Three amateur riders rediscovered their love of horses and competition after a long hiatus solely in “the real world.”

Almost every young girl goes through a horsey phase at one time or another. She wants riding boots and breeches. She needs riding lessons. She has to have a pony for Christmas. And whether because of boys, cars or college, the majority of these young women predictably grow out of this obsession and move on with their lives to pursue careers and have children of their own.

Then there are the others.

Those who, years or decades down the road, inevitably return to life in the saddle, having learned that real passions don’t die quietly, and absence truly does make the heart grow fonder.

Lucy Tutwiler is one of these women, and her friendly face and sweet southern drawl are a common sight and sound at horse trials throughout the Southeast. An Alabama native, Tutwiler grew up competing ponies in local hunter shows in Birmingham and Tuscaloosa.

“When I was 10 years old, my group of friends all had ponies,” she recalled fondly. “[The shows] were out in a field, not in a ring like they are now.”

When high school graduation rolled around, it became apparent that a priority shift was in order, so Tutwiler sold her horse before going off to college and spending a year abroad in Paris. Then came marriage and three children, and before she knew it, decades had passed. “I literally did not look at a horse for 25 years,” Tutwiler said incredulously, as if she can scarcely believe it herself.

But fate caught up with Tutwiler, in the form of her youngest daughter Elizabeth, who started pleading for riding lessons by the age of 6. She got a pony for Christmas two years later, which cemented her devotion to the sport.

“I spent so much time driving her for her lessons and I just hated sitting there,” Tutwiler remembered. “You know when you go to the barn, it’s not like tennis lessons or something where you’re in and out. It’s hours.”

To quell the boredom, Tutwiler decided she wanted to try riding again. “And, of course, once I got back on it was like, ‘Oh my God, I remember how much I love this,’ ” she said. “I was so sore after riding I couldn’t move,” Tutwiler recalled. “I couldn’t believe how out of shape I felt I was. I mean, I go to the gym, but there’s just no substitute for sitting on a horse.”

Tutwiler bought a horse for herself a few years after she began riding again, and she and Elizabeth started eventing. “The hunter world had changed,” Tutwiler said, “and it got to be where the eventing was so much more interesting [to me]. I’m really enjoying all the different phases.”

Now in her early 50s, Tutwiler events religiously and competed up to preliminary on her horse Secret Decision, an 8-year-old, Thoroughbred gelding. “Sid” has now moved up to the two-star level with Mike and Emma Winter, and Tutwiler is currently showing her 11-year-old Thoroughbred-Hanoverian, Bank Investor, at novice.

“I ride novice, and I absolutely love it. I still have just as much to work on, I just don’t have to go as fast or as high,” Tutwiler said with a laugh. “I found out that it’s really, really fun to go watch one horse go and ride another. I knew in my heart that [Sid] was too strong of a horse for me.”

Tutwiler said her husband and children can certainly vouch for her equine obsession, which has been bolstered by the environment at Patchwork Farms, her local riding facility in Birmingham. There’s no professional in residence, so the riders work hard, train together and are always willing to assist each other with chores and horse care. For Tutwiler, the place is an equestrian nirvana.

“I’m so grateful that I found that little pocket here in Birmingham,” Tutwiler said earnestly, noting that the group is close both in and outside the barn. “There’s just a huge camaraderie, because we’re not competing against each other, we’re helping each other. We’re real tight knit.”

Tutwiler also credited her friend Carolyn Lowe, the Winters and their clients for their unfailing support and encouragement on the road.

“The group that rides with Mike and Emma is all very tight,” she said. “I love the atmosphere at shows. I just feel like there’s so much more depth to it. I love the horsemanship. I love going to shows and taking care of my own horse. Even mucking stalls!”

When asked if she ever thought of becoming a professional, Tutwiler gave a genuine laugh and said she would crumble under the pressure. Instead, she’s happy with the road she’s taken and the direction in which it’s currently heading. She spent her lengthy hiatus from riding raising three children, the youngest of which is currently in college and now shares the ride on Bank Investor. Now Tutwiler is pleased that she was able to preserve her passion by keeping it a hobby.

“I love to get all dirty and grungy and then go home and get all cleaned up,” she said happily. “And then do the same thing the next day.”


The Best Of Both Worlds
For horse people, the equine world can sometimes feel like an all-encompassing religious sphere far-removed from the outside “non-horsey” world. And at the age of 44, Lucy Rutter, of Virginia Beach, Va., has found success in both the sacred and secular realms.

The hunt seat rider grew up showing ponies under Pam Baker at Hillcrest Farms in Bealeton, Va., and had the ride on several nice mounts over the years, including Crimson And Clover and Farnley Nimble.

Although her desire to compete never faltered, a top-rate college education took the front seat after high school. “I actually did ride some when I was at college and a little bit when I got home,” Rutter recalled. But with Duke University’s tough curriculum and tuition to match, she knew there was “just not enough time or money, really, to do it.”

After graduating with a degree in civil engineering, Rutter got married, had a daughter and began a challenging career. But the lack of riding still left a gaping hole in her life.

“I greatly missed it the entire time that I didn’t ride,” she said. “I had a friend here who was letting me come out to the barn where she worked, and she’d hold my daughter and let me just sit on a horse for five minutes or so. I missed it so much.”

After almost 12 years, Rutter’s stars aligned, and she felt comfortable re-committing to the sport after starting her own demolition company, which allowed more scheduling flexibility and financial security.

Chris Wynne, a childhood friend from her riding days at Hillcrest, had started Breckenridge Manor, a farm in Virginia Beach. Rutter began taking weekly lessons, and after three more years of waiting, officially rejoined the ranks of the horse world by purchasing a young horse from Wynne.

