Dressage-News

Jennifer Hoffman is at the World Young Horse Championships with the six-year-old Mani’s Endeavor for the first competition in Europe since the American team rider returned home four years ago from a successful decade on the continent.

By KENNETH J BRADDICK

Jennifer Hoffman is competing six-year-old Mani’s Endeavor at the World Young Horse Championships this week in the first competition in Europe since the American team rider returned home four years ago from almost a decade successfully competing youngsters to Grand Prix across the Continent.

The partnership of Jennifer and the Hanoverian gelding (Morricone x Foundation 2) owned by Nasrin Mani of La Jolla, California almost didn’t happen.

Endeavor came to Jennifer after others had ridden the gelding but nothing came of it and the owner reluctantly put the horse up for sale.

Jennifer was convinced by a friend to look at the horse and went with her husband, Jürgen, to ride Endeavor.

“After a couple of minutes, Jürgen said to the owner, ‘this is a good sign because normally she’ll get off in two minutes if she doesn’t like it. She’s been on him for almost 10 minutes’,” Jennifer recalled.

“He’s definitely tricky. He’s got a very strong character, a little bit macho, can be a little naughty. Those are the kind of horses I’ve always had in my past. I kind of liked him a little bit.”

After two weeks of “trial and error… testing me and testing the waters” Jennifer told the owner, “This horse really has something special about him. If you can put away some of the things he’s learned when younger and he learns to respect me and want to work for me I can turn this little bit of snottiness, this little bit of machoness to work to my benefit he’s going to be a super horse.”

At national shows in California, where the Hoffmans were based at the time, the pair qualified for the U.S. Young Horse Championships that to Jennifer showed Endeavor was no longer spooky and would fight for her but needed to build strength.

Jennifer and Jürgen then moved to Wellington, Florida to take advantage of the year-round international competitions at Wellington, Ocala and a new facility near Sarasota. By the end of this year’s Global Dressage Festival winter circuit, the pair had racked up four CDI victories with the scores to qualify for the world championships.

Endeavor has also been named to the U.S. federation’s Emerging Horse program.

Sabine Schut-Kerry also qualified Gorgeous Latino, a KWPN stallion (Glock’s Toto Jr. x Rubiquil) owned by Sandy Mancini for the same world six-year-old championship. Sabine qualified in Wellington though she is based in Vista, California.

Jennifer began her life with horses at the age of six in Southern California. At 16, she became a working student in Germany that set her on a career in dressage.

By the turn of this century she was back on the West Coast and a decade of competing and training followed under the trade name, German Dressage.

Family issues led to her and Jürgen heading east across the Atlantic again.

Success followed as she pursued her passion of developing young horses.

At the 2011 Bundeshampionate, the German young horse championships, she was reserve on Florentinus V, a Westfalen stallion (Florestan x Londonderry) that she owned.

She competed Florentinus at her first world young horse championships the same year, along with the stallion Ratzinger V, in the six-year-old championship.

And again in 2012 as a six-year-old at the world championship.

At the same time, Jennifer was competing the Westfalen stallion Rubinio NRW at Small Tour that she moved up to Grand Prix in 2014 and was on the U.S. Nations Cup team in Denmark in 2014.

She also was collecting prestigious awards: German Golden Riders Medal, German Riding License Class 1, West German Dressage Professional title.

The young horses at German Bundeschampionates and world championships “was a little bit my thing taking these young horses that I was lucky enough to take to top sport.

“I love bringing them all the way up, taking the journey.” Jennifer said. “For me, that is the most satisfying. I LOVE it. I’m extremely grateful for the ones I’ve been able to train all the way up into the international Grand Prix arena. That’s why I do it.”

The focus on young horses came about because she didn’t have a horse to compete.

“When I left California the first time and went over to Germany I got an awesome job at Gestüt Letter Berg and I didn’t have a Grand Prix horse at that time,” she said, “so I had to start my career all over again. I had all these amazing stallions at Gestüt and I thought this is where I’m going to start, bringing up the young ones and train them up. It was a job where I had a good future and the owner wanted them to be in the international scene. Coming from the U.S. I thought this is really cool I can ride these horses for the United States.”

Jennifer and the owners did some partnership deals that also helped with recognition by the German dressage community.

“What really helped boost my career back then was the stud farm wasn’t super well known,” she said. “So when I came in and started doing all these amazing things with their horses it was, ‘Oh, my God. Where did she come from? What is she doing? This is weird.’ It set the scene for my career.”

The American approach to development of horses is changing from what it was 10 to 20 years ago when teams depended on made horses for being acquired for international sport, in her view.

“Now, I think there are riders in the States that are wanting to build up their own horses, they are enjoying more the journey,” she said. “I see a lot of young horses with a lot of potential in the country, a lot more than I saw 10 years ago. I think it’s going in the right direction.”

(Ilse Schwarz, a trainer and contributing editor for dressage-news is in Ermelo, Netherlands to cover the World Young Horse Championships. Ilse has reported for dressage-news on the world championships for both young horses and seniors more than 15 years.)