A member of the United States Equestrian Federation (USEF) team since 2011, Hallye Griffin was appointed as the Director of FEI Sport in March 2023. With that role, she assumed position as Chef de Mission at the Olympic, Paralympic, and Pan American Games, as well as the FEI World Championships. In taking this post, Griffin has made history as the first female US Equestrian Chef de Mission.

Horse Illustrated had a quick chat with Griffin ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics to discuss this year’s Games and what her role as Chef de Mission entails.

Horse Illustrated: Congratulations on being the first female US Equestrian Chef de Mission. What does it mean to you?

Hallye Griffin: Being the first female US Equestrian Chef de Mission is very special, but really what it brings me is a lot of gratitude for all the people I’ve worked for. I’ve worked for a lot of people in my time here at USEF, as well as my time before USEF, and learned a bit from each one of them. So I really just have a lot of gratitude.

HI: How did you get started in high-performance equestrian sport?

Griffin: I grew up riding myself; I came from an eventing background. I was fortunate that when the 2010 FEI World Equestrian Games came to Lexington, Ky., I worked as a competition department assistant. That was really eye-opening to me, to where the horse sport world could take me and my career. After the 2020 World Equestrian Games, I found myself at US Equestrian.

HI: What does a typical day at the Olympic Games look like for you?

Griffin: A typical day at the Games normally starts for me quite early. Luckily, I’m a morning bird, so I’m up quite early. I try to have a little bit of time to myself in the morning to first organize all my notes, my thoughts for the day, what’s on the agenda, go through any rules that I might need to freshen up on, and then we hit the road to venue pretty early.

My role at the Games is a lot of troubleshooting—making sure that our teams have everything they need to put in their best performances. And hopefully bring home some medals!

HI: What advice would you give to the first-time Olympic riders representing the U.S. in equestrian sports?

Griffin: The advice that I would give to any athletes representing the U.S. Olympic or Paralympic teams in equestrian for the first time would be to remember to trust what got you there. Remember to trust the training systems and all the work that these athletes have put in over the years, and that’s what got them to the Olympics. And then, ultimately, it’s about putting in the best performance they can and hopefully bringing home medals for the U.S.

HI: Tell us about your first horse.

Griffin: My horse—and I’ll say it was actually my first pony—was a pony named Coco. She was about 12 hands I wanna say. Bucked me off plenty of times; not the most well-behaved thing. But taught me quite a lot, and certainly didn’t stop me from riding.

HI: What is your favorite Olympic sport outside of equestrian?

Griffin: Favorite Olympic sport outside of equestrian: for sure, track and field.

For more news, visit our 2024 Paris Olympics main page.

Thanks to CareCredit for our spring and summer equestrian coverage.

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Making her third Olympic appearance for the U.S. Olympic Dressage Team, Adrienne Lyle will arrive in Paris with two new additions: her new mount, Helix, and her 9-month-old daughter, Bailey.

A 2012 Dutch Warmblood gelding owned by Zen Elite Equestrian Center and cared for by Marina Lemay, Helix was purchased with the Olympics in mind for Lyle in late 2023. The horse and rider team competed together on just a handful of occasions in spring 2024, but quickly made it clear that they make for an impressive duo.

Horse Illustrated had a quick chat with Lyle ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics to discuss this year’s Games.

Horse Illustrated: What qualities do you look for in an Olympic horse?

Adrienne Lyle: When we’re searching for horses for the Olympics and high performance, we obviously need them to have the physical capabilities and the physical talent to do it. But a huge part of the equation is their heart, how hard they try for their rider, how intelligent they are, and how much they enjoy learning new things. Because to get to the Grand Prix level, they have to really be open to constantly learning new things and evolving. So their character is also very, very important.

HI: What has been the biggest challenge for you in your journey to the 2024 Olympics?

Lyle: This year, my journey to the Olympics was unique for two different reasons—one of which is that Helix and I are a new partnership. That’s not something I had done before in my career, so there’s a lot of new challenges and things to figure out with getting a horse in a shorter timeframe.

And the other thing that made it challenging, or at least different, was that I’m a new mother. I had a daughter at the end of September of last year (2023), so there’s been lots of new additions to my life this season.

HI: How does having previous Olympic experiences help you prepare for this year’s Olympics?

Lyle: This will be my third Olympic Games and for sure every time you go, you learn such an incredible amount. Not just about riding and competing, but also what it means to be a good teammate—to be there for other competitors and the honor of representing your country.

HI: What are you most looking forward to about this year’s Olympics?

