For Claudia Szidat, dressage has been more about the journey than the blue ribbons since she took up the sport in 2020.

German by birth, she grew up riding sporadically but got serious about showing—riding hunters on the Quarter Horse circuit—when she moved to the United States in 1999 for her husband Michael Szidat’s job.

After having her son, Christopher Szidat, Claudia and Michael eventually made their way from Mexico, New York, to Fayetteville, New York, and Claudia connected with dressage trainer Kimberley Asher at Canterbury Stables in nearby Cazenovia.

“My heart was always with dressage,” Claudia said. “I always thought that one day I would give it a try, and that was in fall 2020 when my son went to college. I sold my hunter and started taking lessons with Kimberley. I enjoyed every single minute of it.” 

After learning the basics of dressage on lesson horses, Claudia was ready for a horse of her own. While her parents had allowed her to take riding lessons as a child, it was never consistent, and Claudia said they didn’t take her passion seriously. But her father, Helmut Scheffler, offered to help her as a gift when it came time to find her own horse in 2021. 

“Before he passed away, he said he felt so bad that they never took it seriously and supported me, and he said he’d love for me to fulfill my dream and buy myself my dressage heart horse,” Claudia recalled. “Shortly after that he passed away, and it was like, ‘OK, this is it. Let’s start looking.’ ”

It took a year to find Fial, a now-7-year-old Westphalian gelding (Fuerstenball—Bellina, Belissimo M), but he’s turned out to be the perfect partner for Claudia. She was a bit nervous thinking about showing him, but a group of friends at the barn encouraged her to dip her toe in last year.

“I really loved it. It was fun,” she said. “I’m surrounded by some really great friends. We show together. We’re five girls. They didn’t give me any chance not to do it! They took me under their wings and said, ‘This is what we do.’ It’s been a great experience.”

This year, Claudia and Fial headed to the GAIG/USDF Region 8 Championships, held Sept. 19-22 in Saugerties, New York, and won the adult amateur first level championship on a score of 70.06% ahead of 51 other pairs.

“He is such a good horse,” she said. “I think he really likes to show off. We’re both still fairly green, so we still have a lot to learn. He takes care of me. Once I go in the ring, I don’t feel nervous anymore. I just love to ride a test. I think knowing what I do next in my ride, I just love it. It makes me feel good. I wasn’t even that nervous about my ride. I like to go in there and show him off and try to be as good of a rider for him as he deserves.”

Claudia hopes to continue moving up the levels with Fial, largely by working on herself. She takes clinics whenever she can from coaches like Gary Rockwell and JJ Tate to complement her training with Asher.

“He has so much potential and so much to offer,” she said of Fial. “My goal for myself is to be able to make him shine. I have to work hard on me, but I’m totally determined to do this. It’s not about the blue ribbons, it’s to give him justice because he’s such a beautiful horse. This is my goal, and let’s see how far it gets us. I’m open for everything.

“My biggest regret is that I didn’t do it 20 years earlier! I feel like my time is running out and running away from me, but I’m 54, so I can still do it,” she added with a laugh. “I’m a perfectionist, so if I do something, I really want to learn it. I always said one day I was going to start learning [dressage] from scratch. It’s a beautiful thing—it’s full of harmony. It’s like dancing with the horses. I always admired everyone who did it and wanted to one day learn it. I think it was always in me, it just took a while until I finally fulfilled my dream.”