By Laura Scaletti
John Mason was fascinated by horses from the start. Growing up in Corpus Christi, Texas, John saw his fair share of cowboy hats, cowboy boots and Wrangler jeans, so it was only natural that his 3rd birthday party was cowboy themed—complete with pony rides.
Giving the birthday boy a pony ride only further ignited his passion. “After my party, I kept annoying my parents about horses,” John said. “When I was 5, they signed me up for summer camp and I fell in love even more. I convinced the lady who ran the camp, Catherine O’Conner, to let me take lessons at 5 years old, even though her program typically started at age 6.”
At first, John wasn’t focused on a single discipline. He didn’t care if he rode in a Western or English saddle, he just wanted to have saddle time. While in middle school, John began grooming for a few local ladies who happened to be dressage riders.
“Dressage wasn’t a big thing in my area, but I got to know some of the local Southeast Texas clinicians through my grooming,” John said. “I had no interest in pursuing dressage myself, mostly because I didn’t want to wear the pants.”
Despite his initial reluctance, John would eventually two-step his way into dressage.
Discovering Dressage
When John was 16, his family moved to San Antonio, Texas. One of his first orders of business was finding a barn in the area. “Before we moved, I had gotten the role in the barn of getting on anything and everything. Some days I wanted to do rodeo, other days I wanted to ride ‘problem horses’ that needed retraining,” he said. “All that mattered to me was getting to ride on a regular basis.”
As the family searched for a barn, they were recommended to contact Cathy Sleeper. Known for taking on corrective training of naughty horses, with a dressage spin on her work, Cathy’s barn seemed like a perfect fit for John. “I just wanted to ride naughty horses. I enjoyed working with them and seeing how correct training improved the horses,” John said.
It didn’t take long for John to become Cathy’s working student. “Through Cathy, I got more into the dressage side of things, while still wearing my blue jeans and cowboy boots,” John said.
John not only discovered the magic of dressage at Cathy’s, but he also had the opportunity to meet dressage trainer and clinician Richard Howard. Unbeknownst to John, Cathy’s barn wasn’t just a good fit at the time: being there would alter the direction of his journey with horses.
“Richard saw me riding and saw something in me that he liked. He approached my family and me and said, ‘John needs to focus more on dressage. I think he could do something with it,’” John said. “We ended up buying a horse from him that he had bred, Gdansk, and I very quickly began taking dressage seriously.”
John was eager to work with Richard; however, that would entail a lengthy daily commute as Richard’s barn was in Austin, 90 minutes from San Antonio. Thankfully, John was able to get P.E. credit for school via riding, so he got out early each day to make the trek to Austin.
“My parents didn’t have the financial means to support my horse, so we had a deal where I worked off my lessons by cleaning stalls, riding some of Richard’s other horses and doing barn work. I would do all of that, have my lesson, then drive back home,” John said. “I did that for two years.”
With the daily instruction from Richard, the opportunity to ride a few of Richard’s schoolmasters and the chance to ride with powerhouse clinicians like Hans Biss and Christian Bachingner, John progressed quickly in the sport.
After buying Gdansk in 2007, John found himself on the 2009 Region 9 North American Junior and Young Rider Championships team in Lexington, Kentucky. “It was a crash course into that next level of riding. I had risen quickly at the local level, but hadn’t yet experienced the national level of riding,” John said. “As the rider with the least amount of experience on my team, it was an eye-opening experience. I was able to see what the top of the sport looked like and what level of riding was required at that level.”
Going Abroad
John was at a crossroads when he got home from Young Riders. A senior in high school, John was debating what his next steps with horses would be, should he pursue riding full time professionally or go to school and do horses on the side. “Going to Young Riders kicked my butt in gear. It made me want to ride like those whom I competed with and who were winning at the championships,” John said.
As fate would have it, John already had a two-week trip to Germany planned where he could learn more about their Bereiter program. In Germany, you can’t wake up and just decide what your career is going to be, you must first go through the Bereiter or Ausbildung program, which consists of hands-on learning on the job, formal education and exams.
Hans’ son, Jan Biss, was well connected in Germany and set John up with several interviews, including one with Johan Zagers, during his trip. By the time he came back to the States, John had been offered a position at nearly every barn he interviewed at, and he needed to decide which offer to accept.
“Jan told me at that level, the Olympic level trainers, they tend to travel a lot to teach or go to competitions, so it was very important to like the barn atmosphere and the barn manager. With that in mind, I was incredibly impressed with Johan’s assistant trainer, Thomas Meinecke,” John said. “I was impressed by the way he rode and ran the barn. He also gave me lessons in English, as I didn’t speak a word of German, so I could understand what he was telling me.”
