he’ll continue that in the Developing Horse tests.”

Agren said Pappin, of Equus Manor Sporthorses, a small breeding farm just north of Portland, Ore., has a mutual respect for both Agren and the horse.

“Judy’s great to work with,” Agren said. “It’s not all about me, and it’s not all about her. We both want to see the horse succeed, and we like working together to make sure that’s going to happen.”

Agren, 35, feels honored to be working with a horse of Contendion’s quality, having earned much of her training experience, as well as her USDF bronze, silver and gold medals, on her mother’s Thoroughbred-Clydesdale, Mocha Motion. The mare was originally intended to be a pleasure mount, but Agren trained her up to the Grand Prix level instead.

“My mom bought her as a trail horse, saying she wanted a horse with a bigger butt than hers,” Agren joked. “She got her as a 6-month-old, and I kind of broke her in. I figured if I was going to ride her every day, I might as well take her to some shows. And then she turned into a Grand Prix horse.

“She’s not as talented as Contendion, though!” Agren added, laughing. “We’re talking about a totally different type of horse.”

Agren welcomes horses of all types in her barn, from Grand Prix veterans to Pony Club mounts. She also keeps a special place for her childhood pony, Summer, who’s now 34. The mare just took Agren’s 5-year-old son, Isaac, to his first schooling show, where he performed an introductory level test.

“He got one 7, but then he saw my test [with Contendion], and I had gotten 8s,” she said. “So he was so excited about getting a 7, but now he’s wanting to know when he’s going to get the 8s.”

Regina’s husband, Brian, didn’t come from the same equine background she enjoyed, but he and his family fully support the business. Both sides of the family joined forces to build Alpha Academy’s barn, which boasts a spacious indoor arena for the wet winter months, nine years ago.

“We have a very close family,” Regina said. “I try not to get overbooked, because I feel like if I keep a better balance with family, then I also actually end up doing better with the horses. It’s a better perspective on life.”

A New Outlook For Osinski

After spending most of last year working through the U.S. Equestrian Federation’s S-rated judge certification program, Michael Osinski, Lacey, Wash., has gained a better perspective this season as well.

As an FEI rider and the head trainer at Forest Park Equestrian Center in Olympia for the past decade, Osinski, 50, has had plenty of experience in the arena. But a year of apprentice judging at CDIs across the country, including the Olympic Selection Trials, has given him a deeper appreciation for riding.

“I’ve been the jack-of-all-trades—teaching, riding, and showing, but judging balances things out,” Osinski said. “You get to watch your own mistakes with a judge’s eye, and you know what you’re missing.”

Now that he’s able to spend more time in the saddle again, Osinski’s been finding success with Falada, a 13-year-old Hanoverian mare owned by Rani McColloch, of Roy, Wash.

Osinski started riding the gray mare (First Gotthard—Aster) three years ago, but she’s just coming back from time off to have a foal, by Winterprinz.

The pair topped the Region 6 third level freestyle championship with a 68.59 percent and placed second in a fourth level, test 3, class (64.63%).

“She’s pretty consistent—an honest, reliable mare,” Osinski said. “The freestyle was just fun. She had a good, clean test, and it flowed effortlessly.”

Karen Robinson of Applause Dressage choreographed the test, which utilizes “The Syncopated Clock” and songs from Peter And The Wolf.

“It’s a new one we just put together this year,” Osinski said. “She’s a very lofty, cadenced type, and it matches her personality 100 percent.”

Osinski’s now a confirmed West Coast resident, but he grew up in Michigan and began riding under the influence of his grandfather, who served as the keeper of the hounds for the Metamora Hunt. Osinski hunted on foot as a child and showed in the hunters and jumpers before finding his passion for dressage.

Maryal Barnett encouraged him to move west, and at 21, he became a working student for Hilda Gurney in California. He travels to CDIs in Sacramento and Burbank annually but has made Washington his home.

“I moved west, and one thing always leads to another,” Osinski said. “This is it for me.”

One Star For Another

Last November, amateur rider Maggie Nicolino’s competitive future looked questionable when she was laid off after a decade working as a store design manager for Starbucks Coffee in Seattle. But Nicolino, Maple Valley, Wash., was counting on her Lucky Starr.

“I wasn’t even sure I was going to be able to show this year,” Nicolino said. “But I got this horse last year who I think has the talent and brains and the work ethic to make it to the FEI. And my husband knew it was important, so we figured out a way to make it work.”

Nicolino’s year of campaigning Lucky Starr, her 9-year-old Hanoverian gelding, paid off with the Region 6 adult amateur training level championship. They topped one of the biggest classes in the show with a score of 71.00 percent.

“It ended up being a great year,” Nicolino said. “We won a lot of things, so we decided to go for the championships, and that paid off too! He was really with me and just great all weekend.”

Nicolino said her gelding, whom her longtime mentor Gerd Reuter found for her in Germany last year, felt a bit “spicy” in his debut class at DevonWood, but by Sunday he was locked into professional mode.

Nicolino, 40, has been riding with Reuter since 1994, but since he’s based in Virginia, she trains locally with Erin Jorgensen at Viewmont Stables, about 12 miles from her home. She now organizes Reuter’s clinics in the area several times per year.

Although she competed up to Intermediaire I on her previous horse, also a Reuter find, Nicolino gets as much satisfaction out of showing Lucky at training level, because his potential is so exciting.

“Gerd found [Lucky] as a breeding stallion and said, ‘I have the perfect next horse for you’,” she said. “I didn’t want a stallion, so they agreed to have him gelded for me before he came over here. But he has great conformation, lovely gaits, and he’s so trainable. He never says no. Those are the qualities that I definitely think will make him an FEI horse.”

Lucky’s only drawback is that his brain sometimes outlasts his brawn.

“As you’re progressing, he might not be strong enough to do certain things for an extended period time, and he’ll try to,” she said. “He so wants to do it, and you have to take a step back and go, ‘Hey, don’t be an over-achiever!’ ”