It doesn’t pay to tell Tami Hoag what she can and can’t do. She’ll just be delighted to prove you wrong.

A best-selling author and Grand Prix dressage rider, Hoag’s set her sights on competing at the international level, and it would be foolish to bet against her.

Beating the odds is nothing new to Hoag. Her first pony bucked her off every time she rode him, yet she wouldn’t give up her dream of riding. She never went to college, but that didn’t stop her from writing seven consecutive New York Times bestsellers.

And while she’s not a professional rider, she sees no reason why that should stop her from competing at the top of the sport.

“This is my goal, and why shouldn’t I be able to do it?” asked Hoag. “That’s how I approach everything. Such a small percentage of people who try to sell a book ever sell a book. My attitude is that they’re not me. If somebody’s going to make it, it might as well be me. I’m going to do whatever I have to do to make that happen.”

Her determination came through in her first show season with Coco Chanel. Hoag bought the 12-year-old, Rheinlander mare (Circus–Rausissa) last fall and spent six weeks working with her at home in Los Angeles, Calif., before she shipped her to Florida for the start of the show season.

The new pair started off strong, winning the Grand Prix Special at the Highlife Cup in January and then winning the Grand Prix and the Grand Prix freestyle at the Heidelberg Cup. Although their scores haven’t always been as high as Hoag might have liked, she still considered the season a positive experience.

“That first season with a new horse on the international scene, scores are not always what you expect or are used to,” she admitted. “But that’s paying your dues. Suck it up, and go back and do it again. I’ve been focused on the high parts, like placing in the midst of big company and being able to hold my own.”

The highlight of Hoag’s season was riding in the Cadillac Challenge of the Americas, a breast cancer fund-raiser that featured Grand Prix pas de deux and quadrilles.

“To ride in that with all the top people and to be able to be a part of that and do well–it was so exciting,” said Hoag.

Discovering A New Challenge
Dressage was something that Hoag didn’t discover right away. Although she began riding at age 9 on an “evil pony,” and continued to ride on a succession of ponies and horses, most of her experience was western.

“I wanted to ride English, but I lived in rural Minnesota and everyone rode western,” she explained. “I came to dressage kind of late. I was in my late 20s, and I’d done everything from western pleasure to barrel racing and reining. I’d had a little taste of riding jumpers, but I was bored. I wanted something that was challenging.”

Hoag had just published her second novel, and she was ready for a break from her desk. So she did some detective work that led her to Marianne Ludwig.

“A friend of a friend sent me [to Ludwig], and I only knew her first name,” said Hoag. “She asked me to come have a lesson so she could see how I rode. She said lessons were half an hour, and I thought, ‘I can spend all day on a horse!’ But I had no concept of the physical demands of really properly sitting into a horse. I went back and rode one of her horses. I never hurt so badly all over my body.”

Although physically humbled, Hoag was hooked on dressage. She spent a year with Ludwig before her writing pulled her away from riding again.

“My career took off,” she said. “For five years I locked myself in my office. That’s all I did, so then I didn’t ride at all beyond the occasional trail ride. All my dedication was to my work.

“You have to be prolific in commercial fiction to make your name and get somewhere,” she continued. “Then you can take a deep breath and have a more sane pace to your life. I had two books on the New York Times bestseller list simultaneously, one on the hardcover list and one on the paperback list. But I needed to have a life again. I really had burned out. When I hit that point, I went back to the riding.”

Hoag moved to Virginia and started taking lessons with Elizabeth Lewis. She also met Betsy Steiner, who moved nearby. Hoag decided to bite the bullet and buy her first dressage horse.

“I’d looked at 30 or 40 horses,” said Hoag. “Then Betsy suggested a horse in California with Guenter Seidel. I had no business buying him because he was very strong and tricky. But he was gorgeous, and gorgeous when Guenter rode him. He was absolutely not for somebody with as little experience in dressage as myself. But I’m the most pig-headed person there is.”

Hoag brought home D’Artagnon, a 13-year-old gelding who was trained through Intermediaire I, in the spring of 1999. She decided her goal was to start showing at fourth level, even though she’d never shown dressage before at any level.

“I thought, ‘Why not?’ ” said Hoag. “I had just turned 40, and I didn’t have time to mess around. I didn’t want to start out at the lower levels and slowly work my way up because I’d be 112.”

Hoag had eight weeks before her first show with D’Artagnon. “I had very little help with him,” she said. “I was riding with Betsy when I could, but she was out of town a lot. There were many, many days when I got off that horse. and I just wanted to fall down on the ground and cry. He was so difficult. I thought I would never get this. It was hard work.”

But they did progress, and Hoag actually won her first fourth level class aboard D’Artagnon. “By the end of the show, I had won two classes and had two seconds and had a nice collection of ribbons,” she recalled. “That was fun!”

The pair kept improving, eventually showing Prix St. Georges and competing at Dressage At Devon (Pa.) that fall.

