Professional dressage rider Pam Goodrich has long understood the necessity of patience in her chosen career path. Never was that more evident to her than last month, when she rode a test 24 years in the making. 

In 2001, Goodrich purchased Lamborghini, a smallish Danish Warmblood with a big engine, from his breeder to develop through the levels. Last month, on a drizzly Vermont morning at the Green Mountain Horse Association’s July Dressage Days, the 72-year-old professional rode down the centerline aboard that same grey gelding—now 29 and owned by Jocelyn Beiswenger of Keene, New Hampshire—with “100” affixed to his browband. The number signified their intention to join The Dressage Foundation’s Century Club, created for horses and riders whose combined age is 100 or greater.

Proving he hasn’t geared down with age, “Zoomie” completed third level, test 3, to seal the pair’s spot in the Century Club then decided to treat himself on a bit of a victory lap.

“He passaged out of the arena because that’s what he wanted to do. It was all about him. I was just along for the ride,” Goodrich said. “When I went in, everybody was clapping because everybody knows him. And we had a big party the night before, all the judges were there. Competitors, all the staff, everybody knows him. And for me, I’ve been going to GMHA for 60 years. It was all family there. So when they started clapping, Zoomie just said, ‘It’s show time,’ and did his thing. He was a rock star.”

The feeling was mutual for spectators, according to Zoomie’s owner. 

“It was amazing to watch,” Beiswenger said. “Everybody there was so happy, and it was amazing to see all of the lives he touched, and all of the joy that he continues to bring.” 

In the two and a half decades the Danish Warmblood (Michellino–Abbey Row, Cannon Row) has spent stateside, he has been a familiar face at competitions up and down the East Coast. Judges have come to recognize the gelding, and Goodrich’s Century Club ride was no different. 

“The judges made me turn around outside of the ring so they themselves could take pictures—the judges,” Goodrich recalled. “Trotting around the ring, one of them asked, ‘Are we finally going to be able to award a 100%, Pam?’ So I go down the center line, halt, salute, trot off. And out loud so I can hear the judge at C [Cindi Rose Wylie] say, ‘That’s a 10 in my book.’ Now, she didn’t give me a 10 because I’m in an actual class-class. They said those things because they’ve known Zoomie forever.” 

With 171 Grand Prix tests to his name, including performances under the lights in Wellington, Florida, and at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., Zoomie has taken four riders to Grand Prix and helped eight riders earn their USDF medals. Luckily, from the moment Goodrich met him in Europe, he’s always had plenty of gas in his tank. 

“He was already in a lather when we got to the barn,” she recalled of their first meeting. “The people selling him had obviously longed him. So I get on him, and he’s still hot as hell, spicy as hell, just flying around like a lunatic. And I’m having the time of my life. So I made an offer, and the rest is history. To this day, he’s 29, and you still don’t carry a whip on him. Anyone who rides Zoomie is always looking for the brakes.”

Though she hadn’t sat on the gelding in more than a decade, Goodrich knew that she’d feel right at home in the driver’s seat on Zoomie. After a half-hour warm-up mostly in walk, the Boscawen, New Hampshire-based rider piloted her longtime partner to a score of 69.62%, good enough to win the third level, test 3, class. 

“He always goes, and he’s strong, but he’s such a worker and such a showman,” Goodrich said. “And I’ve competed plenty enough. I love to perform.” 

Nicknamed after a Mazda commercial rather than his need for speed, the accomplished gray gelding is admittedly a little overindulged these days, Goodrich and Beiswenger admitted. 

“As he’s gotten older, he’s become spoiled rotten, as he should be,” Goodrich said. “In doing that, he’s gotten a little pushy. He wants his treats, and he gets what he wants. He’s very demanding. Who cares? He deserves it.”

Beiswenger, assistant general counsel for a medical technology company, declined to comment on whether she aids and abets Zoomie’s treat addiction. But she agreed with Goodrich’s assessment. 

“He thinks very highly of himself, which he should,” she said. 

Goodrich has known about Century Club rides since the program’s inception, and she thought Zoomie would be a perfect partner for her eventual initiation ride. 

“I am honored and blessed to be able to ride older horses with older people,” she said. “I think the Century Club is a great recognition of older horses still doing dressage, because it helps recognize that a good horse that’s trained well and goes well has longevity. After all, we’re the oldest athletes in the Olympics. Riding dressage is something that we can do old.” 

 

“I am honored and blessed to be able to ride older horses with older people. I think the Century Club is a great recognition of older horses still doing dressage, because it helps recognize that a good horse that’s trained well and goes well has longevity.

Pam Goodrich

The Century Club should be embraced by professionals and adult amateurs alike, Goodrich noted. 

“There are some professionals out there that are not happy getting older. I am. The best thing that happened to me was to get old, because I couldn’t overwork. It’s amazing,” Goodrich said. “My horses go much better because I’m not doing the job for them. I get them to do the job.”

For his part, even approaching his third decade, Zoomie shows no signs of stalling out. The gelding has already been brought out of retirement once, after he proved too boisterous for the life of a pasture pet. 

“He’s the border collie of the horse world. He wants a job. He wants to do something, always,” said Goodrich, and as such, he is regularly worked and competed by his current leasee, Kristin Coty. 

While her day job currently precludes her from spending much time at the barn during the week, Beiswenger is hoping to get back in Zoomie’s saddle someday soon. The barn is rapidly turning into a family affair for the Beiswengers as her 5-year-old son, Bennett, has already caught the horse bug and has his own pony, Mac. 

“He’s so little still, but he loves the tractor and his pony,” she said. “I’m so happy that it’s part of his childhood experience, to be at the barn like I was, and to have the pony.” 

In the future, Zoomie may add “ponysitter” to his long resume of accolades.

“I would love to be able to ride Zoomie while Bennett rides Mac,” Beiswenger said. “We’re definitely not there yet, but that’s the goal. Bennett says he would love to ride Zoomie, but I don’t think that’s safe quite yet! Someday.”