The United States is revamping its dressage programs to prepare for future team prospects with eyes on the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

Sept. 26, 2024

By KENNETH J. BRADDICK

Christine Traurig, expected to have her current role as chef d’equipe extended as leader of America’s high performance programs, has set a high bar in pursuing changes to development programs over the next four years to avoid a repeat of this year’s preparations ahead of this year’s Paris Olympics.

On the U.S. bronze medal team at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, coach of Sabine Schut-Kery on Sanceo who led the American team to the silver medal at the Tokyo Games as well as long-time young horse coach, Christine stresses  repeatedly something she admits “sometimes people want to hear it and they don’t want to hear it.”

But “it so bloody important and in Europe they learn it; they learn to train, they learn to grow up because they learn to train. That coupled with competing. And I will say it until I’m blue in the face. It is so important that the kids learn to train.”

The next big test for the U.S. effort will be the World Championships in 2026 in Aachen, Germany, the  world’s premier horse show that is familiar to many American riders for both Nations Cups and individual performances, including young rider and under-25 levels.

“I mean it is always a dose of reality,” Christine told dressage-news.com referring to top sport. “I want to be honest and that comes from a place of passion with a vision–if we have in a developing program and a nine-year-old horse that can score very high at Prix St. Georges and Intermediate 1 but it does not demonstrate a very clear understanding of the higher degrees of collection, meaning piaffe and passage and the pirouettes… both physically and mentally, then it does not do us any good.

“Carl Hester will tell you that. Isabel Werth will tell you that. (German team coach) Monica (Theodorescu) will tell you that. Johnny (Hilberath, who also coaches German team) will tell you that.

“If we look at the future that has to be an important part of our philosophy and has to be part of our strategy when we apply the programs.”

She names both Sabine Schut-Kery who was the top scoring American with Sanceo on the Tokyo Olympic silver medal team, and Laura Graves who on Verdades led the U.S. team to silver at the 2018 World Equestrian Games in Tryon and bronze at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, as well as becoming the only American combination to ever rank No. 1 in the world.

Both partnerships began with the horses as youngsters and developed by the riders over years to the pinnacle of the sport.

And Alice Tarjan, the owner of the 10-year-old Jane that Marcus Orlob rode on the U.S. team at the Paris Games. She has made a career of buying young horses and developing them to international Grand Prix.

“Mayday! Mayday!” was the label Christine put on last-minute acquisitions of confirmed Grand Prix horses that were made after the retirements of some of the horses that had been on successful Olympic and championship teams..

Nevertheless, she expressed appreciation for the purchases just months ahead of Paris Games of confirmed Grand Prix horses as prospects for the team.

An issue for the Americas was that until recently there have been only two Big Tour championships in the cycle of four years between the Olympics–the world championships midway. The Pan American Games held once every four years was until recently at Prix St. Georges/Intermediate I level then became mixed Big and Small tours. The annual World Cup is an individual final of the winter circuit centered on the freestyle and limited to a total of 18 combinations, a maximum of three from North America. Whereas, Europe’s cycle includes continental championships on years between the Olympics and the worlds.

The next World Championships scheduled for Aachen, Germany in 2026 will, she said, be a “clear indicator” of what the USA will have heading to Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.

“That doesn’t mean that at that point we already are perfectly at the peak of their performance,” Christine said, “but we better know what we have and it better show that it’s going to be good enough in 2028. If we don’t have that in two years then we are already two years behind again.”

The process of guidance, strategy and coaching for team prospects should begin with European competitions two years ahead of time, as recommended by six-time Olympian Steffen Peters.

“Next year, it’s not only what we put together in this country, at the end of the day we get them to Europe and we prepare them and compete on stages that are definitely challenging,” she said, “like the Aachens of the world where there’s thousands of people in the stands, there’s noise, clapping, there’s atmosphere.”

To achieve this, the pathway programs have to be redefined and revisited.

“If we have a developing program that does not produce more horse rider combinations to step up to the pre-elite and the elite levels,” she said, “then we have to seriously think about what the criteria is as to where the right message gets out to riders, horse owners, potential sponsors, of what the purpose of these programs are. And that’s from the young horse program to the developing program to the pre-elite and the elite.

With US federation officials Laura Roberts and Kristen Brett as well as George Williams the criteria for the developing program is being rewritten.

Part 2: Youth Programs