Ten years ago, Kerrigan Gluch packed up and left her hometown of Mount Pleasant, Michigan, to take a working student position at Hampton Green Farm in Wellington, Florida, and pursue dressage seriously.

Now 25, Gluch is campaigning two horses at Grand Prix and has another she’s aiming toward the young horse classes—and it’s all due to a chance encounter and a borrowed mount.

As a child, Gluch was a frequent participant in Lendon Gray’s Dressage4Kids Training, Education & Mentoring program. She earned an opportunity to clinic with Robert Dover in Wellington, however the cost of shipping a horse south for a week of training was prohibitive, so Gray arranged for her to borrow Kimberly Van Kampen’s horse Camaron.

Van Kampen had a long history of supporting young riders, and she noticed the 14-year-old’s determination and willingness to try new things. She offered to let Kerrigan show her horse once during the winter season, and that summer Gluch became a working student for Van Kampen’s Hampton Green Farm at its summer base in Fruitport, Michigan, which houses the farm’s PRE breeding operation.

Kerrigan Gluch won the Grand Prix and Grand Prix freestyle at World Equestrian Center Dressage VI with Hampton Green Farm’s Mejorano HGF. SusanJStickle.com Photo

The following winter, Gluch said goodbye to her life in Michigan to take a long-term position at Hampton Green in Florida, where she started online school. It’s a position that’s grown with her, and she’s still there, now as an assistant rider.

“It was very scary in the beginning,” she said of leaving home. “I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I was very nervous, but I was lucky enough to be able to move into Kim’s house and kind of feel like I was still in a family-oriented setting. That part was nice. I wasn’t completely on my own; I had people and a great support system around me, so that definitely helped, and then everybody in the barn just becomes your family.”

From 4-H To CDIs

While no one in Gluch’s family rode, her mother, Tina Gluch, adored all animals and started Kerrigan in riding lessons at 5. Kerrigan joined 4-H, where she sampled many disciplines, from western and jumping to, finally, dressage. Her first horse, a Paint mare, had little formal training.

“It was the only pony that my parents could afford at the time, so I did all of the training and taught her everything,” she said. “She loved to jump, and we did dressage a little bit. She was just a very safe little girl that I learned how to do everything on, as far as basic horse care and riding. You get a sense of accomplishment when you feel like you have put training on a horse, and there’s a good result at the end.”

Enticed by the challenge of mastering a test and having new goals with every level, Kerrigan turned all her attention to dressage. Her mom discovered Dressage4Kids and signed up Kerrigan, believing the emphasis on education would suit her well.

“We knew [Gray] likes to find young riders that maybe don’t have the best opportunity or the money and kind of guide them in ways that could potentially steer them toward opportunities,” Kerrigan said. “I knew that was something I wanted to be a part of, and that was the first real steppingstone into the dressage sport community.

“She pushed me really hard and showed me that I can ride really well, even at a young age. I loved how demanding she was but also how rewarding it was to know that she really believed in me,” she continued.

Kerrigan’s yearning to improve made her a great fit for Hampton Green.

“I remember Nicholas Fyffe saying to me, ‘She’s a test rider, Kim. She really knows how to up her game in a test,’ ” Van Kampen said. “And I knew that was true. Over the years, when I’ve seen things sometimes go wrong in a test, Kerrigan keeps her head, and she gets back on track, and she makes up where she feels she’s lost. She’s a very conscious, focused test rider.”

Responsibility Yields Opportunity

Once she was given the reins of Fédération Equestre Internationale-caliber horses, Kerrigan knew she hadn’t been handed a free pass. Like a professional, she would have to keep earning the privilege with every ride.

“She said to me once, ‘I know that [certain riders], their parents own their horses, so they’ll be there if they mess up, but I know if I mess up, and I don’t make you happy, that I lose everything,’ ” Van Kampen said. “And she didn’t. She never messed up.”

Rather than getting caught up in the Wellington social scene, Kerrigan focused on schoolwork and her horses. She finished high school online then attended Florida Atlantic University.

