In many ways, Jennifer Snyder of Dover, Pa., is the typical adult amateur rider–impossibly busy but devoted to her sport. Her horse Night Mover, a double-registered Pinto-Trakehner gelding with an impressive jumping pedigree, enough pizzazz to attract a judge’s eye, and the good sense to keep his rider out of trouble, is the kind of hunter most amateurs would gladly put on their wish list.
Even so, winning the 2005 Zone 2 Adult Amateur Hunter Finals, 36-46, was an accomplishment Snyder never, in her wildest dreams, expected to achieve–especially considering that she started out as a Western rider and had never won a major competition. As is so often the case, perseverance, hard work and belief in herself, her horse and her trainer made all the difference.
Snyder, 46, has been riding most of her life, ever since falling in love with horses at the age of 8 in Virginia, where she began lessons and trail riding at a church-sponsored summer camp. By the time she was 15, she had acquired her own trail horse, but it was many years before she made the switch to English riding. She got the idea after watching television coverage of top show jumpers.
“I had the desire to learn to jump,” said Snyder, “so I leased my trail horse and went shopping for one that would be suitable for English-style riding and jumping.”
The horse she found was a young, solid-colored Appaloosa that had not even been started under saddle. “I picked Snowy because of his eye, and I thought he was cute,” she said. Since non-spotted Appaloosas weren’t popular in Western circles, he came with a bargain price tag. Eventually she began showing him in pleasure and halter classes, and the Western trainers who’d bred him gave Snyder her first jumping lessons.
Before long, though, she’d outgrown their ability to help her develop her jumping skills, so she began looking for someone near her York County, Pa., home who could take her farther. That led her, in 1989, to Terri Wherley, who now works out of her own Hunter Glen Farm in nearby Glen Rock, Pa.
“When Jennifer came to me,” Wherley recalled, “I found that with her Western background, she was very focused on her horse’s obedience and accuracy but had almost no concept of creating a quality canter, rhythm, and the smooth performance you need to succeed in the hunter ring.”
Snyder admitted that it took her a long time to learn what the judges wanted. “Unlike the jumpers, which are pretty cut-and-dried, this sport is tough because it’s so subjective,” she said.
Another challenge for Wherley was figuring out how to work with Snyder’s unique learning style. As a senior programmer/systems analyst for York International, a global company that manufactures air conditioning equipment, Snyder is extremely analytical by nature.
“I have a logical brain that is black and white,” she explained. “Riding has always been difficult for me, because I want to memorize commands, rather than working from ‘feel.’ Terri had to find different ways to teach me, because some of the ways she can explain things to other students just don’t work with me.”
“Jennifer has a good eye,” said Wherley, “but it was so hard to get the concept of seeing a distance across to her in the beginning.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Overcoming Setbacks
In the summer of 1999, after retiring her first hunter due to a degenerative arthritic condition, Snyder and Wherley found Night Mover at the New Freedom, Pa., farm of equine veterinarian and breeder John Hurtgen. The horse was just 3 and very green, but Snyder liked his flashy markings and his expression. He also came with impressive bloodlines. His sire, Special Memories, is a Trakehner who competed at the grand prix level, who is by Abdullah, the 1984 Olympic show jumping individual silver medalist. Night Mover is out of a Paint mare, Daydreams.
But not long after Snyder purchased the horse, “Rascal” developed a serious–potentially career-ending–injury. His right front hoof developed a deep crack from the ground to his coronary band, and a less severe version of the same problem appeared in the left front. Several subsequent complications eventually resulted in drastic resection procedures being performed by two different farriers on the right front, followed by weeks of lameness, extended lay-up and attempts at corrective shoeing, none of which was entirely successful.
Damage to Rascal’s hoof was so extensive, it became questionable whether he’d recover enough to jump again. On the advice of Wherley, Snyder trailered the horse to veteran West Chester, Pa., farrier Dave Kumpf, who began a long process of restoring the hoof and returning the horse to soundness. They lost an entire year, but Rascal eventually returned to competition, better than ever.
