Sara Schulman and Cooley Chromatic. Photo by Shannon Brinkman
Surrounded by a veritable jungle of pothos, Sara Schulman found herself sitting at the press conference table on the final day of competition in the CCI3*-L at the Maryland 5 Star. To her left sat Pan-American team member Sharon White and Olympian Will Coleman. Unlike Sharon and Will, who have been working as top professionals in the industry for decades, Sara is “one of us” – an adult amateur. This weekend at the Maryland 5 Star was her Cinderella moment.
Like in all good fairy tales, Sara’s day-to-day consists of slaving away at a full-time desk job before running away to the barn in the evening hours. Her social life? She’ll tell you herself that it’s not a priority. Sleep? Regularly sacrificed. Vacation? She’s used up all of her PTO to compete with her horse, Cooley Chromatic. Dreams? Big.
Once upon a time, Sara was en route to becoming a professional in the equine industry. She worked for Kim Severson through college and continued working as Jan Byyny’s assistant trainer after college. While put on the back burner, that dream still hasn’t died.
“So my full time job is working for Fannie Mae in the housing mortgage industry, and that’s been virtual ever since I started after college due to COVID. So there were two years that I actually worked for Jan Byyny outside of that remote job, and I was her assistant trainer for about two years,” Sara said. “I’d done a couple working student positions in high school, and I could see that working full time as a professional can be a bit difficult. So I wanted to get the college degree and then see maybe down the line, if I could make it as a professional.”
Luckily, working remotely has allowed her to pursue her riding goals, while bringing home the bacon with a professional career. “I think what’s been the most helpful is that my job is remote, so I don’t have to commute into one of their offices. Being remote allows me to save a lot of time commuting, so I can go to the barn early in the morning or right after work. It’s also allowed me the flexibility to go down to Florida in the winter. My manager has been super understanding, so she allows me to take a couple months to go down to Florida, given that I have good Wi-Fi down there and still have the ability to perform my full time job.”
Sara Schulman and Cooley Chromatic. Photo by Abby Powell.
Refusing to give up on her dream to compete at the upper levels has required a lot of sacrifices on Sara’s part, particularly when she spent two years working full-time for both Fannie Mae and Jan Byyny.
“For two years, there were very long days riding on opposite ends of the work day. Sleep has been sacrificed a lot over the years, but I feel like I’ve been able to find a balance, probably because I’ve been doing it for a while,” Sara said. “In college, I also worked for Kim [Severson] while I was at her barn. I was there six days a week doing the afternoon feed to work off board. So it’s sort of been normal to make pursuing riding work out. It’s just been a way of life for me.”
My biggest question for Sara was why? Why does she make all these sacrifices and grind day in and day out? What motivated her to take on all the daily responsibilities of being an adult professional and then add pursuing upper level goals on top of it? Her answer was simple: she’s not just a dreamer, she’s a doer.
“I’ve always dreamed of competing at the Advanced and 5* level,” she said. “There was always that hunger to run at the upper levels of the sport, like my friends. I’m 26 now. I just missed out on being able to put my name out there for the Under 25 lists or other championships. But with this horse, he’s so special that I finally have the opportunity to make a name for myself and try to get to the highest point that we can.”
Sara is clearly not one to choose the easy route. Instead of saving some time (but definitely not money) and purchasing a horse that had already been produced to the upper levels, she stuck with her love of developing young horses and her budget, and purchased Cooley Chromatic when he was just three years old.
Sara Schulman and Cooley Chromatic. Photo by Shannon Brinkman Photography.
“When I got him, it was my last year of college. It was right before COVID hit and I was down at Kim Severson’s barn. I knew that I wanted to get a younger horse and he was one of the first ones I saw,” Sara said. “If you saw his breeding on paper and compared him to any other upper level event horse, he would probably be the last one that you would pick, because he’s bred strictly for dressage. He has no jumping in his bloodline and barely any Thoroughbred blood, but he had the most natural athleticism of all the horses that we saw. I had the budget for an average five year old or a higher quality three or four year old. So that’s why we were looking at ones that were a bit younger. He just had natural athleticism and was able to maneuver his body. He could put his knees above his nose without any effort and he could really wrap himself up around a jump.”
Choosing “Caden” meant thinking of the big picture. Just 22 years old, Sara had been competing at the 2* level and was almost ready to move up. Choosing to purchase Caden meant she had to start from scratch and teach a three year old all the ins and outs of the sport. Like with all young horses, it was a bit of a bumpy road.
“When I first got him, he was a little bit insecure and spooky and didn’t quite understand the sport. He’s always been incredibly genuine, but it took a few years to get over the baby antics, like, for instance, during his five year old year, I say he went through his teenage years, where he would spook at everything,” Sara said. “The girls at the barn called me crazy trying to hack him down the road by myself, because he had a wicked rear and buck in him and he was pretty insecure about everything. But he matured. I matured. I learned how to build a partnership with him.”