Lyle: French pastries!

HI: What is your favorite Olympic sport outside of equestrian?

Lyle: Outside of equestrian, I love to watch the track and field and gymnastics. They are just, to me, the pinnacle of amazing things that the human body can do. And it’s pretty cool to get to see them train and compete in person.

HI: How has motherhood changed your preparation for the Olympics?

Well, besides the fact I can’t get anywhere on time ever again for the rest of my life, it’s added just a different element being in Europe here and having my daughter with me. So we’re not only focused on the training, but also obviously the role of being her mom and just figuring out how to delegate our time. It hasn’t taken away anything from the training; I’m still training just as hard and just as focused as before. It’s just kind of added another fun dimension to it.

For more news, visit our 2024 Paris Olympics main page.

Thanks to CareCredit for our spring and summer equestrian coverage.

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Mark and his wife, Lee, owners of Bolender Horse Park, are the founders of the International Mountain Trail Challenge Association (IMTCA), and Mark is a three-time National Mountain Trail Champion. Mark takes great pride in designing and building unique Mountain Trail courses throughout North America and abroad and has written the popular book, Bolender’s Guide to Mastering Mountain and Extreme Trail Riding. And he carves out time to administer a judging school that certifies judges in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Europe for Mountain Trail and Trail Challenge.

Mountain Trail, a relatively new competitive equestrian sport that began in 2000, was new to me. When I had the opportunity to interview Mark and get to know this warmhearted and engaging couple, Mark’s enthusiasm and passion for the sport was contagious. And after observing his clinic at Equine Affaire, I was blown away. I knew I needed to learn more.

Julie Maddock: Unlike many of your contemporaries who grew up around horses, you started riding and training later in life. What sparked your interest in horses, and how did you get started in Mountain Trail?

Mark Bolender: I got my first horse at 39. I never desired to be a trainer or a clinician. I had many other fields of interest, but my daughter asked me for a horse. So, I got her a horse and built her a barn. Then I got more horses and built a bigger facility. Later, I hired a full-time trainer to teach me to ride and travel with me to work with world-class horses as I learned traditional horse training and discovered what works.

Then I got hooked on Mountain Trail.

My wife, Lee, and I had fallen in love in Florida when we met at a clinic I was teaching. Together, we thought about making Mountain Trail an international discipline—it’s so fun and so good for the horses. Lee began the marketing, getting the Bolender name out there, and sending our info to expos—and people started to see the videos of Mountain Trail and my horse Checkers. That horse is one in a million! Checkers put me on the map, and he’s now a Breyer horse.

JM: How would you define Mountain Trail?

MB: It started for the recreational trail rider. It’s for any and every breed, for every discipline—whether it’s English, Western, stock seat, whatever—everyone can enjoy it. It’s kind of a combination of three-day eventing, dressage, and reining. We need a broke horse; we need precision. And it is fun for the horse and the rider. At Level 1, everyone is walking between the obstacles—you walk over the obstacles or through them. At Level 2, you’re trotting between the obstacles. And at Level 3, you are canter/loping between the obstacles and then stepping onto them. It sounds easy, but when you try it, it’s difficult.

JM: What would you say to a rider who is apprehensive about attending a Mountain Trail training program and the daunting course obstacles?

MB: If I can do it, you can do it. I will show you how to believe in your horse. I know where I can take you and your horse.

It’s about properly presenting the obstacle to the horse; do it right, and the balance beam should only take about five minutes to master. We are really good at demanding and telling a horse to do something, but we have forgotten the art of asking and teaching. And that is what a rider will learn in my clinics.

Instinct is very different from the intelligence of the horse. And you will never beat instinct. The instinct that the horse has to read you is far superior to your ability to read the horse. And we will show you how that works.

At our clinics, we start with riders out of the saddle. I need to get rid of the heartbeat. The horse can feel your heartbeat, your tension. So, if I can remove that from the equation, I can face the horse, and they can read my confidence. I help the horse become bold and confident and trust the rider. On average, teaching a horse to walk across a swinging bridge will take five minutes. And with 50 percent of them, I can teach them to do a 180 on it within ten minutes.

JM: How can we listen more to what our horses are saying?

MB: Learn to read their language—their eyes, muzzle, and ears twitching. You can tell what they are saying.

Put your arrogance in a box. As humans, we tend to look down on things without realizing it. With horses, we’re not superior; we’re not inferior. We’re just different. We have to step into their world and learn their language instead of bringing them to our world and values.

JM: You’ve designed and built Mountain Trail courses worldwide. How do you determine the course design?

