By Allie Heninger
Portraits by Melissa Fuller
Learning by watching and learning by doing are two things that have taken Susan Dutta far in her equestrian career. From a 4-H kid taking on the horse world by herself to driving thousands of miles a week as a Team USA Young Rider to representing her country on multiple stages across the globe, Susie has lived a life many only dream of—and is loving every second of it.
Susie’s early days with horses brought her an unmatched independence, which would grow to provide her with an abundance of opportunities later in her riding career. Her very first foray into the competitive disciplines started with a learn-by-doing attitude while observing the young eventing girls at her barn as a child. “I would watch them do dressage, and then I would just put my stirrups down in my little English saddle and pretend I was them!” Susie remembered fondly. “Before you know it, I was 13, outgrew my pony, and my parents bought me an event horse.”
AN EARLY START
Growing up in Seattle, Washington, Susie received an incomparable education and a lifetime’s worth of travel up and down the West Coast during her Young Rider career. She earned her B rating in Pony Club before going on to tackle several prestigious events and competitions across the country. “There’s so much to learn and we can’t skip that,” Susie said in reference to her upbringing through Pony Club. “Taking care of an animal, learning about them, understanding their digestive system and what to feed them, how to care for your equipment, general safety and horsemanship—it’s just something that you gather from 4-H and from Pony Club.”
Susie has been very social since childhood and loved the camaraderie that these programs fostered. “Going to the fair and spending the night there in campers, that’s the really fun stuff to do with your animals,” she said. “I still go to really cool places and sleep over with my horses—now I do it in Europe and all over the world, but it was just as fun then.”
By the end of her Young Rider career, Susie was well-versed in the freeways of the country as she and her teammates took to the open roads with their truck and trailer. By the age of 20, she was awarded the Fritz Cup, a prestigious trophy given to the national champion in show jumping every year; was fourth in the Harry T. Peters Trophy on the East Coast; and placed ninth in the North American Junior and Young Rider Championships at Tempel Farms in Wadsworth, Illinois. “It feels like a lifetime ago, because it’s so different from what I do right now, but those are my roots in the sport,” Susie reminisced. “They were a lot of fun, and they made me the horsewoman that I am now, because that was a lot of travel and management and horsemanship that I learned early in my life.”
During this time, Susie was also milking her non-equestrian education for all it was worth. “My parents said that I could ride as long as I was in school, so I could give you a laundry list of the schools that I went to!” she said with a laugh. From Seattle University to community college and university in North Carolina to Pace University in New York, Susie earned minors in psychology, business and marketing to keep her riding career afloat. “I was very good about changing my major, and then I would of course need a few more credits, so then they would pay for me and the horses another year. When I finally met my husband, my dad was like, ‘I’ll give you a nice wedding, and then she’s yours, Tim!’”
DRESSAGE ACROSS THE GLOBE
Leaving college behind while just one semester short of her bachelor’s degree in business, Susie knew that her future was in riding, but decided to follow her heart and make the move to dressage. “I’d done a couple of Advanced horse trials, but I knew that wasn’t going to be my forever sport,” she said. “I sold my event horses and bought a 3-year-old dressage horse—a versatile warmblood, one that could jump a little bit and also do dressage—and I ended up picking the dressage route. Then in walks Tim Dutta, my future husband. While we were dating, the first thing that he said was, ‘OK, you need a Grand Prix horse. If you really want to do this, you need something trained that can teach you so that you can teach other horses: a really good schoolmaster.’”
Tim guided Susie to purchase her first true dressage horse, a Lipizzaner-Warmblood cross named Maple Magnum, aka Thumper, who had been Ann Guptill’s partner in the 1987 Pan American Games. Thumper was often a tough ride, but nothing an ex-event rider couldn’t stick. “He made me fall in love with dressage and competing, and he taught me so much,” Susie remembered fondly. “Immediately, I was able to ride Grand Prix successfully and do my first freestyles. He gave me a lot of really good feeling for dressage, and more than anything, he just made this sport fun. I think we had a good time because I was so excited that he knew how to do all these movements, I would just praise him and give him sugar. Every time he would piaffe, I just thought that was the best thing in the world and he’d get another cube!”
Susie quickly flew up the ranks and began her career as a major competitor in the international field. Finding the right trainers that could help her grow in each phase of her education was vital, and she admits that at first, she may not have been quite as prepared for the transition from her previous competitive life. Her first time showing on the European international stage in Stuttgart, Germany, was with trainer Rudolf Zeilinger. “I was so naive, I thought you just do that every year: We go to Europe, and then we prepare, and then we go to Stuttgart,” she laughed. “Little did I know it was going to take me about 15 years to get back there. Reiner Klimke was there, Isabel Werth and Ulla Salzgeber—just seeing all these superstars that you only read about in real life and stabling next to them, that was probably one of the biggest eye-openers of my life.”
Susie would then go on to make several U.S. teams, including traveling as an alternate to the 2003 and 2007 Pan American Games, and competing in multiple FEI Nations Cup competitions. Thanks to her husband’s support and her passion for bringing up young horses, Susie was never without a Grand Prix horse or two, and continued to create excellent partners that would take her to the highest levels of the sport. “Currency DC was a wonderful horse for me with 117 FEI starts,” she said of one of her top mounts. They made the finals at the Young Horse World Championships when Currency was 5 years old, before going on to compete on seven Nations Cup teams together.
Susie’s two current FEI mounts, Figeac DC and Don Design DC, both qualified for the final Selection Trials for the 2020 Olympics. “Don Design just last year was on the Wellington Nations Cup team, competed in the Aachen Nations Cup and was shortlisted for the Pan American Games, so he had a pretty stellar year,” Susie said. “My most favorite thing ever was this year on the Nations Cup team in Aachen. That was the best experience of my life, because Don Design did very well for me and he had a solid performance; but to take a horse that you made yourself from 5 years old and to ride it in Aachen was just… wow. I was almost at a point where I could quit now and it would be enough.”
