For as long as she can remember, Ryleigh Koch has followed the FEI North American Youth Championships from the sidelines. Representing the United States at an international competition was never going to be in the cards for the Fogelsville, Pennsylvania, native. Or so she thought.

“I’ve always had very tricky horses and ponies, the ones nobody else really wanted because they’re either having lameness issues, throughness issues, contact problems, or some combination,” said Koch. “I get the ones that have all the things that people don’t want to buy. So I was always of the mindset that, ‘I’m not going to have a nice enough horse to do that.’ ”

That changed when Koch became partners with 14-year-old Ruben D4K (Rubinero 2—Witchcraft, Worldly) through the Dressage4Kids horse donation program.

In the early hours of a September morning in 2022, Koch flew down to Wellington, Florida, to try the gelding. While riding “Ruben” for the first time, she had NAYC at the back of her mind.

“Within two seconds I was trotting around smiling from ear to ear, and I’m pretty sure I couldn’t stop smiling the whole time,” said Koch. “We worked really well together when I went to try him, so we knew we were the right fit for each other.”

The gelding’s small size—15.1 hands—made him a perfect fit for Koch, who had historically ridden mostly ponies due to her shorter height.

Still, she didn’t want to get her hopes up too soon. Ruben was being donated because he was a little too sensitive for his older adult amateur owner, and his show record was minimal. Though he was shown some as a young horse, the gelding’s most recent competitive outing was in 2018.

“When I first got Ruben, there were a bunch of people who told me we would not be competitive at the FEI Junior level, just because he had kind of been lacking in strength and topline,” said Koch. “He moved a lot like a hunter when I got him.”

Their critics had a few reasons to doubt them. At the time, Koch was relatively inexperienced, having only completed a single third level test prior to her partnership with Ruben. She had exclusively ridden off-breed horses and ponies she trained herself until Ruben, so he was her first warmblood. And, as a 17-year-old athlete, Koch only had two years to contest the FEI Junior division before aging out. The pressure was on.

Starting From The Bottom

Because there were so many circumstances working against them, it was almost no surprise that things immediately took a turn for the worse the day Ruben arrived in Walnutport, Pennsylvania. The gelding wasn’t sound, and an ultrasound revealed a lesion on his left front check ligament, necessitating at least several months of stall rest and tack walking. Competing at NAYC in 2023 was out of the question.

“He was a little bit tricky to rehab. He had just come up from Florida, where it’s warm, to Pennsylvania, where its cold, and then he immediately had to go on stall rest. So, it was a big adjustment for him, and he was a little bit hot and sensitive,” said Koch.

In retrospect, the gelding’s slow rehabilitation process was crucial to their development as a team, according to Koch.

“I think the tack walking was something that needed to be done to help us get a better relationship, even though I couldn’t really work him,” said Koch. “I feel like sometimes when you get a new horse the temptation is to push it a little bit too quickly. But his injury really made me sit back and just spend time with him and get a relationship with him.”

Koch didn’t start riding Ruben in earnest until March of 2023. During their first show season together, the pair took it slow, competing at the lower levels and wrapping up Koch’s USDF bronze medal in the process. At the end of the summer, Koch decided it was time to make their third level debut.

“Our first time out, it went well. We got mid-60 at third level. And then we did it later in the fall, we got like low 70s,” said Koch. “So at that point, I was like, ‘Alright, this is kind of seeming like I could really try for NAYC.’ ”

Doubts crept in over the winter as the NAYC qualifiers loomed large on Koch’s show calendar, but ultimately, she resisted the temptation to scratch.

“I figured we weren’t going to lose anything by trying the tests for the first time,” she said.

In the end, Koch and Ruben had no trouble securing their spot on this year’s Region 1 Junior team that competed at the Discover Dressage/FEI NAYC in Williamsburg, Michigan, July 30-Aug 4.

The team—which also included Ava Kathryn Noone, Marley McCourt and Laila Edwards—just missed the podium by less than 0.8 of a percentage point. In the Junior Individual test, they tied for 11th.

Cara Klothe, Koch’s trainer and employer since 2020, played a key role in helping Koch overcome the hurdles between her and an NAYC team nomination.

“Conformationally, Ruben has some things that make him a little bit harder to ride,” said Klothe. “He’s small, but he’s got all this power like a big horse, so because of that, he’s naturally a little bit downhill, so his rider has to shift all of that power uphill. He also can be a little bit cheeky, but he’s a lot of fun.”

Koch is no stranger to imperfectly built horses. Her previous mount, an Andalusian-cross pony named Perlita, also donated through Dressage4Kids, prepared Koch for her partnership with Ruben and her future career in the horse industry.

“She also wasn’t an easy pony because she is conformationally not blessed. But she has been a great educational opportunity for Ryleigh because she wants to be a horse trainer,” said Klothe. “Anybody who trains horses knows that generally nobody’s lining up to send you their perfect unicorns one after another, so you’re going to have to learn how to ride all those tougher ones. ‘Pia’ was great for that.”

Due to finances, Koch doesn’t plan on returning to the NAYC arena. She spent the past several months organizing fundraisers with her Region 1 teammates, and selling every extra piece of tack, clothing and equipment that she could bear to part with to fund her trip.

Ruben’s future, though it might not include hundreds of CDI centerlines, still has a lot in store for Koch.

“We’ll probably end up doing the Young Rider tests locally if he’s competitive in it,” she said. “But really, further than that, I just want to keep developing him up the levels as long as he stays sound, fit and healthy.”

At some point, Koch, who hustled to graduate high school in three years so she could be a full-time working student for Klothe, said she would like to get an undergraduate degree. Until then, she has her sights on a specific niche in the equestrian industry: young horses.

“I don’t necessarily want to do the first couple of rides anymore now that I’m old and have a mortgage,” said Klothe. “Ryleigh’s been great because with the young horses that we break, I’ll start them with the groundwork, and then when it’s time to put a rider up, she’s a great choice because she doesn’t get anxious, and she gives the horses a lot of confidence.”

Klothe said she trusts Koch to give the young horses the support they need, and Koch in turn trusts Klothe on the ground.

“It’s so fun to be teaching them their first 20-meter circle, their first trot, et cetera,” said Koch. “It’s easily just as exciting to me as teaching a fun trick like a flying change.”

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This article originally appeared in the August 2024 issue of The Chronicle of the Horse. You can subscribe and get online access to a digital version and then enjoy a year of The Chronicle of the Horse. If you’re just following COTH online, you’re missing so much great unique content. Each print issue of the Chronicle is full of in-depth competition news, fascinating features, probing looks at issues within the sports of hunter/jumper, eventing and dressage, and stunning photography.