MB: Each course is unique and built for the site. I think about how to lay it out visually, where to put the ponds, and how to make it both pretty and functional art. And horses are brutal on obstacles, so I need to engineer and build a safe course. The average course is about $200,000. We usually build all the obstacles in our shop in Washington, put them on a semi, and ship them. We arrive onsite, and building the course takes about five days. On days six and seven, we do clinics and demonstrations, and love watching people show off the horses on their new dream course.

This Q&A with Mark Bolender is a web exclusive for Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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Jeanne McDonald paved her own path to success with the perfect blend of dogged New England determination, unwavering persistence, and a heaping dose of patience. She’s a Grand Prix dressage rider, a U.S. Dressage Federation bronze, silver and gold medalist, and a U.S. Equestrian Federation “S” 4* judge. Jeanne has traveled the globe judging national and international shows for over 35 years, and she was on the committee to write the 2019 USDF dressage tests.

But if you think all these accomplishments have made the dressage legend arrogant or pretentious, think again.

In fact, it’s the exact opposite.

I seized the opportunity to sit down with Jeanne McDonald for an interview at Equine Affaire in Massachusetts in November 2023. I was thoroughly blown away by her… well, unpretentiousness. Her modest and decidedly down-to-earth conversational manner and “wicked” funny New England stories had us both laughing. Right away, I realized I was in for a treat.

Jeanne was born and raised in Boston, and although her parents didn’t always understand her love of horses, they supported her goals. But not “support” in the sense that they handed her the reins to a beautiful pony, paid for private lessons in a swanky barn, and made sure she only rode in luxury-brand breeches.

Instead, Jeanne mucked stables and groomed horses to make money to pay for her riding lessons. She got her start riding at New Canaan Mounted Troop when she was 8 years old. Jeanne was an equitation rider, jumper and eventer before transitioning to dressage—and she achieved it all through hard work, saving her pennies, and never giving up on her dream to someday have a horse of her own.

While working days in medical research at Harvard and waitressing at night to pay the bills, Jeanne would go on to become an active competitor, a USDF bronze, silver and gold medalist, and a distinguished judge. And since 1990, she has owned and operated Turning Point Farm—a beautiful dressage training, breeding, and boarding facility in Pennsylvania.

Julie Maddock: Was there a pivotal moment in your life when you realized you were meant for an equestrian career?
Jeanne McDonald: Honestly, my mother said that the first thing I ever looked at and pointed at was a horse and I was trying to say “horsey.” I think I got it from my red-headed grandmothers—both of them were horse people.

I wanted to be a vet, but they told me in 1967, “You’re a girl. We won’t take you for vet school.” Now look at it—it’s 90 percent women. But this was legal back then. So I went to the University of New Hampshire. They said it was the best pre-veterinary program. And at the time, Harvard Med was recruiting, so I started working there in medical research.

And that is when I started to get into horses on the riding end again. I never had my own horse until I was 33. My family didn’t have money; I didn’t have money. But then I started waitressing nights at a Lynn hotel—that was scary!—and later waitressed at Hilltop Steakhouse. It’s how I made all the extra money to buy my first horse, the blankets, the shoes… and I just never outgrew riding.

Julie: With over 35 years of judging experience, how would you define what makes an exceptional dressage rider?
Jeanne: I think it’s feel. Carl Hester and Ingrid Klimke are my idols because they’re real horse people. They’re not just dressage riders. They feel what their horse wants or does and they go with it. That’s what I think makes one exceptional. It’s feel, it’s talent, but it’s a talent for feel, not a mechanical talent. And that’s what I like to reward when I’m judging—the harmony because the feel is there.

Julie: What advice do you have for the adult amateur entering the dressage world and preparing for their first show?
Jeanne: Hey, that was me in 1980! On a borrowed mare! And I was working full-time at Harvard and waitressing nights and I went to the horse show. I was a true amateur.

I feel you have to make your own way in the world to be able to do horses full-time. And that is what some people don’t quite seem to understand. There are a lot of people looking for sponsorship. I don’t want to say you have to pay your dues, but I never had any help. And there wasn’t any amateur division. I was right in there with Lendon Gray and all these top riders in my first Grand Prix in 1987.

Julie: What’s next on the horizon for Jeanne McDonald?
Jeanne: Ride my mare every day. I don’t expect to be riding in any more international shows, but The Dressage Foundation’s Century Club—that’s my goal. It’s when your horse’s age and your age equal 100 or more. My goal now is to ride the mare I bred myself from a stallion I trained and make her my fourth horse to go Grand Prix in the Century Club. I’ve got a ways to go—six years—and I hope we both make it. I’ll be 80 ½ and Trysta will be 19 ½.

