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Pedro Gutierrez

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About Pedro Gutierrez

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EN Gives Thanks: A Challenging Dream Come True

What are you thankful for this year? That’s the question we asked EN readers for the 2018 Thanksgiving Challenge from World Equestrian Brands, and your responses were numerous and heartfelt. Over the holiday weekend, we are honored to share your special stories. You can view an archive of the stories here

Pedro Gutierrez and California Mail. Photo by EquusPix.

In 2018 I am thankful to learn that when you put together years of willingness, experience and a bit of luck together, it is possible to make a challenging dream true.

Being born and raised in a country with a lot of equestrian tradition like Mexico, but little eventing, made it very challenging for a teenager crazy about it. Having been raised in a dairy farm with older brothers horses available made things smoother to start competing in show jumping and dressage, as the little eventing was controlled in those days by the military just organizing two three-day events a year. Finally in my twenties and thanks to a group of civilians as crazy as me about eventing, we started organizing and competing horse trials the way it is done in the discipline advanced countries. Then my good friend Juan Gonzalez invited Bruce Davidson to teach a clinic in his place, happening that I had a good young thoroughbred mare named Anjana that Bruce liked very much, telling me that I would consider taking her to the U.S. and aiming to compete at Radnor CCI1*. That was in 1992 and I was 30 years old, the dream started to take form; I started eventing internationally.

I have kept traveling to the U.S. to compete since then, although buying another young thoroughbred mare named Snow Creek in 2009 from Phyllis Dawson led me to her friendship and coaching for almost 30 years, that has allowed me to learn and improve my eventing skills, preparing me to represent Mexico in Fair Hill 2003 FEI Pan American Eventing Championship and San Salvador 2002 and Veracruz 2014 Central American and Caribbean Games, winning a team silver in the last one. As well as completing 49 FEI events with three CCI1* wins, two at home and another one in the USA.

As an event horse breeder and young event horses fan, I always have been curious about the systems used in different countries. Lion d’Angers World Young Event Horse Championship has been used a step for a lot of the most successful event horses in the world through the years, so when my great friend and Ocala coach Debbie Adams’ horse DA Duras went to compete there ridden by Kelly Prather in 2015 I travelled to help and cheer them, getting to know all about that legendary competition, deciding that some day I had compete there.

The first step was to get the proper type of horses and thinking what would be the most feasible economic way of doing it. I bought from their breeder Bernard le Courtois two 3-year-old mares with some of the recently most successful eventing bloodlines, with good movements, jumping ability and enough Thoroughbred and Anglo Arabian in their pedigree; Caminka Mail x Jaguar Mail – Taminka Mail x Lord Z and California Mail x Quite Easy- Varnalissa Mail x Kalaska de Semilly. Then I decided to send them to young French trainers Nicolas Pertusa and Samantha Pertusa-Leper who had trained my friend from Venezuela Elena Ceballos’ fabulous horse Nonoir du Moulin, with the plan to train the young mares and compete them in the French young event horses classic cycle, developing them with my Lion d’Angers target always in sight.

Both mares in their first training and competition year was uneventful, getting qualified for the 2016 Pompadour France Young Event Horse Championship. I was able to attend it and watch Nicholas placing them in the top 10 out of almost 50 4-year-olds and getting the coveted “Excellent” status. At this age they are judged for conformation, then their movements are just evaluated before jumping a few show jumps that increase during the course in size a difficulty and the following day they have to tackle a Training level size and difficulty fences in Pompadour racetrack infield.

In 2017, their 5-year-old year they kept competing with Nicholas in the 5-year-old eventing classes, qualifying again for the Pompadour France Young Event Horse Championship, where they completed, although did not get in the top placings.

Finally 2018 was the year of my planned take over their ride. They competed with Nicholas in the 6-year-old eventing classes and ended up completing the Jardy CIC1* with him in mid-July. Just before that I spent my first week riding and training them myself at Ecuerie Lepertusa, Santes, Nord du France. Things went quite well, although I had to adjust a little bit my usual riding style to the classic French system, based in the Ecole Nationaux de Equitatcion Cadre Noir French classic school, riding them forward, but with very quiet strong leg aids with the leg just behind the girth, high hands very still hands with the thumbs up and not wrist twisting. As the performance was good and safe especially in the cross country, the decision was made to enter and compete them myself in Le Pin CIC1*.

Mid-August I joined Samantha who drove my two mares along with her CIC2* horse to the legendary Haras du Pin, Basse Normandy, where the 2014 WEG  cross country was held. It was an event with CICs at 1, 2 and 3 star levels and more than 350 horses from more than 15 different countries running over six days.

The first thing that I found very different from the events in North America was a CIC1*cross country track that was increasing in difficulty as the course progressed, allowing the young horses to build up confidence. Also, the announcers were saying each horse’s breeding and breeder almost every time they mentioned each of them. I had a very decent dressage test on California Mail in the mid-30s on Friday and a bit of a tense one the following day on Caminka Mail.

As my first cross country ride on Monday was California Mail, who is a bit stronger, I decided to play it safe going slow and making sure that we jumped every fence properly. Then, having already gone around once, I decided to go for time with Caminka Mail and we were inside the time. My first taste of the French way of going across the country, making the transitions very subtle without losing too much time setting up and making the long distances in the combinations easily.

