other hand, for the first time, Eitan saw the importance of balance and the way movements such as lead changes and shoulder-ins contributed to it. Just by watching, Eitan absorbed the Baroque style that would become the foundation of the unique brand of riding he developed years later.
The time Eitan spent observing carefully as he cleaned stalls at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna is reflected in his distinctly Baroque style of riding.
The Spanish Riding School fueled Eitan’s thirst for knowledge about training, but the vet school continued to disappoint him so in 1968 he emigrated to the United States on a student visa. He spent two years studying veterinary medicine at the University of California in Davis before realizing that vet school had been his father’s idea more than it had been his. For the next several years, Eitan wandered between majors: animal science, entomology, engineering. When he was not studying, he was pumping gas or riding horses, but until President Reagan granted amnesty to illegal immigrants in 1986, Eitan’s continued residence in this country depended on his status as a student. Only then could he freely explore alternative career options.
Although Eitan never entirely left horses, he did try to stay away from them for several years. Drawing on the inner artistry that led him to whittle intricate figures while herding sheep, Eitan lived for some time by selling craft items, particularly carved wood, to stores such as Neiman-Marcus. However, for some of us, horses are an addiction: “They are a magnet,” Eitan states. “They always pull you back.” And although when he came to the United States he did not even know there was a job called “horse trainer,” he ended up training horses because he was broke. He opened a training barn in the late 1980s, starting with Quarter Horses. Not long afterward, a lady brought a Morgan horse to him. “A funny little horse,” Eitan thought to himself—he had never seen a Morgan outside the pages of a coloring book. A few months later, he bought his first Morgan. Although Eitan has never discriminated amongst breeds—he has willingly ridden any and all—the Morgan horse has remained a favorite, perhaps because it fits his Baroque style so well. Even more important, Morgans led Eitan to meet his wife: he appeared in the Morgan show world just when Debbie was looking for a trainer for a special colt she had bred.
Debbie Beth-Halachmy and her Morgan gelding, Indigo Go Gold (Indie). Whenever she pauses from the non-stop busyness that goes with organizing the fast-expanding new discipline of Cowboy Dressage, Debbie looks around in appreciation and wonder: Eitan, the horses, Wolf Creek Ranch, and her own hard work have fulfilled so many dreams.
Debbie Beth-Halachmy
“There were certain things I’ve wanted in life since I was a little girl,” Deb told me. She wanted horses, cowboys (“Well, a cowboy”), cats, and otters. She also wanted to be very rich—like most of us who have been horse mad at some point. Now, she says, she has realized that she is rich, not in monetary terms, but in everything else. Her fluffy cuddly cat Pumpkin is the most loved of a long line. She found the cowboy of her dreams when she met Eitan, and she’s got a pasture full of beautiful golden horses. She has even had otters; they have moved on now, but the creek was full of them a few years back.
It is easy to understand why Debbie feels rich. Wolf Creek Ranch in Grass Valley, California, seems like a small paradise when you walk around, visit the horses, and listen to the running water, but as the headquarters of Cowboy Dressage, it is also a busy place. When she is not riding, Deb sits at her computer or on the phone, organizing and promoting Cowboy Dressage. Her role is interpreting the vision, she says. “Eitan only wanted to ride, and I nagged and nagged at him about the rest!” Deb has been in many ways the business partner to Eitan the artist, only recently has he become an enthusiastic participant in the sharing and promotion of Cowboy Dressage. It is hard work, but also the fulfillment of a dream for both, and Deb loves it.
Born in 1987, Holiday Compadre (Carlyle Command x Holiday Temptress) became the first ambassador of Cowboy Dressage, and an icon in the Morgan Horse show world. A beautiful colt with the strength of character that makes a horse at first a challenge and ultimately a pleasure to train, Compadre grew into a stallion as charismatic as he was talented.
First Steps
When pressed to identify one beginning moment, Deb stated, “Compadre’s 1993 victory pass in Oklahoma. They wouldn’t let him leave the ring.” Normally, a victory pass is a one shot deal: after receiving the prize, the winning horse is trotted or jogged down the rail, past the photographer, and out the gate. Sometimes the applause merits an extra pass; sometimes a horse will lope rather than jog. After being pinned Morgan Western Pleasure World Champion, Holiday Compadre jogged, trotted, cantered in zigzags with flying lead changes, galloped and stopped on a dime while the audience gave him a standing ovation. He and Eitan were showing off, demonstrating to an excited crowd the relationship between horse and rider that only comes from long hours of patient training. The judges clapped, the music played, and suddenly everything came together. The passion that had been sparked nearly fifty years earlier, seven thousand miles away, on a different continent, in a different world, found its unique outlet: a new form of Western riding that showcased the partnership between one man and an amazing horse.
That was where Cowboy Dressage began, according to Deb, because that was when they realized that it was about more than training and showing their horses. As she watched Eitan and Compadre parade their championship ribbons, she knew that they needed to find a way to reach more people, to make Eitan’s unique way of working available to more than the few horses he could reasonably train to such high standards. It would be a long time before they called it “Cowboy Dressage,” but Eitan’s desire to take the best of Western riding traditions and classical dressage was already evident in his work with Compadre.
Eitan Beth-Halachmy on Holiday Compadre: Morgan World Champion Western Pleasure Horse, 1993. “There is no famous horseman in the world that didn’t have a horse that made him famous,” Eitan says. Eitan and Compadre together set new standards of perfection for a Western horse, and not satisfied, went on to introduce the world to Cowboy Dressage.
Eitan had always had a passion for training horses, but it was not until he worked with Holiday Compadre that he realized the importance of the partnership between horse and rider. As he asked more and more of the liver chestnut stallion, he became aware of the reciprocity of the relationship: he had to trust Compadre, and Compadre had to trust him, and they had to understand each other completely. He began to spend long hours with the horse after the rest of the day’s work was done: grooming him, hand-walking him, talking to the stallion as he grazed. Afterwards, his exasperated wife would ask him why, after spending all day in the saddle with all the horses in training, he then spent hours more with Compadre. “I’m building something,” Eitan would answer. And he was: it was an investment of time that would pay off again and again in the years to come.
Eitan and Holiday Compadre perform with Michael Martin Murphy live at the Denver Stock Show in 2001. Compadre and Eitan set new standards for the Morgan Horse Western Pleasure and Freestyle Reining divisions, even as they began the long journey along the road to Cowboy Dressage as it is today.
Holiday
