Growing up on rural Long Island, N.Y., Peter Blauner knew he wanted to be a veterinarian from the moment he first saw a horse.

Throughout his 30-plus years of practice in Pennsylvania, Blauner has been living his dream and juggling eventing at the upper levels, all with just one horse at a time and a two-horse trailer.

“My wife and I are the original mom-and-pop amateurs,” he said. “We do it all out of our backyard. I go to a horse trial in a two-horse trailer. In the vet box at [the Dutta Corp Fair Hill International CCI**] it’s my wife and I. We just do it the same way we’ve been doing it for 25 years.”

Blauner earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Connecticut and attended vet school at the University of Pennsylvania before starting his own practice, Blauner, Vecchione and Associates, in 1982.

Blauner specializes in lameness and sports medicine and is also a certified farrier.

“The principal reason [I became certified] was to learn and the other was to improve my communication with farriers, which is critical in establishing a team to create the success that you need in any equine field,” he said. “It takes a village. No one’s the lone ranger anymore.”

He’s also a certified FEI veterinarian in dressage, show jumping and eventing and works at a handful of competitions each year.

One Rider, One Horse

Blauner, 59, picked up eventing in his late 20s after foxhunting for several years.

He met his wife, Mary, at his first job where she was working as a vet tech, and they’ve been married for 30 years. She now does bookkeeping for his practice.

“When we started eventing 30 years ago, there really were no true professionals,” said Peter. “Nobody arrived with a tractor-trailer full of 10 horses. It was literally one rider with one horse, and they had worked out the ins and outs of the relationship, and that’s really more the way we do it. I do one horse at a time.”

His current mount, Clifton Eagle, a 12-year-old New Zealand Thoroughbred (Istidaad—Banc One, Zephyr Ace), had competed to the CCI** level with Donna Smith in New Zealand before Ryan Wood competed him in the United States.

“He’s my kind of horse,” said Peter. “He’s very brave but not suicidal. He is, as my wife would say, a ‘Monday morning horse,’ meaning that you can ride him on the weekends and still plan on going to work on Monday.”

The pair started out at novice in 2012 and quickly moved up the levels with the help of Bruce Davidson for jumping, Silva Martin for dressage, and Mary as the eyes on the ground during the week.

This season, they competed at intermediate and contested the CCI** at Fair Hill, Peter’s first time back since finishing as the top amateur rider in the CCI*** in 2003 with Speed Racer, but they were unfortunately eliminated in show jumping. Peter also finished 2014 as the U.S. Eventing Association’s Intermediate Master Amateur Rider of the Year.

“Dressage is not his best thing, and he’s a little tough to manage,” said Peter of “Jack.” “You have to work with him. He needs a fair amount of work to stay calm. He loves the cross-country. He was a star at Fair Hill. I had one stop at the last water, which was really poor planning and presentation on my part, but he turned around and jumped it. That’s the hardest two-star I’ve ever done in my life.”

Even though the gelding had a “meltdown” and was unnerved in show jumping, Peter wasn’t deterred and hopes to try again next season.

“It was great fun,” he said. “Disappointing that we didn’t finish, but I know what to do for homework, and we’ll be more successful next year.”

For now, he’s been trying foxhunting with Jack, who seems to enjoy it. Peter rides with Mr. Stewart’s Cheshire Foxhounds (Pa.), with whom he’s been a member for 25 years. “He’s having a ball,” he said. “I had to sort of pick on him unmercifully for a couple of months before Fair Hill, so I thought he deserves a little bit of a break and a little bit of fun.”

Upping The Game

Since Peter lives in the eventing-centric area of Coatesville, Pa., and regularly finds himself competing with Olympians, he appreciates the opportunity to learn from being surrounded by the best.

“The goal with being a higher functioning amateur is not to be ‘amateurish’ about it,” he said. “You have to be somewhat professional. I’ve never minded competing against professionals because they up the game and they should up your game. You can sit in the warm-up area and watch some of the best riders in the world.

“I was thinking the other day, if my dad wants to play golf with Tiger Woods and Arnold Palmer, he couldn’t,” he added. “But I can ride with Phillip [Dutton], Boyd [Martin], Buck [Davidson]—at any given event, these guys are in the same division. Some people look at it as a drawback, I look at it as a plus.”

Peter keeps Jack at home with his two young foxhunters and Mary’s Quarter Horse. He has a small indoor and outdoor ring and tries to ride when he gets home, but working 50 hours a week and traveling out of state for vettings isn’t easy.

“If I know with certainty that I have to ride, I try and get home with sufficient time before dark, which is much easier in the summertime than it is this time of year,” he said. “Without my wife, I could never do it. She does the lion’s share of the horse work [if I have a long day].”

While he’s on the road in his truck most days, Peter also has his pilot’s license and flies about twice a month to visit out-of-state clients.

He became interested in flying when Mary gave him an intro flight for a birthday.

“I went through the certification process, got my pilot’s license, bought a plane, became instrument rated, and still spend probably 50 to 100 hours in the air both traveling and maintaining proficiency,” he said. “There are a lot of similarities between riding and flying. The way that you’re asking the horse to do something and you’re pretty much telling the plane to do something and you have to work with what you’ve got. Sometimes the wind is arguing with you, sometimes the horse is arguing with you. But you can’t fight it, you have to go with it.”

Peter isn’t sure what’s next for Jack, but he’s hoping to complete a CCI** and maybe try advanced again.

“I think I’ve got another season of advanced in me. We’ll just see how it goes,” he said with a laugh.