Romney horse flown to Olympics on Fedex jet, dined on watermelon

[bklyncowgirl]

27. How much it costs depends on the level you're competing at and what you're competing on.

There are many people who are not what anyone would call wealthy who love dressage and make big sacrifices in their lives to afford it. They ride whatever type of horse they can afford (race track rejects, ex cow ponies, premarin farm babies, BLM mustangs or if they can afford one, old schoolmasters, I.e. older horses, trained in the discipline who in their senior years who have outlived the ability to compete at the top levels).

To feed their passion, they, muck stalls to help pay for board and lessons, buy their tack and clothes second hand, drive cars that are falling apart and save up their vacation days for shows and clinics. They dream of some day buying that "big" horse that will take them up the competition ladder. Above all they have fun and develop what they feel is an incredible level of communication with their horses. As for the horses, dressage done right is like weight training for equines. It can help them succede in any discipline. Western riders who would never be caught dead riding in a top hat and tails frequently use dressage techniques to make their horses more responsive and flexible. There's even a cool story that the great race horse Seattle Slew had some dressage training early in his life to strengthen a crooked hind leg.

To compete at the top levels requires money--big money. The days when someone could buy a horse off the track for a couple hundred dollars and train it to an Olympic Gold Medal in dressage are long gone. The sport these days demands the sort of gaits and collection and extension that only certain breeds are capable of performing. The horses are very expensive, mostly bred in Europe specifically as sport horses. A green prospect with the right gait, attitude and looks is going to cost you more than most people make in a year. A horse trained to Grand Prix level like Rafalca will cost in the high six figures or more--especially if it has working reproductive equipment. Rafalca by the way will most likely never have to raise her own babies--her eggs will be harvested inseminated in-vitro and put into some less valuable mare who'll do the hard work. She will have far more offspring than she could doing it the way nature intended and that makes her more valuable than say, the great Thoroughbred race mare Zenyatta, whose breed registration requires that the male horse and female horse actually do the deed in person and by all accounts she's a good mom who is currently raising her first son.

An ambitious dressage rider who is not a wealthy person will need to find a sponsor. This seems to be the story with Jan Ebeling, Rafalca's trainer. He apparently came from modest origins in Germany, cleaned stables to be able to ride and train, moved to the US, worked his way up, married up, and then, as luck would have it, started giving Ann Romney riding lessons. Thanks to the Romney money he and his wife ( a wealthy lady in her own right apparently) own a beautiful farm (the Acres) in California. The Romneys are partners in this venture.

Here's a link to an article in Dressage News. http://www.dressage-news.com/?p=16317

I hope I've spread a little more light on the subject. By the way, I'm not a dressage rider, I used to ride jumpers. These days I pretty much prefer trail riding. There are some dressage riders on this board who can probably give you more in depth information than I can.