2021 Cynthia Aspden Youth and Young Adult Development Fund Recipient: Hannah Morton
Photo by Tess Michelle Photography
I went into the 2021–2022 show season intending to show at Prix St. Georges for the first time and earning scores towards my USDF silver medal. I had the enormous privilege of being able to ride and learn on a Grand Prix schoolmaster, a 13-year-old Oldenburg gelding named Quest. I’m afraid I must admit to believing that having such an educated partner would make riding at the higher levels easy. However, I quickly realized that a horse being trained in high-level movements, and my being able to ride them successfully, were two different things entirely. I was not going to be able to ride successfully at the FEI levels without some serious back-to-basics and most importantly, building a partnership with Quest.
Through the generosity of the Cynthia Aspden Youth and Young Adult Development Fund, I was able to incorporate clinics with Albrecht Heidemann into my training regimen. This proved to be invaluable to my learning arc with Quest. A particularly sticky point for Quest and I had consistently been my ability to get him engaged and moving off of my leg, while also keeping my leg quiet enough to be effective. Albrecht picked up on this immediately and it became the primary focus of my lessons with him.
He helped me to understand that, especially in a horse that tends to lag behind the leg, keeping the leg as quiet as possible is far more effective than using brute force. I learned when to use a stronger aid as a way to reinforce a more subtle one, rather than defaulting to a strong aid in anticipation of my horse not responding to the ideal aid. I didn’t just learn to have a stronger leg to hold my horse in front of my leg, I learned to completely change the way I used my leg and the way I rode my horse.
I won’t claim that these lessons were easy. I faced many moments of extreme frustration and felt I was at my limit for nearly the entire time. However, I learned that these moments of difficulty don’t necessarily mean you are doing something wrong, in fact, often it means you are getting into the sticky stuff that needs the most attention.
Quest and I qualified for CDS Championships at both Fourth Level and Prix St. Georges where we earned third and fourth place, respectively, in the Open division competing against seasoned professionals. I am so grateful to have had this learning experience that would not have been possible without the support of this grant.
