Dressage-News

By KENNETH J. BRADDICK

WELLINGTON, Florida, Jan. 4, 2022–Adrienne Lyle is developing Nexolia’s Glenn S & S as a likely successor to Salvino that she rode on American teams that have been the most successful ever in partnership with a self-made Canadian businesswoman who has invested in a years long pipeline of top horses.

For the past several months, Adrienne has been working to bring Glenn to Grand Prix while still preparing Salvino, that she rode on the American teams at the 2018 World Equestrian Games and the Tokyo Olympics to earn historic back-to-back silver medals, the most successful period for United States dressage since the founding of the modern Olympics more than a century ago. Steffen Peters on Suppenkasper was the only other rider on both teams.

At the same time, Adrienne is training Feodoro for owner Vicky Lavoie to compete at Grand Prix and fulfill a dream for Vicky who in her description came from “nothing” to build a successful business of electric power generation, commercial greenhouses and other industrial enterprises in her native Quebec province.

Glenn and Feodoro are two of the 14 horses owned by Vicky, all acquired from Helgstrand Dressage of Denmark. Both the prospective Grand Prix mounts are stabled alongside Salvino with Adrienne at TyL farm in Wellington near Helgstrand’s American base where Vicky keeps some horses and others at her farm in Quebec.

Adrienne says, however, she is fully committed to Salvino, a Hanoverian stallion now 15 years old, and owner Elizabeth “Betsy” Juliano, a successful American entrepreneur while developing Glenn for the future.

She is preparing Salvino seeking to qualify as one of four combinations for the American team for the world championships in Herning, Denmark in August, as well as developing the young horse First Dream for Betsy.

The partnership with Betsy goes back to Horizon that Adrienne rode to the U.S. Intermediate 1 Championship in 2017. Salvino, the name changed from Sandronnerhall after the sire Sandro Hit and damsire Donnerhall, was bought by a syndicate in 2015 to provide Adrienne with a U.S. team prospect when she had no Big Tour mount following the retirement of Wizard, after the 2012 Olympics. Salvino’s ownership was taken over by Betsy 2 1/2 years later.

Vicky describes herself as an “old brick and mortar girl” who was finally having enough success in business that she went on what she admits was a “spending spree” in 2017 of buying horses from Helgstrand, initially a couple but now up to a herd of 14. She had not , however, found a trainer who she felt shared the same values until a chance meeting with Adrienne at the Helgstrand facility in Wellington where she was stabling some of her horses almost a year ago. She asked Adrienne if she’d like to ride Glenn, an 11-year-old KWPN gelding (Ampere x San Bretano).

“A week later I get this phone call,” she recalled: “Hi, I’m Adrienne Lyle. I never ask for anything but I really like that horse.”

“OK,” Vicky replied, “you can have him.”

The only time Adrienne had to ride was 6:30 in the morning that was fine by Vicky. Everybody else Vicky talked to had demands, but never with Adrienne.

“With Adrienne everything is clear. She shows up, she rides the horses. There’s no diva aspirations.”

Although Vicky believes Adrienne and Glenn belong together, she also offered her the ride on Feodoro, a Hanoverian gelding (Fuerstenball x Rosario) that Australia’s Simone Pearce rode for Helgstrand at the World Young Horse Championships in 2016 and 2017.

But Adrienne insisted Feodoro was Vicky’s “heart horse,” and refused to take up an offer to take over the ride preferring to train the horse for Vicky to compete at Grand Prix.

In addition to Glenn and Feodoro, Romantic Revolution, a coming four-year-old is ridden by Quinn Iverson, a 23-year-old who has worked for Adrienne for six years. And keeping her Florida support within the TyL community, Vicky takes lessons with Katie Duerrhammer, a Big Tour competitor who is coached by Adrienne.

Adrienne, who competes Harmony Duvall, owned by a West Coast group of supporters, at international Grand Big Tour as well as Salvino, started riding Glenn last spring, but the Olympics took precedence over summer.

“I think he’s a really talented horse,” said the rider who celebrated her 37th birthday Jan. 2, a day after all sport horses in the Northern Hemisphere share the same official birthday. “I think he’s very exciting. He’s a very expressive horse. He’s got a ton of power and a ton of movement. He’s shown us that he can do everything. I don’t think he will have a big hole. We’re still very new in our relationship so it remains to be seen how we are in the show ring.”

She hopes to get Glenn into a national competition for their debut during the Global Dressage Festival over the winter not unlike the 18 months between the acquisition of Salvino and their first competition in 2016.

“It will be helpful to get in the ring then come back home and figure out how he was in the ring and what to focus on,” she said. “We’ll start with Intermediate II until that becomes easy then move to national Grand Prix. If we get him to a CDI this season, great. If not, there’s no rush. He needs a building year.”

Hopes of Olympics and world championships for Glenn?

“Yes, hopefully,” Adrienne said. “That’s the goal.

“I’m always very leery about putting any stamp on anything and saying, ‘this horse is going to do this, and that one’s going to do that’ because they’re horses. But I don’t see any reason we couldn’t be heading in that direction.”

Debbie McDonald is coaching Adrienne on Glenn, a role she has held for the past 15 years when Adrienne started as a working student at River Grove Farm in Idaho where Debbie was based with Brentina, one of the most successful and beloved partnerships in American dressage.

“I’m never letting her retire from me,” said Adrienne, laughing at a question about help on the ground. “She may try but I’m going to drag her kicking and screaming back to the ring.”

The life Adrienne has built at TyL is “amazing.”

“We’re just surrounded by really good people, people who train in a way that agrees with our philosophy, owners that agree with that philosophy,” she said. “So it’s just a nice community to be in. It’s amazing to be successful doing it the way you think it should be done. It’s great. Not just the fact that you’re successful, but the way you can go to bed every night and say, ‘these horses are trained, taken care of and brought along the way that I think in my heart they should be’.”

Vicky shares the belief.

“I’m really blessed. I have a pretty good string of horses,” she said. “I get up in the morning and I work hard. I didn’t get anything given to me. Anyone that has the values like me I appreciate that. The girls at TyL they have that, and they truly, truly care about horses.

”I’m Canadian and Canada is where I had my business success and where my heart will always be. I’m not moving, not changing residences. I would love to have some horses on the Canadian team. It has nothing to do with countries. It is the values that I stand by, that I have in my business.”

The future of her horses with Adrienne?

“She can go as far as she wants. They’re never being taken away. I’ll pay for everything. I would love for her to make the team.

“I have finally found my happy place.”

To come: Adrienne Lyle and Olympic and world performance to dream about