“Tami has incredible drive, determination and a great work ethic,” said Steiner, explaining how Hoag could improve so quickly. “She’s a good athlete and has ridden horses since she was young. She has no fear and is a natural with horses.

“She has great mind/body awareness,” added Steiner. “Her mind is a steel trap too. She’ll retain what you tell her and hold it. She’s a delight to coach, intense in a positive way. She’s very intelligent and needs to keep her mind focused.”

Moving Up In The World
And Hoag is not a woman of small ambition. In the fall of 2000 she bought Feliki, her first Grand Prix horse.

“We went and looked at her, and I thought she was small and bony looking,” said Hoag. “She looked like she was 20 years old even though she was 13. I didn’t know about her, but Betsy told me I’d have so much fun with her and learn so much from her. She sort of talked me into it.”

Now Hoag calls that decision “the smartest thing I ever did.” At 19, Feliki is still showing and looks better than ever. And that purchase, combined with attending the FEI World Cup Dressage Final in 2005, spurred Hoag to contemplate the next step in her dressage career–buying a horse that could be competitive on an international scale.

Enter Coco Chanel.

“I saw Coco and knew Tami would fall in love,” recalled Steiner. “It was a match made in heaven.”

Although Hoag wasn’t looking for a mare specifically, she was happy to find one. “I’d had a couple of mares when I was growing up, but I sort of had forgotten all the good things about mares,” she said. “Then came Feliki, and I remembered the dedication and the try and the work ethic.”

Riding great horses is just part of Hoag’s plan for improvement. She knows it will take a lot of hard work and stubborn determination too, but Hoag doesn’t know any other way to approach life.

“She’s an inspiration to be around because if she says this is what she wants to do, she’ll find a way to get it done,” said Steiner. “I know her well enough to know that she’ll do what it takes–if you tell her what to do, she’ll do it. She’s bold. Her attitude is to get the best I can and do the best I can.”

Hoag hoped to qualify for the Collecting Gaits Farm/U.S. Equestrian Federation National Grand Prix Championship this year with Coco Chanel, but they were just out of the top 12.

“I only look up and forward,” said Hoag. “I’m really enjoying riding and showing at this level. It’s very satisfying to me. My brain
continues forward, and we’ll see what happens. I expect to be doing well with Coco. I’m going back to Florida for the next season and expect to do bigger, better things.”

Balancing Writing And Riding
As best-selling author Tami Hoag has risen through the dressage rankings, she’s continued to write novels. She has nearly 20 million copies of her books in print. Although crime thrillers are her bread and butter, she’s also started to include horses in her fiction.

“I really had kept my two worlds separate,” she said. “It was the first season in Florida–it’s such a scene. It’s a microcosm of everything good and bad in society right there in the Wellington show grounds. I thought, ‘This is much too fertile ground, there’s a million stories here, a million ideas.’ Dark Horse came out of that.”

Now she’s working on her second novel about Wellington, a book that will feature the same characters as Dark Horse.

Generally, Hoag rides her two Grand Prix mares, Coco Chanel and Feliki, in the morning at Iron Horse Ranch in Malibu, Calif., where she trains with Aaron Wilson. Then she returns to her home in Los Angeles, where she moved in 2001. She runs a few errands and gets to work writing, often until 10 p.m.

“Not a lot of Hollywood parties for me,” she said with a laugh. “I basically have two full-time careers. I’m riding two Grand Prix horses a day and everything that goes with that. I’m working out to try to stay in top form. And then I have a job. It’s a commitment. I don’t have a social life, and I don’t have a Maserati.”

But even though the riding and the writing are separate, it doesn’t mean they’re unconnected.

“For me, the riding and the writing are the balance,” said Hoag. “Each takes such dedication. When I’m working on a book, everything goes to what I’m putting on the page. When I get up from the desk and I go to the horses, everything goes to the horses. You can’t ride dressage and be thinking about getting your nails done. It’s all focus, every single step. That’s what I need for balance.”

And Hoag’s keen observation skills as a writer are useful to her riding. “When I went to look at Coco on the first day, all I wanted to do was to get a little bit of a feel,” she recalled. “But I spent more time watching the woman who owned the horse. I videotaped everything. I rode her and I rode her well, but not everything went perfectly.”

That evening Hoag returned to her hotel room and studied the videotape. “I just soaked up what it looked like when the owner was riding, what she was doing, how was she sitting,” she said. “I brought that with me the next day, got on the horse and we did everything, including the one-tempis, which are kind of tricky with her. Visualization is such a powerful tool. That’s where that observation and study of what goes on around me can come into play.

“A lot of times when I’m going into the show ring I think, ‘Pretend you’re Anky [van Grunsven].’ Then I sit a certain way and have a certain attitude going into the ring. Having a vivid imagination is such a useful tool for a rider to draw on.”