HORSE TA ES
Salsa, Young Rider Kate Dupre Learn Together Through MHA
by Candice C. Dunnigan

"So much can be learned by watching others...so many work hours to put a horse in a frame only because their trainers tell them it looks better or the judge likes it. The hardest thing to get in riding is feeling, but that's what riding is all about. After a certain point, our sport is really 90 percent horse and how you can learn to adapt to that horse."

- Norman Dello Joio,

Olympic show jumping rider

Meet 15-year-old Kate Dupre, daughter of Jeff and Christie Dupre, big sister of Diana, and a seasonal regular of the Mackinac Island Summer Riding program. Meet also Salsa, a 16-something-year-old chestnut mare, who is the second horse purchased for the program from a grant from the Mackinac Island Community Foundation. The horse and rider found each other this summer through a seasonal lease and the MHA lessons for the 2006 calendar.

Mackinac has quite a talent pool of up and coming competent riders, both male and female. The youths keep getting bigger and better, and the horses that the MHAbegan with years ago have started to become a bit long in the tooth. The need for younger, stronger, more challenging horses has been somewhat of a personal mission for program director Leanne Brodeur, who rightly has an eye out for the future.

Kate Dupre and Salsa. (Photograph courtesy of Jeff Dupre)

Salsa was flagged by Ms. Brodeur through contacts in western Michigan, as well as on an Internet Web site. The mare is an attractive animal, who stands close to 16 hands, making her one of the bigger horses at the Chambers'Mission Hill barn. She had experience in being a school horse. A "school horse" often denotes an equine who has been used by a variety of riding students of different levels. Often the horse is used to the riding ring, as well as having some experience in horse shows, even if they're only run by that barn, or so trained, hence the phrase "schooling shows." Not all school horses are the perfect teacher for every rider.

Salsa came to the Island in late May and, like all horses new to this place, had to have time to get accustomed to her new barn, stablemates, students, and the biggest challenge, Mackinac itself. Having had experience and training in the disciplines of dressage did not make Salsa a pro at delivering perfect 20meter circles in the ring, or riding up to the lessons on a road busy with bicycles and horse traffic. Things like "training" are complicated for both horse and rider, each needing to listen to the other. Both have enough desire and determination, let alone harmony, to make lessons succeed.

Kate Dupre deserves credit, for she took on Salsa this year, and likewise Salsa took on Kate, along with another solid rider, Libby Benjamin. Ms. Benjamin, however, has had seasoning in riding both hunters and jumpers beyond the Mackinac program, and serious show experience. Ms. Dupre has been a part of the program since she was a little girl participating in the "Giddyup and Go" classes, advancing to the solid pack of Island riders aged 13 to 18, euphemistically dubbed the "Galloping Gliders." Kate has had a variety of experiences and mounts. She has ridden Western, taken part in the fun and games shows, hunter paces, creative costumes for costume classes, participated in various riding clinics, annual horse shows, lemonade sales, jumping lessons, as well as barn chores and duties at the summer barn.

Kate also exemplifies why a seasonal riding program is important to the Island youth. During the winter, Kate and her family and the family business move south to Isle Morada, in the Florida Keys. The busy schedules there are packed into abbreviated months, and do not sanction Kate or her sister the luxury to ride. In the fall and then spring, Kate is a high school student at Mackinac Island Public School. She keeps busy.

If you happen to stop for a soft drink or a sandwich at the Cannonball midway around the Island, you might easily run across Kate, ready to serve you with a quick smile. Kate, you see, also has a summer job she is as committed to as those barn duties. The Dupre family resides in Woodbluff, on the western edges of the Island. All of that means, that in order for Kate just to make barn chores at the Mission on the east end of Mackinac, lessons at Turtle Park, and her job on the far shore, she puts in miles on her bicycle before she even gets on a horse. The coordination for this past horse show had her hopping. Actually, it's amazing that all of the kids have been able to pull the riding and the shows together, because Mackinac makes it a hard effort for everyone who participates.

Kate did very well in every class she participated in. What impressed me, watching her, was her sense of timing, trying to find an even and agreeable compromise with Salsa in each new situation. Trail class proved to be the most challenging. Kate did well in handling refusals as well as commitments. The horse show is the place where you're supposed to demonstrate to everyone watching how easy all of this stuff called "riding" is. Sure.

Kate and Salsa may not have aced the championship this August, but what they did achieve were solid steps in building a ladder of success with each other, and that makes for a lasting foundation, exactly what Olympic rider Norman Dello Joio lectures about. The new horse, and a rider who is only able to ride a few short weeks each year, were quite good and, I believe, will continue to be.

Congratulations to both of them, and to all who rode. Did I mention that Salsa is a registered Holstein? Holstein - isn't that a bovine? Not exactly, and that makes for another "horse tale" anon.

Candice Dunnigan is an active member of the American Equestrian Association, the Waterloo Hunt, and the Mackinac Horsemen's Association. Seasonally she resides at Easterly Cottage.