Training and showing resumed in earnest, and before long Snyder realized she needed to find a way to finance her increasingly ambitious–and expensive–show schedule. Scott, her husband of 24 years and an industrial safety specialist, has always been supportive of Snyder’s horse habit, but as she became more serious about showing, the bills mounted quickly.
So in 1998 she started her own small business, Jennifer’s Candles, for the express purpose of financing her horse’s upkeep, training, and showing expenses. She now markets a full line of decorative hand-made, scented candles, produced according to a unique formula she developed during a year of intense experimentation, to individuals and organizations throughout York County and the surrounding region. What started as a modest venture has far surpassed her original expectations, and Snyder looks forward to the not-too-distant day when she will retire from her day job and devote all her time to her home-based business and her horse.
In the meantime, while working full-time and running a successful business on the side, she somehow still finds time four or five days a week to make the hour-long round-trip drive to Hunter Glen Farm to ride. Weekly training rides by Wherley keep Rascal tuned up, so Snyder can get right down to business when she arrives at the barn.
“If I don’t ride that often,” she said, “at my age, my muscles just don’t stay in shape. So one of the hardest things is just finding the time to ride most days.”
To get everything done, she schedules her life down to the minute. It requires hard work, discipline, and the organizational skills Snyder said she learned from her mother.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m on a rollercoaster and don’t know how to get off,” she said. She tries to average about 7 hours sleep a night, but during the holidays, busy season for her candle business, sleep is often the one thing that has to give.
But despite all her dedication, Snyder credits her trainers, her farrier, and her horse with all the success they’ve had.
“Rascal takes care of me,” she said. “He has never tried to unload me in front of the jumps, drop his shoulder, or anything like that. He will jump anything and everything, from any distance I put him to. He never holds my errors against me; his attitude is always, ‘no problem.’ This gives me a lot of confidence.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Ready For Anything
After qualifying for the Zone 2 Finals at the Pennsylvania National in 2004, when Rascal placed eighth in the two over fences classes despite Snyder’s serious case of nerves, she said, “I was finally convinced that I can do anything I want with this horse.”
Equally important, she said, is his personality: “He lets me talk to him and feed him lots of treats without getting nippy, which is important to me. He doesn’t mind being hugged and kissed all the time, and he actu-ally seems to enjoy human company.”
In addition to Wherley, Snyder and Rascal have worked with Jocelyn Martin of Denver, Pa., who helped school and show the horse in his baby green days.
“I’m very thankful that Joc and Terri have taught Rascal how to do his job, because now I’m reaping the benefits of their expertise,” she said.
One of the things Snyder appreciates most about Wherley is her willingness and ability to work with any kind of horse. Snyder’s first hunter, Snowy, had more limited scope but nevertheless managed, with the help of the right training program, to perform well in the adult amateur division for years.
“Terri brought us so much farther than another trainer might have,” she said, “and never pressured me to get rid of him in favor of a horse with more ability. Thanks to her, I was able to achieve my goal of showing in the adult amateurs and learned enough that I was ready to go on with Rascal.”
After receiving top ribbons at the Washington International Horse Show local day (Md.) in both hunter and equitation classes and then winning the 2005 Zone 2 Hunter Finals in the adult amateur, 35-46 division at the Pennsylvania National, what goals are left for Snyder in 2006?
“I love the equitation,” she said, “and I want to work in that area more this year. We’re practicing the different tests, working on rollback turns and so forth to keep us sharp. And keeping a quality canter all the way around the ring is still a problem that we work on.”
When she looks back on 2005, Snyder said, what she’ll remember with the most satisfaction is putting it all together when it really counted.
“Working so hard all year and then having it come down to one show is a lot of pressure. For the first time, I showed with no nerves–just went out and had fun,” she said. “This sport is one of the most humbling experiences I’ve ever had. It is unbelievably hard. But the other side of it is, Rascal is not ‘just a horse’ to me. I couldn’t have asked for a better partner and friend.”