After graduating from high school, John headed to Germany in September 2009 and began his Bereiter program at Johan’s barn. Over the next three years, John’s riding would once again blossom like it had under Richard’s watchful eye. However, it was learning how to manage a large boarding facility that would be the most important lesson learned while in Germany.
“I think most trainers recognize that 85% of what we do is managing people and 15% of what we do is training horses. At Johan’s barn, I got to see how two incredibly competent people managers ran things,” John said.
During John’s last year and a half at Johan’s barn, he fell into the role of being barn manager. “I was the hands-on person between the head trainer and the clients,” he said. “As I now run a large training facility with 50 horses in the barn at any given time, I definitely wouldn’t be able to do that without the experience I gained in Germany.”
Coming Home
After three-plus years in Germany, John found himself at a crossroads again. “I needed to decide what path I wanted to take in the horse world. I wasn’t near being an Olympic-level rider, but those doors were open to me if I wanted to pursue a high-performance career,” John said. “But I also was recognizing what that entails on a personal level, in terms of what you have to sacrifice in your personal life to be able to compete and travel at that level.”
While abroad, John didn’t just get his Bereiter license, he met his now wife, Rachael, who was working as an au pair over there. “We had started to become more serious and after some soul searching and debating, I decided I wanted to pursue my riding career while being able to have a social life and family,” he said.
With Rachael on board and ready to come back to the States, too, John started to put out feelers to try to find a position in dressage-heavy areas like Wellington and California. Unfortunately, he wasn’t having much luck finding what he thought would be a good fit.
Paul Kathen, a friend of Richard Howard’s, who owns Tex-Over Farms in Conroe, Texas, got wind that John was looking to come back to the States. “Paul was in his mid-70s and wanted to scale back and retire a bit. The first few times he called me, I politely said I wasn’t coming back to Texas,” John said. “He called again, we had a nice long conversation, and he said all the right things. After talking to my parents and Rachael, it seemed like the right fit.”
John joined the Tex-Over team in June 2013. “I walked in day one and had five horses in full-time training with their owners and clients and took over 75% of the business. I hit the ground running and expanded my business very quickly,” John said. “I had quite a bit of success at our regional championships in 2013 with Tex-Over clients and a horse of the Howards’.”
John hasn’t looked back since that first year; he’s had a waiting list to get in his program ever since. “I do a little bit of everything; half of my business is training students with their horses and the other half is getting young horses started in their show careers for their owners or to get sold. I also partner with a breeder, Mary Nuttall of Southern Wood Farms, and ride the majority of her horses,” he said.
Empowering Others
Making dressage accessible for riders of any level and any income is very important to John. “I didn’t come from a wealthy family that was able to send me to huge barns and buy me six-figure horses to be able to compete at Young Riders. Richard and his wife saw something in me, recognized that and gave me the opportunity to work really hard,” John said.
John wants riders to know they don’t need to import that fanciest bred horse to be successful in dressage. “Consistency is the number one thing I preach. If you’re consistent and fair in how you approach each ride, you don’t have to have the most talented horse in the world to achieve success and enjoy riding,” he said.
It’s the detail-orientated aspect of dressage that has drawn John to it from the start. He loves the process of educating others, whether horse or human. “I think that’s why I’m so attracted to working with young horses. Each week, you can see the progress they’re making and how you’re influencing them,” he said. “I love being able to mold a ‘block of clay’ into a sport horse.”
In 2019, John was recognized for his skill as an educator via the Region 9 Teaching Excellence Award. “My goal is to help fill that gap by being able to bring in some of the world’s best clinicians and share their knowledge with everyone in the sport. I want to help others the same way Richard helped me,” John said.
Having It All
With a successful business and happy marriage, John was on cloud nine in Conroe. Everything was looking rosy, until Rachael received a leukemia diagnosis in 2018. “She was in and out of the hospital for most of 2018 with a very aggressive leukemia. For a workaholic like me, it was a very eye-opening experience. I learned that with the right group of people around you, you can still do this job at a medium-high level and be able to be with your wife when she needs you the most,” he said.
Like many trainers, John was accustomed to letting the barn come first and putting personal obligations to the side. “I had to learn the hard way to say no, to set hours and boundaries. However, now I know it’s possible to both be a ‘normal human’ and a horse trainer,” he said.
Thankfully, Rachael is nearly five years cancer free today and has begun a career helping others as a full-time social worker in Houston.
With Rachael’s health on the mend, John is looking forward to the future. “I’m excited to bring my horses in training up the levels, continue on my show career and hopefully compete in some of the young horse championship classes. I want to grow my business and lay the foundation so I can continue to have a solid enjoyable life here,” he said. “I hope to someday be able to start a family and fulfill myself in both a professional and personal capacity.”
Follow John on Instagram @john.urban022
Photos by Kristie Scholten, kristiescholten.org