Kerrigan Gluch has made her way up the levels with Iberian horses like Mejorano HGF. Lily Forado Photo

“I’m a pretty private person, so I didn’t really have any issues staying away from the things you’re supposed to stay away from,” she said. “I was really focused. I didn’t really have time to get too worried about social life or anything like that. I had high school to finish, and then after high school I went straight into college, and I had to focus on that, and obviously work and performing well in that area. I just was super focused and had a very tight-knit group of people, and that seemed to work very well for me.”

Prior to working for Hampton Green, Kerrigan had never ridden a PRE.

“Lendon would always say a good horse is a good horse no matter what breed it is,” Kerrigan said. “I do truly believe that. I’ve been able to ride some really special horses, and they just happened to be PREs. I will always say they’re amazing. They’re very versatile and can take you wherever you want to go.”

Kerrigan has developed a feel for working with the type’s strengths and weaknesses in the ring.

“You do have to be very sensitive,” she said. “You have to be able to really listen to them. If you’re just a soft, quiet rider, they tend to adjust to you very easily. I think just being aware of how their bodies move and not trying to make them anything else—their bodies are their bodies—and you learn to ride them to their full potential. And I think that the sky’s the limit with most of them.”

Kerrigan trains with Maria Lithander and Charlotte Bredahl.

“Both of [them] really emphasize connection to the horse, both physically and mentally,” Van Kampen said. “And you really see that, especially with her latest horse Mejorano, who needs to feel very secure, and then he’s brilliant. Kerrigan has moved from a more adolescent type of riding, where you kind of dominate the horse, to a more mature form of riding where she’s really a partner with the horse and understands when he needs her to give and how to make him happy before they enter the ring.”

Singular Focus

Kerrigan earned an individual bronze medal at the 2015 Adequan/FEI North American Junior & Young Rider Championships (Kentucky) before moving to the U-25 Grand Prix, where she’s earned a pair of gold medals and a silver in U-25 Nations Cup competitions, and she was the USEF Young Adult Brentina Cup Under-25 reserve national champion at the 2020 U.S. Dressage Festival of Champions (Illinois).

In 2016, Kerrigan competed in Europe for the first time after earning a spot on the USEF Dressage Young Rider European Tour with Hampton Green’s Vaquero HGF, an experience she described as both humbling and inspiring, as they traveled alongside the U.S. senior team members.

“When you are a top young rider or a top U-25 rider, or you have a good amount of confidence at your level, and you go into a new situation—like a new country, new teammates, a new environment—that confidence really gets tested because you really have to be so secure in what you’re doing and what you’re doing with your horses,” she said. “And you have to be secure for your horse because nobody else is going to stick up for your horse other than you.

“I think it taught me that you really have to know your horse so much more than you thought, so that when you are traveling and going from show to show that you know exactly what your horse needs,” she continued. “You can’t assume that someone else is going to think about it. It’s all you, your responsibility.”

In 2021, Kerrigan rode Mejorano HGF in her first senior-level CDI Grand Prix classes.

“I love to be challenged in any aspect, so I was really just excited to kind of hit the ground running when it came to jumping to that new level,” she said. “But I think maybe [the toughest part is] not necessarily the test or the training aspect but just the environment that you start to show in. When you travel to different CDIs, just the level of competition and the people you’re in the class with—that you have looked up to for years prior that you’re now competing against—is I think probably the most nerve-wracking but also inspiring.”

The weekend of Jan. 7-9, she rode the 11-year-old Andalusian (Grandioso III—Ibiza, Galan XVI) stallion to wins in the Grand Prix and Grand Prix freestyle at World Equestrian Center Dressage VI in Ocala, Florida, where Hampton Green relocated in the fall of 2020. She’s been riding Mejorano HGF for two years and hopes to represent the U.S. with him.

“He’s very special—a lot of potential—and I’m super grateful to be able to ride him and learn from him,” she said.

This story ran in the February 2022 issue of The Chronicle of the Horse. Subscribers may choose online access to a digital version or a print subscription or both, and they will also receive our lifestyle publication, Untacked. 

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