Now, five years later, that partnership was put to the test at the Maryland 5 Star. “Honestly, going cross country at Maryland, I was like, ‘Wow, this horse would jump through fire for me.’ It’s a pretty special feeling when you know the horse inside and out and they trust you that much,” Sara said.
Sara Schulman and Cooley Chromatic. Photo by Shannon Brinkman Photography.
As an amateur with only one horse in her string, Sara is at a disadvantage compared to the professionals she competes against. “You come in probably as a bit of an underdog, which you would think might take away a little bit of pressure, but it actually adds on more pressure, because you basically get one shot,” Sara said. “So you’re putting all your eggs in one basket. This is your grand finale competition, and you have to make every moment count.”
Sara credits her long-time trainer, Jan Byyny, with a lot of her recent success. If it weren’t for Jan’s belief in her, she said she would have never thought she could wind up on the podium in the 3*-L at the Maryland 5 Star. Jan not only pushed her to go to the 3*, but believed she and Caden could even win it.
“Her predictions were extremely accurate,” Sara said. “Granted she did think we could win it, but I would say second place is close enough to first. But yes, I think she had to push me a little bit to inspire us and to get ourselves out there at some of the bigger venues. I’ve been working with her for three years now. So when I got to her, we were going Training level. She’s put a ton of time into us and she knows us like the back of her hand, both myself and my horse. I trained primarily with her in the jumping phases and then I’ve been riding with Kelli Temple on the flat for the last six months. I was able to have both of them come up to coach me at Maryland, which was super beneficial.”
Coming in second in the 3* at the Maryland 5 Star was a life-changing moment for Sara. Not only because of the result, but because of what that result means to herself and to other amateurs with big dreams.
“I know my horse is capable of winning and having those opportunities, but you don’t really believe it till it has actually happened,” Sara said. “It’s pretty special being able to be competitive against the best names in the sport. I think probably what was the most special is that there have been random strangers and fellow amateurs who have reached out since then and said, ‘Hey, the results and achievements that you and your horse have had are inspiring.’ Which kind of blows my mind. To me, I think I’m just doing my everyday thing, but there are people that take notice. I think that’s what’s special about the sport of eventing itself. You don’t have to have 10 horses and a ton of money to be able to get results like that.”
Sharon White, Sara Schulman, and Will Coleman share the 3*-L podium at MARS Maryland 5 Star. Photo by Shannon Brinkman
Like the 5* track, the 3*-L course was challenging for riders and horses. Sara was competing against household names for eventing fans, like Laine Ashker, Ariel Grald, Tamie Smith, and even her former trainer, Kim Severson. Maryland is always a big fitness test for the horses as the course runs up a long slow hill that builds across the first half to three-quarters of the course, before running back downhill. Sara’s biggest concern before the event was whether Caden was capable of the fitness test.
“I think the biggest test was going to be fitness and rideability for him,” Sara said. “Over the last couple seasons, he’s turned into quite a cross country machine. It wasn’t necessarily the jumps I was worried about, honestly, but more of the rideability. He’s at least 17.1 hands and he’s started to get very excited at the start box, as well. So we’ve had to work on a lot of the rideability to be able to go faster safely. In the end, he turned out to be incredibly fit, which, again, as I’ve mentioned, he doesn’t have a lot of Thoroughbred blood in him. But he holds his fitness quite well.”
As it turned out, Sara’s worries were unfounded. “I think getting him conditioned for the Bromont 3*-L earlier in the year allowed him to hold a good base of fitness. He was super rideable. None of the jumps were an issue. He just attacked it like any other horse trial. It really just proved how confident and how incredible he is.”
Hopefully her weekend at the Maryland 5 Star was just a taste of what the future holds for Sara and Caden. She has big plans to step him up to the 4* level next spring (knock on wood). With any luck, we’ll see her back in Maryland for next year’s Maryland International at Loch Moy Farm.
Sara Schulman and Cooley Chromatic. Photo by Shannon Brinkman Photography.
For Sara, she says that her moment in the spotlight has just further solidified her love and passion for eventing. “I think people really appreciate the underdog stories,” Sara said. “I think that what people find even more inspiring than someone who’s winning all the time is seeing everyday people win. That’s probably why I love eventing so much. Everyone can come from different backgrounds and you all have to go through the same speed bumps and hurdles to make it to the top. Everyone will cheer for you and cheer for your successes as much as they do for all the professionals in the sport.”
If you’re an amateur with goals of having your own Cinderella moment, Sara has this advice. “There’s no clear-cut timeline for anyone to get to the top of sport. You can make your own timeline. It’s just a matter of what you want to prioritize to get to the top of the sport.”
Unlike Cinderella, there’s no countdown to midnight for this rider and her superstar horse.
To read more of EN’s coverage from the MARS Maryland 5 Star, click here.