And after my conversation with Jeanne, I have no doubt she and Trysta will be there!

This Q&A with Jeanne McDonald is a web exclusive for Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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When I first met Julie Goodnight for an interview, I was reminded of how much I love “real” horse people. People who care more about the horse than a ribbon. People who take horsemanship to the next level. People who smile from their eyes as they talk about horses, and no matter how much more they know about horses than you ever will, they make you feel at ease, and the conversation flows naturally.

Julie has turned her love of horses into a hugely successful career. She started her training business in 1985, and in 2008 was named the Exceptional Equestrian Educator by Equine Affaire — the same year her award-winning TV show Horse Master with Julie Goodnight first aired. She travels the world educating horse owners everywhere through her online training programs at JulieGoodnight.com/Academy.

And she’s passionate about living a well-balanced life—spending time with her husband, Rich Moorhead, relaxing on her boat “LEGASEA,” skiing, biking, and savoring life’s happy moments in the company of old friends and easily making new ones.

JM: What is the meaning behind your brand message “Helping horses… One human at a time”?
JG: We can only help horses by helping the people who own them. When I first went into business as a trainer, I thought I just wanted to ride horses and didn’t want to deal with people. Well, that’s a real immature, unrealistic attitude. All horses have people attached to them… Training a horse does no good if I don’t train the person.

JM: With over 260 episodes of Horse Master with Julie Goodnight, is there one that stands out?
JG: One of the most meaningful ones—and kind of funny—was an episode filmed at my place where the rider stated her horse wouldn’t cross water. Well, we have a nice big pond in a grassy field. The cameras were set up all around the pond to capture the problem. She saddled up her horse and we filmed. She starts walking this Arabian toward the pond. That horse looked at one camera, turned and looked at the other camera, and then walked straight in the water without hesitation! It’s uncanny how often that happened to us.

I never interacted with the people or the horses before we filmed, but I watched the footage that captured the “problem.” So, I told her we couldn’t do the water episode. I asked her if she had another problem. And she said, “Yeah, actually my horse bucks when I ask him to canter.” So I said let’s work on that. We rebooted and moved the cameras over to the arena. And when I got over there and saw her riding on the flat in the arena, I could instantly see she had a horrific saddle fit. As I’m watching, the horse bucked. And it was a buck you might expect from a horse being pinched in the withers. It was clearly uncomfortable.

She rides over and I tell her that I think we can help her horse—that it is a saddle fit problem. After we switched the saddle out, she got on and he went right into a beautiful lope. Then she came over and was in tears—not because she was happy, but because she felt horrible that she had unknowingly been riding this horse in that saddle for two years. She was just devastated. And it broke my heart. But she owned it and apologized, and we were able to profoundly impact her and her horse by just changing one thing.

JM: As a spokesperson for the Certified Horsemanship Association, what’s your primary message?
JG: We are an organization primarily focused on safety and horsemanship. Horsemanship should be safe, fun and effective. We provide education, information, and mostly support to riding instructors, trainers, and barn managers who are the actual frontline influencers. I don’t believe, nor does CHA, that getting hurt has to be a part of horsemanship.

JM: What’s the secret to balancing your busy professional life—work and travel—with your personal life and husband, Rich?
JG: So Rich is the secret sauce. Our relationship has always been based on total equality, a high level of respect for each other both personally and professionally. We met at the ski resort—which he is now one of the owners of—and it was a workplace romance. I really respected and admired his professional success and he recognized my work ethic. But now I’m on the road a lot, and he is good at being alone. He misses me, but he also just totally understands.

And during the pandemic, I was spending a lot of time on my boat. I would always come up with an excuse of why I had to go to the boat. And one day, he says, “You know, you don’t have to have an excuse to go to the boat. You love the boat. I want you to do what you love doing. And by the way, you’re in a lot better mood when you’re doing stuff you love to do.”

JM: What’s next on the horizon for Julie Goodnight?
JG: I have a couple of exciting things going on… The one horse I have right now is pregnant. And I hope to buy a yearling colt this fall.

Also, an assistant trainer—honestly, the only person that I’ve ever thought of as a protégé—has made a commitment to work with me. Not to replace me, but someone I feel like I can hand the reins to when I want to. She and I are working on some new projects. We’re putting together some private international riding tours with me and T. Cody as your guides. We’re in the early stages of figuring it all out—riding and immersing yourself in a new horse culture. It will be fun!