NEVER STOP LEARNING
Susie’s independent upbringing did not leave her without an appreciation for good trainers and a well-rounded education; in fact, quite the opposite. From America to Europe and back, Susie attributes her success to the plethora of top-level trainers across the globe that have nurtured her education at each stage of her riding journey, greatly emphasizing the importance of finding the right partnership for each individual and situation. “I feel very blessed to have that education, to have had that many good, top trainers,” Susie said. “I’m really big on the fact that not every great rider is a good trainer—I really believe that you have to think about what you need. If you’re a rider that has a trained horse and you just need to learn how to ride that horse and go compete, then you might need one kind of trainer; if you have a young horse and you’re trying to make that young horse, you need to ride with somebody that’s made horses, that has an education in making horses and taking riders to the top level with their horses.”
As she did with Don Design, Susie has become passionate about bringing horses up from a young age. “I think the future is to buy good, young horses and make them, but you don’t just learn this—this takes time,” Susie said. “You need help with it, you need guidance. You learn how to make horses from people that have made horses. The older I get, the more I realize there’s no fast way, there’s no trick. It’s these good, classical basics, just taking your time. There are no shortcuts.”
Susie also stresses the importance of keeping a moldable and teachable mindset, knowing that there’s always something to learn from every scenario and every partnership. “I feel like I have to work, I have to get better,” she said. “I analyze myself all the time, I watch my videos, I pick on myself constantly, and then I have to put my white breeches on and become some kind of show girl and really believe in myself, because that’s what I need to present to the judges: ‘I have this, this is great, and I’m going to show you guys that I’ve got this.’ I think that staying humble is really important, because then you do stay learning, you take the advice—we don’t know everything. Watch other people and see what’s winning; always try to get better.”
DUTTA CORP AND THE FAMILY LIFE
Tim Dutta, Susie’s husband, owns and runs the largest equine shipping company in the world. From hobby riders to top team members, The Dutta Corporation flies horses to competitions and events across the globe, including many World Championships and the Olympics. “He’s very involved in USEF as a big sponsor, and he just loves, loves, loves horses,” Susie said. Susie is currently based in Wellington, Florida, with Tim, their 22-year-old son, Timmy, seven dogs and a life that is centered around horses.
Her husband and son also have a large polo operation in Port Mayaca, Florida, where they keep a fleet of horses for Timmy’s competitive career. “It’s a crazy life with a lot of moving parts, but it’s a lot of fun, and it’s truly all based around horses,” Susie laughed. “We’re really lucky people; we live this great life surrounded by top sport everywhere, and it’s pretty amazing.” Susie’s groom, Carly Muma, is also heavily invested in Susie’s son’s career as a polo player, and is considered part of their family, along with everyone else they employ. “We are like one big family, and we’ve always treated our employees like that, even in the Dutta Corp,” Susie said. “That’s my husband too; he’s an only child, so his friends are his family, and his business people are his people.”
Despite the large farm her husband and son keep, Susie boards her own four horses at IDA Farm in Wellington, where she’s able to experience the social aspect of riding that she craves. “I’m very social and I love talking every single day to everybody,” she explained. “I think it would just drive me crazy to maintain a farm, and I also love to go to Europe every summer, so I think that I’m just somebody who’s going to board their horses. I’m in the real estate business, so you would think I would do some kind of real estate play, but I seem to just stick with renting boxes and enjoy my fun day with all the ladies of IDA Farm.”
Even with a professional riding career, Susie also keeps a day job as a realtor for Douglas Elliman in Wellington, and loves to stay busy. “I’m working all the time, and I love it. I wear several hats, so if I’m not working in real estate, I’m at a polo game, I’m watching a practice, I’m working out, shopping … I can’t tell you the last time I went to lunch or did something civilized like that, but I’m constantly on the move.” Susie recently made the move to Douglas Elliman from her previous firm after noticing that they were a big sponsor of equestrian sport—including being the title sponsor of the Global Dressage Festival in Wellington. “I met the CEO and had a chat with him and it was so lovely, and I thought, Why would I not be with the company that supports me as an athlete?” she explained. “I thought, I’m going to make that move. I’m going to go work for this amazing company that gives back, because that’s what we do. The Dutta Corp gives back to the people that keep our company going, so I really appreciated that about them.”
Susie notes that while her ever-busy lifestyle is a dream come true, she never wants to forget her roots or the luck she’s had in life to have earned her way to this point in her career. She lives life by two simple mantras—the first is to never stop being that little girl who loves horses. “You want to be that person every day, feeding them carrots, loving them, cuddling them—you never want to lose that,” she said. “I think horse people that are in it for life, those are the ones that are still that little girl or boy who loves horses.” Even at 55, she says she still gets just as excited about buying a new horse as she did when she was a child.
Susie’s second mantra is one that she repeats to herself every time she swings her leg over her horse and enters the ring at a competition—one that embodies Susie’s goal in life, to remain a lover of the sport and a lover of horses: to remember where you came from, and love every second of the journey. “There’s no place I’d rather be than right here, right now,” Susie shared. “I’ve said it for so many years to myself: ‘I could be anywhere—I could be in Italy sitting there having coffee, I could be in Paris—but no, there’s no place I’d rather be than right here, right now, riding this horse, heading to the ring to challenge myself to do a great job. How lucky am I?’”
For more information, follow Susie on Instagram @susiedutta
Photos by Melissa Fuller, melissafullerphotography33.mypixieset.com
