FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE
SIDELINES APRIL 2014 125
Nick and Aileen
Photo courtesy of Nick Bertelli
relationships. “We’ve become good friends,” Shane said. “It’s
not just been a relationship where he rides my horse.”
Of course, the duo also enjoys working with Aiken’s dressage
riders. Aileen Daly is one example of how Nick and Darren
can help dressage riders shine. Prior to working with Nick and
Darren, Aileen’s horse Puff was diagnosed with a rare sleeping
disorder – causing him to collapse in his stall nightly and suffer
from more dramatic seizure-type episodes approximately every
three weeks. Naysayers were quick to doubt Puff and Aileen’s
ability to move up the FEI levels and she, herself, wondered if
they might be right.
“Before working with Darren and Nick, I was having many
doubts about ever being able to ride Puff because he is more
sensitive than any other horse I have ridden and I was nervous
of his occasional bolting behaviors. Darren has really helped me
understand how to ride him and has made me confident in my
ability to ride him safely. When I started in March of 2013 with
Darren, I could walk, trot and canter the horse, and was having
trouble with anything other than basic, short movements. A
long way from my FEI dreams with him!”
But with the help of Nick and Darren, Aileen showed Puff in
the Prix St. Georges and Intermediare I. That same year, they
took sixth at nationals in Lexington – a pretty amazing feat for
a sleepless horse who, a few months prior, could barely handle
the basics. She also progressed with her other horse, Rubens,
with the help of Nick.
In return for their help with Puff and Rubens, Aileen says her
goal is to “be the best student they have ever had.”
Being around the interconnected, friendly group that is Aiken
is known for is more then enough reward for this team, however.
Nick describes moving from California to South Carolina like
being a kid in a candy store. “I had never been in a community
that was completely built around and founded on and has had
its success derived from the horses. And it’s a community that
if one person succeeds, everyone succeeds. All in all, it’s a
community where everyone wants to see everybody do well
because the whole community benefits from that. There’s an
extreme sense of camaraderie. It really makes you happy to
call Aiken your home.”
