By Beth Rasin
Portraits by Tina Fitch
Ava Chase hit send on the Facebook message and waited. She hadn’t seen Jordan Chase in 35 years, but when she moved back to California, she decided to reach out. “He didn’t even have a photo on his social media, and I had no idea what he was doing or if he was married. But I had always wondered what had happened to him,” she said.
A month went by before he saw the message and called her, and they set a date to go surfing together. “The day before the date, the fin on my surfboard cut my leg open and I told him I couldn’t go,” Ava said. “He thought I was trying to cancel, but I said let’s go to dinner. We had a fabulous time, and we’ve been together ever since.”
“It was like 35 years had never happened,” Jordan said.
Their story began decades earlier in Southern California’s eventing community. Jordan, a Pony Club “A” graduate, competed through the Intermediate level, and Ava was also active on the eventing scene. “There weren’t many boys who evented, and he was always the cute boy,” Ava said. “My friend dared me to ask him on a date at the Ram Tap Horse Trials, and we dated our senior year of high school.”
But in their 20s, they went their separate ways—Ava to college in the Midwest and Jordan to the East Coast to work with Denny Emerson, followed by a stint with the Hermes family in France, and both married other people.
Jordan said his time with the Hermes family was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, which Derek di Grazia had recommended to him. “It was fabulous,” Jordan said. “I lived in Chantilly in their country home, rode and trained some very nice horses, and worked with Mathias, their youngest son.”
But before long, Jordan was living a very different life, working in home building and then in multi-family real estate development up and down the West Coast. Now his work is based in Florida, where he’s a president at Altman Builders.
Throughout most of his career, whenever he had the chance, he took his two daughters to horse shows, but riding wasn’t in the cards at the time. “It was definitely hard to be away from the horses,” he said. “But I never lost interest and always wanted to get back to it.”
Ava, meanwhile, had moved to the Midwest, become a nurse practitioner, and would go on to own a company that offers continuing medical education nationwide. She also had two children, and her daughter, Tatiana Parker, competed in hunter-jumpers, becoming a professional trainer in South Carolina. Ava lived the life of a horse show mother but also couldn’t fit riding into her schedule for most of that time.
The Far View Vision
Once the Chases were reunited, marrying 10 years ago, they soon found their way back to horses, Ava first. “I was interested but reluctant at first because I knew what the commitment was,” Jordan said.
But a farm with a four-stall barn became “the gateway drug,” Ava said, back into horse sports—starting their progression to owning a facility with a permit for up to 84 horses. “Little did we know we’d end up really in the sport in lots of different ways,” Ava said. “It’s been something that we’ve had fun developing together. It’s so fun to get back to and remember our roots and why we like doing this—and competition. There are not many sports where you can be competitive in your 60s, and riding is one of those.”
Today, they own Far View Farms Equestrian Center in San Marcos, California, where they board 45 horses, offer training in eventing, dressage and show jumping, and host dressage and jumper schooling shows and clinics in an area where such facilities are becoming harder to find. “Two facilities were turned into single-family housing developments just before we purchased this,” Jordan said. “So we wanted to provide this for local riders as well as serious competitors. When we purchased it, the seller was almost in tears that we were going to keep it a horse facility because he was sure land developers were going to buy it.”
The farm had been used as a Western facility for 30 years, and Jordan’s experience in building helped them handle the logistical challenges of reworking it to fit their needs. “As kids, we always fantasized about opening a facility, so in many ways we picked up where we left off with our riding dreams and goals,” Jordan said. “Now we’re in a position financially and maturity-wise to do it.”
In addition to an eventing trainer, Far View offers dressage trainers Phoenix Carver and Lewis Azar, plus hunter-jumper trainer Adrienne Tessary-Bluepoint. “It’s a really cool model because everyone works together,” Jordan said. When one of the trainers headed to Maryland, for instance, for the CCI3*-L at the Mars Maryland 5 Star, the other trainers worked with her students.”
In addition, Far View is next door to Palms Equestrian, where Olympic dressage riders Sabine Schut-Kery and Christine Traurig are based. “We’re really lucky because our trainers work with Sabine and Christine,” Ava said. “We get some spillover from their program and access to excellent clinicians.”
Working with these top trainers helps Ava, Jordan and their boarders and students realize their dreams. Last year Ava placed 14th at the USEA American Eventing Championships at Rebecca Farm in Kalispell, Montana, in the Beginner Novice rider division on her 24-year-old New Zealand Thoroughbred, Kingston. “That felt like my Olympics,” she said. “I love that the AECs have opportunities for every level. I don’t bounce as well as I used to and have broken some bones, so I stick to the lower levels. I just want to have fun.”
