FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE
SIDELINES MARCH 2014 111
2 SIDELINES JUNE 2012
FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE
gaits. However, Jo made it clear to Mary Jane that she would
rather be a jumper than a dressage horse. Next came SFS
Magic Charm (Mick), elegantly built and successful in Arabian
shows with top trainers. But Mick’s training had been done
mostly in covered, quiet arenas, so he was almost unrideable on
windy days, spooking at everything.
After driving all over Florida with no luck, Mary Jane relented
and began looking at grays with no height restrictions, as finding
a reliable, quiet horse had become her top priority.
Finally, her Arabian dressage horse arrived in the form of
a 14.3 hand, 17-year-old flea bitten gray gelding named HA
Bold Flyer. “I have never had a horse that wants to please as
he does,” said Mary Jane. “With my own limited knowledge, I
brought him from a trail horse that had never had any contact
to the perfect training level horse he is today. I have my Arabian
dressage horse!”
Mary Jane (age 80) and Flyer (age 20) became Century
Club members on December 7, 2013, at a Palm Beach County
Mounted Posse show. They were the final team to join the club in
2013, as Team #158.
About the writer: Jenny Johnson is the Executive Director at The
Dressage Foundation in Lincoln, Nebraska. In addition to that full-
time job, she also has the full-time job of being a wife, a mom to three
children, and “mom” to her 22-year-old Quarter Horse who she’s owned
for 21 years.
The Dressage Foundation’s Century Club is a program designed to honor senior dressage riders and their senior horses. To become
a member the ages of the horse and rider must add up to at least 100 years and they must ride any level dressage test before a
judge or dressage professional. For more information on the Dressage Foundation, please visit
.
Mary Jane and Flyer at
their Century Club ride.
