160 SIDELINES APRIL 2014
FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE
Got Game? Heather
and Questie on course
at the 2013 Rolex
Kentucky Three-Day
Event CCI4*.
Photo by Sarah Miller/
MacMillan Photography
about how to listen to the horse you’re riding, instead of forcing the
horse to listen to you.”
Heather cites fellow eventer Stephen Bradley as being her
most influential trainer, but she also listed Bruce Davidson,
Philip Dutton, Leslie Law, Karen O’Connor, and Betsy Steiner as
influences on her riding. Her philosophy on riding has also made
Heather a sought-after instructor for riders of all ages. She boiled
down her thesis into two main points: understanding that riding
is communicating and teaching her students to “wear the pants”
in their relationship with their horse. “We must listen to the horses
and figure out what they are ‘saying’. It is our job as the rider to
figure out the combination which unlocks their ‘language’ so that
we get the most out of them as athletes. They are all individuals
and should be treated as such. Sometimes they get nervous and
need to be supported and encouraged, other times they may need
military school. Finding the right mixture of those things takes
patience and flexibility in our riding and training methods. That is
one my biggest points in lessons,” she shared.
She feels teaching her students to “wear the pants” helps them
in with communicating with their horses and makes them more
forward-thinking riders. “You make the decisions; you are the
human ... tell them what you want clearly. We had a great time
with this at a clinic I taught in Nashville. I had a group of young
kids whose horses and ponies were not doing anything they were
supposed to do. So every time each one would ride toward the
grid I would ask them ‘Who wears the pants?’ And they had to
say ‘I DO’. It worked like a charm – no more refusals. The next
day they not only had to say they wore the pants, but had to state
firmly what they wanted to do …‘I want to JUMP the cross rail!’
Again, success for all – we laughed hysterically, learned a bunch
and had great success.”
Heather took Pickle Road (by Cormorant, out of Choice of Power
by Seat of Power) from being an off-the-track “rogue” to being
a FEI-level eventer using her mainstays of patience, work ethic
and thinking like a horse. She shared their story, “Pickle made
me the rider and horsewoman I am today. He is incomparable in
so many ways – he was truly world-class. We found each other
when he was at Merrywind Farm (Kathleen and Ken McDermott’s
farm where Heather’s Heron’s Landing Eventing operation is
now based). He was recovering from chronic foot trouble that he
was having at the racetrack. Described to me as being rank and
dangerous, he was anything but. He was sore, tired and terribly
defensive. An incredible athlete with such presence and elegance,
his body was easy to train to be an event horse. His mind, well,
that was a different story! He is an over achiever and worried if he
thought he was in trouble. We ran around the CCI3* at Fair Hill in
1998, finishing 18th out of 68 horses. I was asked to participate
in the Developing Riders Program with him in 1999. He taught
me patience and understanding, made me truly listen to him and
showed me that to gain a horse’s trust you must trust them first.”
“However, after his successful three-star run he became a
rather hot commodity; other riders wanted him for the Sydney
Olympics. Offers came for him that I could not turn down as a
young and poor professional, so I sold him. But, he never formed
a partnership in his new place. Hearing he had been discarded
and was lame, we brought him back to Merrywind. I owed him at
least a happy retirement. To our great pleasure, he came right
again and we enjoyed many more competitive years with good
results at the upper levels, including a second place finish at The
Fork CIC3*. He is now retired at the farm where he will live out his
days with his friends, sprinting up and down the hill in his field and
causing a general ruckus. He will happily let you visit him and give
him mints, but don’t expect to get near him if you have a halter in
your hand!”
Heather’s next FEI horse was Our Questionnaire, a New
Zealand Thoroughbred (by Westminster, out of Strike A Pose by
Straight Strike) purchased for Heather by Kathleen McDermott
in 2009. Together the pair was well placed in two and three-star
competition from 2009 to 2013 and they competed at the Rolex
Kentucky Three-Day Event CCI4*in 2011 and 2013. “Questie” has
now recovered from an injury and is back to work with Heather
looking for a young rider or amateur to take over his reins. Heather
talked about her career with Questie, “He is a total professional
about his work and is as genuine and as honest a jumping horse
as I have ever sat on. He looks for the fence and gets between the
flags for me. He is a very confident horse and is extremely smart!
We call him ‘The Professor’ because I can feel him calculating the
distances down lines. In the barn he is a bit aloof to strangers, but
I am definitely his person.”
Heather is looking toward the future with seven-year-old Boris
O’Hara, a Dutch Warmblood gelding (by Tygo, out of Vesper
O’Hara by Furore) who is now going Intermediate. “Boris is an
absolute dream. He is the total package. His raw talent and great
brain will make him a force to reckon with at the upper levels,”
said Heather.
She also has high hopes for a six-year-old Thoroughbred she
calls Pie (who raced under the name Call the Sheriff and is by
Domestic Dispute, out of a mare by Deputy Minister). Pie is a
17.3-hand gelding who looks just like the horse in
National Velvet
.
He will start his competitive career in 2014.
Heather and her husband of three-and-a-half years, Eric
Nichols, share their home in Pottersville, New Jersey, with three
dogs: an 11-year-old rescued Pit Bull named Bashful; a nine-year-
old Jack Russell Terrier named Samwise the Brave; and a one-
year-old rescued Pit Bull named Penny.