To see Julie’s entire lineup of upcoming events, riding adventures, and appearances, check out juliegoodnight.com.

This Q&A with Julie Goodnight is a web exclusive for Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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Sometimes life is pretty good.

Like working as a freelance writer and covering the four-day Equine Affaire in MA for Horse Illustrated.

And sometimes life is downright awesome.

Like getting the chance to sit down with Steffen Peters for a quick interview at Equine Affaire. Our chat revealed the depth of passion that Steffen brings to the world of competitive dressage, the obvious joy he has in working with his wife Shannon at SPeters Dressage, and the lifelong hobby that lets his spirits soar.

Julie Maddock: Of all the horses you’ve worked with, which one stands out as your favorite?
Steffen Peters: That’s a tough one… It might have to be Ravel because he accomplished so much. The World Cup win is still one of my favorite moments. But Mopsie is a very, very close second.

Yes, he is referring to that Mopsie (nickname of the famous “Rave Horse” Suppenkasper; the dynamic duo’s freestyle performance set to pulsating dance music went viral. Steffen and Mopsie were part of the silver medal-winning U.S. Dressage Team at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and placed in the top 10 in the Grand Prix Freestyle to Music.

JM: The Grand Prix Freestyle in Tokyo—that was so special in that it introduced dressage to a whole other world of people. How did that affect you?
SP: The one word that comes to my mind is “pride.” I was so proud of Mopsie—that he was able to address so many people… 70 million Google searches. For well-known people like Kevin Hart and Snoop Dogg to mention dressage was pretty amazing. At that time, I did receive a phone call from Kevin Hart’s producer and she said, “Can you bring Mopsie into the studio? We’d like to put Kevin on him.” I thought that would be great—Mopsie is 18.2 hands and that would be a wonderful picture with Kevin on him. And I said, “I would love to do that, but check with your insurance. See what they say.” And absolutely no—it was just too much of a liability.

JM: What advice would you give to adult amateurs new to dressage?
SP: Everything depends on the horse. Of course, the rider has a lot to do with it. But there are so many problem horses out there. And I find that people do sell their problems a lot. I want to be super protective of anybody who is just starting in this sport. If you look at a horse—the temperament, the gaits, the conformation—it is so obvious. But the rideability of the horse, you know, how the horse listens to the contact, the way he listens to the leg aid, the seat aid, the way the horse offers some movements with more elasticity… I find that so extremely important to look for because horses are either born with that rideability or they’re not. I’ve ridden stallions with perfect conformation because of breeding purposes, but that doesn’t mean they are very rideable. So I’d much rather have a horse like Ravel that didn’t have the perfect conformation, but he was still willing, so elastic, and so supple.

JM: What are you most proud of in the creation of SPeters Dressage and Arroyo Del Mar training facility?
SP: What I am most proud of is the vision that my wife Shannon had of turning this into a 5-star boarding and training facility. This was Shannon’s baby. And when I tell people that it was Shannon’s baby, she always comments that it was “Shannon’s quadruplets”—that’s how difficult everything was. But she managed the whole construction, remodeling, everything that needed to be done, and she did that while I was in Europe. I’m very, very proud that she accomplished this.

JM: What’s next on the horizon for SPeters Dressage?
SP: We start our Olympic trials. Final team selection for Paris will be in Europe, and it would be wonderful if Mopsie could make it again.

JM: What role does support of your family play in achieving your equestrian goals?
SP: There’s no way I would be where I am today without Shanni. At the shows, she’s there and she still gets a little bit teary-eyed when things go well.

JM: What is one thing you’ve learned this past year that has made you a better horseman?
SP: I think something I have been working on for a long time is just being more patient with myself. I’ve always been pretty patient with my horses. But with myself, if I felt like I didn’t ride good enough, it used to occupy me way too long. And this idea of letting go is finally happening. I became so much better at meditation… Letting go and establishing even more calmness inside.

JM: Any interesting hobbies that allow you to just chill?
SP: Mainly flying model airplanes and gliders. It’s a really fun group of guys that we do this with. We go up to Central California, we camp out there, and I cook for the guys. It’s just a really fun way to relax.

JM: And this hobby goes back to your childhood in Germany and your dad?
SP: Yes, when I was about seven years old. Dad and I started this a long time ago. The airplane that my Dad built at that time, I still have a replica of this particular plane in my shop. It’s pretty neat.

This Q&A with Steffen Peters is a web exclusive for Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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