Year On from Olympics, Jane and Marcus Orlob, Appear to Succeed in Dealing with Mare’s Sensitive Nature
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July 15, 2025
By KENNETH J. BRADDICK
A year on from the Olympics, Jane and Marcus Orlob, appear to have succeeded in dealing with the mare’s sensitive nature that has the rider looking more confidently to next year’s World Cup at home and the World Championships in Aachen, Germany.
The success so far of efforts to desensitize the 11-year-old Jane stretched from the Winter Equestrian Festival of jumpers and hunters in Wellington, Florida to the World Equestrian Festival CHIO in Aachen, the mecca of global horse sports with dressage, jumping, eventing and driving at the highest levels all going on simultaneously.
As the United States is rebuilding its high performance dressage after a succession of historic Olympic and championship medal performances from 2015 through 2021, Marcus and Jane were the highest scoring American combination earlier this month at Aachen, where the dressage arena holds up to 6,300 spectators and is frequently packed. Jane is popular in Europe as well as at home.
“This year, I think it’s a touch more relaxed because last year I felt like I had so much pressure to also chase my dream to go to Olympics,” Marcus told dressage-news.com. “This year is much more, I would say, relaxed and I know Jane much better and I know that I have to desensitize her so we spend a lot of time in the woods. So far it has been great and I’m happy that we could finish on a good note.
“I think in general, everything here in Europe is much more busy. It starts really in the stables. You know, the tractors drive around all day. Kids are running around, cats, dogs; just much more barn life,” describing the equestrian facility in Düsseldorf less than hour from Aachen where he grew up and works with his longtime trainer, Johan Zagers.
Marcus came to Europe after the Wellington’s winter-long Global Dressage Festival with both Jane and JJ Glory Day, a nine-year-old stallion, both owned by Alice Tarjan. He competed Glory at Small Tour as well as Jane in the CDI4* at Aachen.
“I think this is the problem for a sensitive horse like Jane,” he said. “I mean, I think we are pretty much spoiled in the US, or I am spoiled, that Alice has her own farm in New Jersey and in Wellington, so we don’t have a lot of activity. She always has it very calm.
“Here in Europe, everything is obviously much more busy. I’m in a big barn where a lot of different people boarding their horses and there’s always something going on.
“Then we took her behind the barn into the forest where, again, lots of action, people walking their dogs, they’re running they’re playing with the kids. There was a big lake I was hacking around the lake like people fishing and boating on that lake.
“So that alone was so good for her to see this. I mean I did it probably three times a week with her and in the beginning it was a complete disaster, not gonna lie.
“But yeah, afterwards I mean it’s pretty amazing to see the difference that I can almost hack on a long rein around the woods.”
The Wellington WEF experiences were the beginning of the change, he said, and he plans to do it again next winter.
In addition to working on Jane’s nerves, he also worked “on a lot of things” with Johan and U.S. team coach Christine Traurig, mostly confidence and steadiness in the connection.
Christine, who will base herself in Wellington throughout next winter’s Global circuit, drove four to five times a week to see Marcus in the training sessions and gave her input.
“Christine and Johan are on the same track with Jane and me and I think now again it’s just time to make her even better,” Marcus said.
“We are just working on a plan” that he and Jane go to Dressage at Devon on Main Line Philadelphia in September.
“Christine will come a couple of days before Devon so she will be more involved with Jane and hopefully continue the same way we trained here in Europe now,” he said.
“There’s so much more in this horse. And I think if she starts trusting me and the big stadiums, the environment, that she starts relaxing and that at some point, hopefully I will be able to really ride her, then I think there are a lot of amazing things in her.”
Marcus said if the program remains on track, during the 2026 Florida winter season he may shoot for the World Cup Final in Fort Worth, Texas in April.
“If everything goes well, I will try then to qualify her for World Championships,” that are scheduled for Aachen in August 2026. However, instead of the dressage stadium, the championships will be in the center of the 40,000-seat main stadium as they were in the 2006 World Equestrian Games and the 2015 European Championships.