Jordan, meanwhile, jumped back into the sport in 2021, earning the Novice Horse and Rider of the Year titles for Area VI, and hopes to keep moving his horse Wellington up the levels. “I was very competitive when I was younger and still am,” he said. “When I got back involved, I was serious and focused and put the same effort and energy in as I had in my teens and 20s. It didn’t feel different; it came back pretty quickly.”
Ava believes that Jordan’s rare affinity with animals helps him as a rider. “He’s such an animal person—he’s like that with dogs, all kinds of animals,” she said. “I’ve never seen anyone develop a partnership like Jordan with his horse. He’s got a special way.”
Jordan agreed that the horse plays a big role in his love of the sport and that he greatly missed it during his years away from it. “That relationship and bonding aspect is so much a part of what makes this sport exciting and rewarding,” he said.
He also enjoys that men and women compete equally. “Everyone competes head-to-head, which makes the sport that much more inclusive,” he said.
Giving Back
Ava, 60, is working on her licensing as a technical delegate and dressage judge. “I decided as I get older, I want to stay in the sport in lots of different ways,” she said. “I just really enjoy being part of the sport. I think of all the different directions we can be involved, and in the back of my mind I always thought I could be a judge or official as my competition years wind down.”
In addition to sponsoring a local trainer, Ava and Jordan have partnered with Boyd Martin, who’s been a regular clinician with them, on syndicates of Fedarman B and Barney Rubble. Ava has loved developing friendships with the other members of Fedarman B’s 10-person syndicate. “Everyone really gets along, and we travel together,” she said. “We did go to Boekelo in the Netherlands, which is a crazy amazing event, and we’re trying to work it out to go to Pau, France, in October. It’s been really fun; we keep in touch with other owners, have our text groups, and it just provides an opportunity in the sport we otherwise wouldn’t have. It’s also introduced me to lot of people I otherwise wouldn’t meet—I’ve become friends with Liz Halliday and Buck Davidson, and Jordan bought a horse from Buck. We interact with some of the top people in the sport, and it’s an entrée to things we probably never would have been able to do, especially being on the West Coast.”
Jordan said people often ask them what they get out of supporting other riders, but they aren’t focused on how it benefits them. “Being philanthropic doesn’t really equate with a return,” he said. “We do it because it’s the right thing, and we want to promote the sport.”
Ava said they enjoy access to the top level of the sport that their partnership with Boyd allows. “Boyd is always excited to do clinics here, and he knows we support him, and in return, he supports our program,” she said. “We just really love the sport, and we’re fortunate to be able to do that.”
Boyd always picks up on the positive energy at Far View. “You can see everyone there likes Ava and Jordan, from the boarders to the groundkeepers to all the participants in the clinics,” he said. “I mean, they’re chalk and cheese. Ava’s got this electric, bubbly, energetic personality, and Jordan’s sort of the quieter, shy guy, but once you meet Jordan you see he’s an amazing man who has achieved a lot in life through his horses and his business. They’re both champion people, the sort you’re just magnetized to. You can see that energy when you turn up to their farm: the place is abuzz, the boarders, the riders, the guys working for them. It’s amazing how their energy rubs off on everyone else, and it’s a real privilege and pleasure being associated with these guys.”
Jordan said they’d like to serve as an example of giving back to the sport where they can, for instance sponsoring a division at an event in Missouri after Ava met the event organizer at the AECs. “We try to do national things as well as local,” she said.
“It’s something that gave so much to us not only now but really consumed most of my early to mid-20s,” Jordan said. “It’s a really fantastic experience and shapes you as a person. I encourage other people to get involved in the sport and, when possible, find opportunities to volunteer at events—jump judge, do everything you can, because eventing depends so much on volunteers.”
Ava frequently volunteers, even at events where she’s competing. “It’s an essential part of the sport,” she said.
Between full-time careers, families, a major equestrian facility and their own eventing careers, Ava and Jordan still manage to pursue other adrenaline sports, such as snowboarding and skiing, often from their home in Mammoth Mountain, California, and frequent scuba diving trips. Jordan also enjoys heliskiing in Canada. They’re also proponents of rescue dogs, owning three black dogs in sizes small, medium and large, Ava said.
The couple who met through eventing has found their way back to eventing, stronger than ever, and the time they spent away from the sport only solidified how much they love it. Ava said she’ll never forget Jordan’s expression as he crossed the finish line of his first cross-country course in 35 years. “It was the happiest and most relaxed I’d ever seen him,” she said.
During her years away from the red and white flags, she consistently told herself one thing: “I always said I will hear the countdown in the cross-country start box again,” she said. “I love that; it’s so exciting.”
Jordan also never forgot the excitement of riding cross-country. “Coming over the finish line, the exhilaration of it,” he said. “Having been involved in a different career for so many years, it was really a joy to come back to it and be as passionate as when I started. That passion never leaves you in this sport.”
For more information, visit farviewfarmsequestrian.com
Photos by Tina Fitch, www.tinafitchphotography.com
