off everyone else who had tried to ride him. When Eitan first tried to get on, the colt just kept rearing. Eitan had to face him into the corner of the arena, and persist. With Compadre, nothing came easily at first; he didn’t do things just because someone told him to. Like many horses, he needed to understand why. With Eitan’s persistence and patience, though, