John Zopatti evacuated his horses four times in six weeksto avoid impending hurricanes, but he and his students still managed to attend the Great American/USDF Region 3 Championships, where they took home six tricolors. The championships, held Oct. 16-17 in Conyers, Ga., were a welcome return to normalcy for the riders plagued by one of the worst storm seasons in Florida’s history.
“I was on the road for most of the month before,” said Zopatti. “Florida was declared a state of emergency four times, and Palm Beach County was included in that every time.”
Zopatti, of Wellington, Fla., is responsible for approximately 20 horses and took 10 on the road with him to try and avoid the worst of the storms, traveling as far as North Carolina and Virginia.
“I left every single time [there was a call to evacuate],” he said. “My roof was damaged; my horses were scattered all over the state. We just got phones back after six weeks. We had no postal service; it was craziness!”
Despite the weather, Zopatti continued training, attended Dressage at Devon (Pa.) and peaked his performance for the regional championships. He and his Dutch Warmblood Mitchell won the open fourth level championship in stiff competition with a score of 67.93 percent.
Mitchell has his own special story because Zopatti started riding him under tragic circumstances. He traveled to Europe to find the horse for a client, Gwen Kegg, who died shortly thereafter and left Mitchell to Zopatti in her will.
“Her wish for the horse was that he be trained to Grand Prix,” said Zopatti. “We got him when he was at training level, and he has been in the Horse of the Year standings every year since she died. We planted a tree for her, but it fell down during the hurricane. I know she’s up there smiling, and she would be very happy he’s doing so well.”
And Zopatti believes that the 10-year-old gelding will go on to Grand Prix. “He shows good talent for passage,” he explained. “I work with Juan Matute, and we call him the three ‘P’ man–he’s the piaffe, passage and pirouette man. He’s been helping me develop Mitchell, and he has the capability to do the three ‘P’s.”
Although Zopatti recently purchased his own farm, he has trained at Kristy Truebenbach Lund’s Blue Marlin Farms in Wellington for six years. Lund herself had an outstanding show at the championships, winning the third level adult amateur championship (69.11%) and the fourth level championship (62.28%) on her Oldenburg, Fabio.
“We had just come back from Devon and had a very disappointing time,” she said. “We had to evacuate because of the hurricane, and Fabio came off the trailer really sick. My goal at the championships was just to get back into the show ring and do half decent!”
While Zopatti went on the road during the hurricanes, Lund gave up trying to evacuate and held down the fort at home. “We didn’t have power for over 21 days,” she said. “At the farm we were hauling water. Until you go through it the words cannot describe it. To see the amount of damage on my farm, you just want to go outside and cry. I hired seven guys with chainsaws for a week, and we’re still not even close to being done clearing.”
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To make matters more difficult, Lund, a small animal veterinarian, also had to keep her clinic open during the storm. “We had everybody’s animal in the county boarding at our facility and then were one of the few vet clinics in town that had power so every sick animal was coming to see us,” she said. “I still rode every day. It’s the only thing that kept me sane!”
A Tactful Ride
Lund’s dedication and patient training have been integral to Fabio’s achievements. She began riding the horse as a sale project for one of Zopatti’s clients in Texas.
“I’ll ride any horse any time,” said Lund. “So I did and he did extremely well, but he’s not really an amateur horse. You really have to know what you’re doing with him. He’s got a little bit of a hot temperament, so we couldn’t sell him to just anybody. They were going to send him back to Texas, and I decided this horse belongs with me because we get along, so I bought him.”
And Lund hasn’t regretted that decision–she sees an advantage to his nervous personality. “That’s what makes him so good,” she said. “If you can just get that expression, but get him to relax and let his ears flap a little bit then I’ll get 8s. It’s a really fine line with that horse. As long as I can keep him relaxed, he will definitely be a Grand Prix horse.”
Lund also showed Nice Catch, a Dutch Warmblood she bought six years ago as a 3-year-old, in the Intermediaire I championships and won the reserve championship (59.62%) as well as placing third in the Intermediaire freestyle (62.12%).
Amanda Stearns is another member of the Zopatti team. The 13-year-old from Loxahatchee, Fla., took home the first level junior/young rider championship with a 71.25 percent, the highest score of any division at that level, and also won the second level junior/young rider championship (62.45%).
Stearns only started riding her horse, Navian, three months ago. She found the 9-year-old Dutch Warmblood somewhat by accident. “I was about to leave for a trip, and my next door neighbor called me and said he wanted me to try this horse,” explained Stearns. “I fell in love immediately the first time I rode him. The last three days I was there before my trip I rode him a couple days, and I knew it was the right thing so I ended up getting him.”
Zopatti didn’t even get to see the horse in person because he was away when Stearns was trying him. But the match has turned out to be a good one. The pair had only two shows to qualify, but they had no trouble getting the scores they needed and were off to regionals.
An unusually focused teen, Stearns moved to Florida to further her dressage career. “We used to live in New Jersey, and I trained with Lisa Wallace,” she said. “She took me out of hunters and brought me to dressage and opened my eyes. She said that we really needed to come down to Florida because Wellington was the big place for dressage. We moved down here just for that with our trailer, one side with a horse and the other side with boxes, knowing nobody, knowing nowhere to go. She told us to find [Zopatti]. Right off the bat we got along great.”
Zopatti’s student Johnny Robb also took home a championship in the fourth level freestyle on her Latvian Warmblood, Mr. Boombastic (65.93%).
Twice The Fun
Suzanne Dansby-Phelps of Atlanta, Ga., made sure that Floridians didn’t take home all the ribbons. She earned the top two placings in the Grand Prix as well as winning the Grand Prix freestyle. Although she is relatively green at the highest level of dressage, she and her more experienced gelding Kasper had the high score of 65.72 percent while Cooper was a close second with 64.27 percent. Cooper won the freestyle (67.81%).
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Riding two horses at that level can be quite challenging when their classes run back to back. Kasper’s test began only 40 minutes after Cooper finished the freestyle, and Dansby-Phelps had her groom, Thiana Hannigan, bring both horses down to the schooling area so that she could maximize her warm-up time.
“Whenever I ride a Grand Prix test I school twice,” explained Dansby-Phelps. “It’s only fair because of the demands of the test.” So she was up early to make sure she could ride both horses in the morning before she did her final warm-up.
It was a good thing she rode Kasper twice because he started out tense and distracted. “I spent time walking him, riding him over his back and assuring him,” said Dansby-Phelps. “I did just a few movements before I went in the ring.”
She has been riding the 12-year-old for four years. He was imported from Holland and Dansby-Phelps carefully moved him up from Prix St. Georges to Grand Prix.
“We call him ‘Arnie’ at the barn because he’s so muscular and round, but he’s loose, not like a body-builder,” she joked.
His stablemate, Cooper, is even more impressive. The Holsteiner stands a monumental 18.21³2 hands and is in his first season of Grand Prix.
“He’s like a giraffe in horse clothing,” said Dansby-Phelps. “He’s so graceful and fun to ride.”
She bought him in Germany 21³2 years ago but didn’t immediately start showing him. “He was a little bit frightened and ridden really hard in Germany,” she said. “I think he was ridden more with strength, and I had to work on loosening him up and teaching him to trust the rider on his back.”
As Dansby-Phelps worked with Cooper, she also had to change her riding style to cope with his size. “It’s like the difference between driving a Volkswagon Bug versus a four-wheel-drive dually,” she said. “I had to learn how to ride a corner all over again.”
Cooper’s size has also led to difficulties in equipping him. He requires custom blankets and nosebands. “He wears a size four shoe. His legs are really big, he eats a lot, everything is bigger, everything is more.”
Dansby-Phelps used Celtic music from the album Scotland The Brave in Cooper’s freestyle, which Terry Ciotti-Gallo helped her create.