Most riders have at least one horse who’s more of a friend or family member than anything else. For Regula “Regi” Lorenz, that horse is Marcello, the horse she bought as a 3-year-old to be her Grand Prix mount. But as so often happens with horses, things didn’t go quite as planned.

In 1990, Lorenz was competing a horse at Prix St. Georges, but since he had sore hocks, she knew the end of his career was approaching, and she began looking for a new horse.

Gerd Zuther, who was managing November Hill Farm in Charlottesville, Va., at the time, went to Germany to search for a young horse for Lorenz. When he returned, he showed her several horses, but Lorenz didn’t like any of them.

“But I haven’t shown you the one I bought for you,” he told her. He pulled out a small, black horse and turned him loose in the arena, but Lorenz wasn’t impressed.

“I said, ‘He’s cute, but he can’t move,’ ” Lorenz recalled. “And Gerd said, ‘Yes, but he will.’ “

Marcello (Matcho–Donna Florent, Don Carlos) hadn’t passed his stallion testing because he stood only 15.3 hands, but he had excellent conformation, and the petite Lorenz had been looking for a horse smaller than the 17-hand creatures she’d been riding.

Although she took Zuther’s word on Marcello’s potential, Lorenz didn’t see the signs of his ability until he turned 5. “Once he started using his hind end, then his front end started to come out too,” she said.

But enhancing his movement was only one of many challenges Marcello presented. “He was the worst youngster I’ve ever had
in my life,” said Lorenz. “He was barely broken when I got him, and he was very good at rearing. He would not walk out the driveway without rearing, so we had to smash many eggs [on his head]–he is a snob and does not like the egg yolk running down his eyes. It would work for two months, and then we’d have to do it again.”

Lorenz took Marcello to Zuther whenever she could for help in his training. “He always saw [the horse’s] potential, and I blindly trusted my friend,” said Lorenz.

Meanwhile, Lorenz had come to appreciate some of Marcello’s other qualities. “I always liked him because of his personality,” she said. “He’s very intelligent. I always say he must have been crossbred with a pony sometime. He’s always learned new movements in dressage very quickly, and he’s also learned how to avoid them at the same rate.”

On Their Way
When the pair started competing, they immediately hit their stride, earning the 1993 U.S. Dressage Federation’s Vintage Cup at third level with an average score of 65.75 percent and finishing ninth in the country at that level. They also finished second in the USDF All-Breed Awards for the American Hanoverian Society.

“He is a pro at flying changes; they are the easiest thing for him to do,” said Lorenz. “The first time I tried it, it worked. Then I tried four-tempis and then three-tempis, and he did them all on the same day. We are still working on perfecting the one-tempis.”

But just when Marcello’s career seemed to be taking off, as he had just moved up to Prix St. Georges, he was diagnosed with a suspensory ligament injury in his left hind leg. “I had to hand-walk him for a year,” said Lorenz. “It was not easy–it was like walking a helicopter sometimes. It was my personal relationship with him that got us through it. It just made our relationship more binding.”

Dr. Nathaniel White of the Marion du Pont Scott Equine Medical Center at Morven Park (Va.) treated Marcello for that injury. “He kept saying no, you can’t work him yet,” said Lorenz. “If he hadn’t said that, Marcello would not have been back in the ring winning at Prix St. Georges and Intermediaire I [the next year]. I must have been told ‘not yet’ five or six times.”

But Lorenz was never discouraged by the time her horse needed to recover. “I would never have given up on that horse, ever,” she said. “He was my horse, always. He just fit me, size-wise, and I loved his personality. He was different, but it was a challenge. I took it as a challenge.”

In addition to his tendency to rear, Marcello could also be unpredictable in the warm-up area. “There were shows where I just had to go home if there were too many people in the warm-up,” said Lorenz with a laugh. “He would rear and spin. It took years to get him used to horses coming at him.”

She recalled one show at Upper Marlboro (Md.), where she eventually had to leave the warm-up area and take him to the racetrack to school him alone. “He ran off with me, around the track and back into the warm-up. I came galloping back to the warm-up, yelling, ‘Heads up!’ “

In her test that day, Lorenz had to do an extra circle after her extended canter. “We were still second [in the class], but on that movement, the comment was: ‘uncalled-for explosion,’ ” she said with a laugh.

Marcello’s favorite place to show was Florida, where he competed in the FEI divisions at the Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington for three or four years, never placing out of the ribbons. “He was never the biggest mover, but he was consistent,” said Lorenz. “He could go under any judge and score well when his mind was OK. That was always the question: can he tolerate the warm-up? When he was good, he was good; then he was a ham and showed off. But there were lots of ups and downs.”

Setbacks And Steps Forward
Lorenz’ goal in purchasing Marcello had been to reach Grand Prix. “I wanted to train a horse from the beginning, not buy one,” she said. And she was within sight of that final step when Marcello was diagnosed with severe degenerative navicular disease.

“The navicular was so severe that Dr. [Kent] Allen had said to put him down, that there was no hope of him recovering,” said Lorenz. “His navicular bone was practically eroded. I had already talked to Dr. Allen about cremation.”

Lorenz recalled being devastated at the diagnosis. “I wanted to finish my career at Grand Prix,” she said. “All of my horses I’d trained to Prix St. Georges and no further–they’d been lame or sold. I never finished one, and I wanted to do everything in my profession from A to Z, but I didn’t get the chance.”

But Lorenz’ farrier, Paul Goodness of Forging Ahead in Bluemont, Va., who had been shoeing the horse since he was 3, had other ideas. “He said, ‘We won’t let him go that quickly,’ ” Lorenz said.

Goodness fitted the shoes well back under Marcello’s heels, with rim pads. The left front hoof also has Equilox in half of the hoof, and he is reshod every four weeks, religiously. “He wouldn’t be here without Paul Goodness,” said Lorenz. “I can’t show him anymore, but I have almost completed the last step of his training here at home. I finished him on my own; I just couldn’t measure myself [in competition] against the rest.”

In her indoor ring near Middleburg, Va., where she keeps the footing perfectly to Marcello’s liking, Lorenz still practices Marcello’s piaffe, passage and one-tempi changes. And her students often ride him, getting what they ask for only if they ride
flawlessly.

“I was getting older and wiser, and I knew my career was ending, so I wanted to help other people who have the drive,” said Lorenz. “There is no better school horse, and he does all the movements in the same solid, thick snaffle I broke him on. He’s still going every day–he’s very unhappy if he doesn’t get to work.”

Now Marcello teaches other riders the same thing he taught Lorenz–patience. “He wasn’t a horse you could lose your temper on. It was impossible; it would set you back for months,” she said.

Lorenz isn’t sure how she will handle Marcello’s retirement, which, since he’s 19 now, can’t be far away. “He won’t be going on forever,” she said. “There will be a limit to this disease. I can’t send him out to pasture–he’s never lived out. He’s always been blanketed and pampered. But there’s no retirement planned yet, not as long as he goes like this.”

But even without any Grand Prix ribbons, Lorenz has no regrets about what she’s accomplished with her all-time favorite horse.
“I am always grateful to Gerd for getting me this horse,” she said. “I fit him like a glove, and he knows my voice. He whinnies when I come into the barn, and when I go to the field and call, he comes up to me. He has a brightness and alertness and an above-horse intelligence.

“I guess everyone has one horse like that,” she added. “He’s won more ribbons than any horse I ever had, but I never think of that when I think of this horse. He is special because he is different.”