You might have seen her trotting down centerline in the Dixon Oval at Dressage At Devon (Pa.). Or you might have heard her voice on your AM news radio station, telling you how the stock market’s doing. You might even have seen her doing a guest spot on QVC, explaining the best way to ascertain whether your toilet’s leaking.

You just never know where Sue Springsteen will pop up next.

An upper-level amateur rider from Downingtown, Pa., Springsteen wears enough hats to give most people whiplash. Whether she’s advising clients in her job as first vice president of a Morgan Stanley Smith Barney branch in Wayne, Pa., launching a new product for her electronics company or planning her freestyle choreography, her joie de vivre is evident.

“It’s a challenge to try to do it all well, but it helps me keep a healthy perspective,” said Springsteen, 51. “One of the challenges when we want to do so well at something, whether it’s gymnastics or ice skating or dressage, is that it’s easy to get sucked into making that endeavor such a big deal that our lives lose a sense of balance, which can rob us of the joy that attracted us to our passion in the first place.”

But Springsteen’s passion for horses has been lifelong (see sidebar). In the early 2000s, she competed at Grand Prix with Melissa Taylor’s schoolmaster Cidor, which gave a huge boost to her existing Intermediaire education. For several years she honed her feel for correct movement, polished her show ring presence and prepared for her next big challenge: bringing her own young horse up to Grand Prix.

Years earlier, she’d purchased Fanale, a lightly backed 3-year-old chestnut Hanoverian mare (Wuem-mestern—Willow) bred in the United States by Janine Malone. Originally, Springsteen was searching for a green FEI-level horse but couldn’t find the right match in her price range. So, frustrated in her search, she expanded her horizons.

“I remember telling my instructor at the time, ‘The only thing I will not look at is a 3-year-old chestnut mare,’ ” Springsteen continued. “I’ll look at anything else. And she said, ‘Oh, that’s a shame, because I have this really nice video.’ And that was her. That was Fanale—3 years old and very chestnut!”

With the help of several mentors and coaches, including Bob Orton, Jeanne McDonald and Lars Petersen, Springsteen started Fanale showing in-hand at breed shows, then gained experience in the FEI 5-Year-Old Young Horse classes before eventually moving all the way up to Intermediaire.

The pair topped the 2008 U.S. Dressage Federation Intermediaire I Adult Amateur rankings. In 2009, they were first alternates for the Intermediaire I National Championships at the Collecting Gaits Farm/USEF Dres-sage Festival of Champions (N.J.). For the past two years, Springsteen was the American Hanoverian Society’s top adult amateur in Prix St. Georges and Intermediaire I, and this year she’ll be debuting Fanale, now 14, at Grand Prix.

“She’s my first green bean to Grand Prix,” said Springsteen, whose background as a financial planner makes her uniquely suited to developing horses. “You really have to have a long-term view, and you can’t get swayed by the minute-to-minute things that hit you from left field.”

Sowing Joy

When Springsteen set out to design her first freestyle last spring, she gave plenty of consideration to what theme would best represent her own personality and that of her horse—and she settled on “Joy To The World.”

“It was the beginning of March, and the markets were in the toilet, the banks were failing, and everybody was worried about what was going to happen,” she said. “I thought, ‘This nation needs a little bit of joy.’ I wanted something that people would recognize and connect with.”

Springsteen has a strong Christian faith, and many in the dressage community discouraged her from using religious music in a freestyle. But she stuck to her guns, and designer Marlene Whitaker created a piece that includes “The Little Drummer Boy”, ”Angels From The Realms Of Glory“ and ”Bring A Torch, Jeanette, Isabella,” in addition to “Joy To The World.“

“If I get a low score just be-cause I have ‘Joy To The World’ in my freestyle, I’m OK with that,” Springsteen said. “Your freestyle’s supposed to be about who you are.”

Springsteen frequently reminds herself that competing might be a means to an end, but it’s not the end for her. She takes equine stewardship seriously, giving her horses the best training and care she can financially and emotionally afford.