That horse turned out to be Gallagher, a now 8-year-old bay gelding who took Rutter from the ranks of the adult amateurs into the amateur-owners. The pair is ranked seventh in the adult amateurs and eighth in the amateur-owners in the 2006 Atlantic Coast League final standings.

“At the beginning of the year I just did the adults. When I was a kid I just had a pony, so I’d never gone 3’6″,” she said. “Now we’re aiming for Devon [Pa.] next year. I would really love to be able to go there.”

Rutter now keeps six horses in her backyard in Virginia Beach, including a mare and two of her progeny, ages 3 and 6, which Rutter is training from the ground up. She also keeps a pony at home and a retired horse belonging to her daughter, now 17, who will soon be off to college to pursue a career as a veterinarian.

Although it was painful at the time, Rutter’s 15-year absence from the horse show world turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

“This is the hardest thing about taking time off,” Rutter explained. “When I rode as a junior I felt like I rode well. I was in great physical shape; I felt like I could ride anything. At that point in my life I would have loved to continue on [to become a professional], but I was going to college.”

But in retrospect, Rutter has no regrets. “I’m very glad at this point in my life that I did put that time into my business. I’m happy with the route I went because there’s no pressure now. If I can go show once or twice a month and Gallagher stays together and he’s happy and I’m happy, that means more to me than anything.

“I don’t care what kind of day I’ve had, if I can go home and play with those horses. It’s the best therapy in the world. It doesn’t get any better,” she said.


There And Back Again
Kay Lorenzen, 59, of Phoenix, Ariz., isn’t one to argue with that sentiment. The amateur dressage rider has endured two serious surgeries in the past few years, but that certainly didn’t keep her out of the saddle.

Lorenzen’s life has been a virtual equine odyssey, spanning from the rolling East Coast farm country to the deserts of the American West. She and her siblings grew up riding on a large dairy farm in upstate New York, but they moved to Arizona when she was 10.

“I didn’t compete as a child; I didn’t take lessons as a child,” Lorenzen recalled, saying that her sister “got the riding horse. I got the big draught horse named Trigger.”

After the family’s westward migration, Lorenzen only trail rode occasionally, and riding eventually became a rare activity, usually reserved for vacations abroad. Lorenzen went off to college, began a career and started a family. Today, her daughter Cyndi Jackson is a Grand Prix rider and trainer, the culmination of a journey on which Lorenzen has served as both teacher and student.

“When Cyndi was 11 we would all go bowling every weekend, and one time my husband brought home a coupon for trail riding at a farm in Scottsdale,” Lorenzen remembered. She and her daughter seized the opportunity. “And Cyndi and I never went bowling again,” she said with a laugh.

Soon Lorenzen was leasing one horse and had purchased another, and she and her daughter were diving headfirst into the sport of eventing, though admittedly a little cluelessly. “We were like sponges,” Lorenzen said. “We felt we had a lot to learn, and we wanted to just absorb as much information as possible.”

The pair kept their horses at a mostly western-oriented barn but remained interested in jumping. “We made jumps out of anything we could find in the desert. Half were, I’m sure, very unsafe, but that’s how we practiced our jumping,” Lorenzen admitted.

By her mid-teens, Jackson had competed up to training level, but a combination of factors persuaded her to switch her focus to dressage. “[Her horse] started refusing certain types of jumps,” Lorenzen remembered. “And we had gone on vacation in Spain and ridden over there, and we came home right after the Christopher Reeve accident. On our way back from a dressage lesson, Cyndi decided she didn’t want to jump anymore. So she just migrated into dressage.”

Lorenzen migrated right behind her, competing at the lower levels as her daughter progressed all the way up through the FEI. Now, 50 years after Trigger the draught horse, Lorenzen is making up for all the shows and lessons she missed out on as a child. This spring she earned her U.S. Dressage Federation bronze medal aboard her daughter’s former event horse and Prix St. Georges mount, a 21-year-old Quarter Horse-Tennessee Walker named Maxine.

“She’s very recognizable. She’s 15.1 [hands] and if she’s nervous, she’ll do the Tennessee walk. Otherwise we’re lucky and she has pure gaits,” Lorenzen said good-naturedly. “[But] she’s a great little horse, and she just keeps on giving. She’s all heart.”

Lorenzen has now handed Maxine off to another student and is bringing up a younger mare through training and first levels. “It’s a lot different bringing one up to second level than riding one who’s been up to Prix St. Georges or Intermediaire I!” she said.

In addition to competing throughout the Southwest, Lorenzen also serves as president of the Arizona Dressage Association, an organization in which she’s been involved for many years. She’s also in charge of writing and editing a newsletter for the equestrian community where she and her husband live. The irrigated property affords grazing for the seven horses Lorenzen keeps at her home, as well as room for a spacious arena, which draws in the neighbors.

“[My husband] knows I’m going to be out here until well after dark,” Lorenzen said, speaking from her barn. “There’s no family dinner, but there hasn’t been since [Cyndi] was 15 anyway!”

Although Jackson runs her own facility, she keeps her horses at her parents’ barn and teaches lessons there a few days a week, which keeps the family close.

Technically retired but busier than ever, Lorenzen has no regrets about taking time off and competing as an amateur.

“The way everything has turned out is perfect,” she said. “I was lucky enough to work for a company with a pension plan that enabled me to not have to go right back out and get another job. And it gave me the ability to be at home and have my dream to have all the horses right here.

Kat Netzler