Show jumping was on Tuesday in a fabulous large arena just below the chateau with perfect footing and a challenging design. California just pulled down the last vertical, achieving the coveted qualifying score for Lion d’Angers that has to be a FEI Minimum Qualifying Score but with no more than four faults over the show jumping obstacles. Although Caminka Mail jumped out of her skin, being short coupled made a bit difficult for me to keep a quiet balance, resulting in pulling down two rails. After that weekend I decided that California Mail was going to be my horse for Lion d’Angers, as we matched really well, even under stressful competition conditions.

Pedro Gutierrez and California Mail at Le Lion. Photo by EquusPix.

Next time out was Waregem CIC1* in Belgium, just about an hour away from my mares home base. The event is held in a compact but efficient way at the Waregem racetrack and riding club grounds, running CICs at 1, 2 and 3 star levels also, but this time in just four days. I competed just California Mail, doing dressage on Friday afternoon — a little bit tense and not forward enough. Show jumping the following day mid-afternoon had a lot of atmosphere and a tiny warm up area in an indoor literally packed with horses, some of them, like Ingrid Klimke’s 7-year-old stallion a bit wild. We again pulled down on fence due to missing badly a distance an over that was the in of a line that caused a lot of trouble.

Next day we had to drive to run the cross country in a different property about 20 minutes away. It was raining the whole time and the cross country course design was designed more the normal style I am used to, but very twisty and going in and out of the woods several times, making the optimum time difficult to achieve. We were able to get another Lion d’Angers qualifying score, just in case it was needed to guarantee that we could be selected in a normally overbooked entry list. Finally, on the first week of October I received the email from the Mexican Equestrian Federation saying that my entry had been accepted!

A flew into Paris and took a train to Lille on the Friday before the Young Event Horse World Championship. I had a pair of very good dressage lessons with Samantha and an excellent although challenging jumping lesson with Nicolas. We drove the eight hours from Santes to Lion d’Angers with California with the excitement building up as we getting close to the fabulous Isle du Briard home of the also legendary Haras du Lion d’Angers, that does not have stallions any more, but is a multi uses super equestrian facility. Unloading California and setting her in one of those stalls made me goosebumps. Although I had competed against the likes of Michael Jung, Ingrid Klimke or Andrew Hoy in the previous two events, doing it at Championship level was unbelievable.

The first big learning was next day in the First Horse Inspection, as instead of following the initially issued numbers or the represented country first letter following the alphabet, they just issued last minute a random countries new list, thus having to rush a little bit. Later on, after a good dressage lesson with Samantha, we walked the cross country course for the first time. The first surprise was that it was  8’ 57” and just 29 jumping efforts; a course with maximum distance and the lowest allowed number of jumping efforts for a CCI1*, thus giving the young horses a chance to open the gallop and relax in between several fences complexes. Also the course built up technical difficulty  jumps dimensions little by little, allowing to grow in confidence. Of course, the jumps are almost all thematic and beautifully made, making Lion d’Angers what I call the “eventing Eurodisney.”

As my dressage time was scheduled for early Friday morning, we were able to polish a little bit more our dressage work together and walk the cross country course twice, as well as watching some very nice dressage tests from other horse and riders both in the one-star as well as the 7 year-old two-star. What to say about the food in the continental Europe events, that is varied and very good.

I had an early start on Friday morning for my dressage test, but trying to mix my usual warm up system with my new learnings helped in having a relaxed California but not enough in front of the leg, that made our test not as forward as it should have been, thus getting punished by the Ground Jury with a score in the high 30s.

Cross country day came quickly, the good thing was that I was well prepared mentally and eager to go to my favourite phase to enjoy going over that truly nice course riding a very scopey, confident and clever mare. In the warm up everything was perfect, with California truly relaxed and very forward thinking. The previous day Nicolas had told me to remember to go, go, go … all the time and I did just that from the start box until after the very last fence. Crowds were huge and very noisy all over the course, but nothing distracted us from doing an almost foot perfect round. We only missed a pair of distances, getting a bit too close to the second fence in turning lines, but California’s power and skill solved both tight situations. I can very vividly remember jumping down the daunting hut from its roof and making my mind very quickly to take the direct option in the third to last fence that was a turning question from a roll top four turning strides to a huge right handed corner, showing myself that I was riding a true championship potential mare, getting easily inside the time.

Pedro Gutierrez and California Mail. Photo by EquusPix.

Next day, they changed the countries order for the Third Horse Inspection, but this time I was aware that it may be that way, so I was ready on time and California sailed through it.

The show jumping course was not huge, but all the overs were square. The surprise came when we changed from the firm warm up area footing to the soft and holding grass in the main arena that killed quite a bit horses forward motion even if they were in front of the leg. It caused us to pull down two fences, something very unusual for the scopey California, but it affected more some other horses in front of us, making us finish 24th out of 41 starters. Not bad for a 57-year-old amateur rider that catch rides for competitions his own horses. One more eventing dream accomplished.

What is the next dream to make a reality? Maybe the Lima 2019 PanAm Games. I have the horsepower with Unanyme du Loir and Racques Biats. And of course Lion d’Angers 7-year-old YEHWCh with California Mail. I am already working on it, because I believe that is the only way to may dreams possible.