“But on the other hand, it can’t be a false idol,” she said. “To me, that’s a real danger when the successes start piling up. It’s so easy to develop this unbridled quest for excellence. Before we know it, we’re sacrificing our most important relationships to attain a goal that has fleeting value.”

With these considerations in mind, Springsteen tries to give back to her community whenever possible. She’s a trustee of Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in Philadelphia, Pa., and has served on the board of the Chester County Futures, a mentoring and academic enrichment program for low-income, highly motivated high school students. Five years ago she pooled her dressage prize money and more of her own to establish a scholarship fund in Cidor’s name for low-income college-bound high school seniors.

Springsteen also bought a 42-acre farm in Honeybrook, Pa., which she hopes to develop into a community riding center.

“Horses attract people who are hurt and empty and searching, especially women and kids,” she said. “It’ll be a riding school for the community, but I hope through building relationships I can sow into peoples’ lives.”

Springsteen’s business partner in the electronics firm, Eric Can-field, doesn’t think she’ll have any problem seeing that project through to the finish, because her natural strengths and personality are suited to the task.

“She genuinely cares about other people,” Canfield said. “When you sit down to talk to her, she may have just won at the regional championships, and yet the first thing she wants to talk about is how your kid’s soccer team did over the weekend. For all of her accomplishments, she has a way of fading into the background to build relationships. She elevates the person or the group to whom she’s speaking above herself.”

Picking Priorities

After carefully considering her real-life responsibilities, this winter marked the first time in nearly a decade that Springsteen didn’t travel to Florida to train and compete with Petersen, with whom she first began riding in the early 1990s.

For years she managed to fly back and forth weekly, arriving at Petersen’s farm in Loxahatchee on Fridays and returning to Pennsylvania on Monday nights so she could be in the office Tuesday through Thursday.

“It sounds glamorous,” Springsteen said. “It’s not! This year I just couldn’t make the commute work. I needed to remain in Pennsylvania.”

While Springsteen has managed to maintain a rapport with her clients and has even garnered several in Florida as well, she’s also recognized that her absence puts added stress on friends and co-workers.

“Everyone talks about the sacrifices athletes make, but what people don’t talk about is the sacrifices others make for them,” she said. “I think one of the things that’s tough for an amateur is knowing when you just have to say, ‘Alright, the horses can’t be the forefront right now. Even though Fanale’s almost to Grand Prix, I have to look at these other priorities in my life and make sure that my obligations are being well managed in their proper order. This can be a tough reality for the ambitious amateur.”

Canfield said it’s Springsteen’s adherence to that structure that keeps her going when others might quit.

“Most people lack energy, not due to circumstance or sleep deprivation, but usually because their priorities aren’t properly ordered,” he said. “Sue’s very focused. She never has a bad day and is forever cheerful. She’s the type of person that exudes energy, which is contagious. She has a great work ethic, and she’s the most dynamic person I’ve ever met when it comes to building relationships.”

But even with so many people commanding so much of her time, it’s unlikely that Springsteen will abandon her Grand Prix aspirations anytime soon. She rides most days of the week and has been working all winter and spring on Fanale’s fitness and competing in schooling shows in preparation for sanctioned competition in the next few months.

Last summer Springsteen’s younger horse, Oskar, fractured a coffin bone in his pasture, and he’s just coming back into work after eight months of stall rest. Springsteen’s thrilled that the 10-year-old Danish Warmblood (Odin—Mari), who had just begun competing in the FEI Developing Horse tests before his injury, is sound again, and she also plans to compete him in the fall.

Like many amateurs, Springsteen’s competitive streak runs deep. But her first love will always be the process of training horses, mentally and physically, just like a devoted professional.

“I like the whole horsemanship and training process—that’s where you develop the relationship,” she said. “People kid me because I love winning ribbons and awards and all that stuff, but the bottom line is that more than anything, I love developing the horses I have.”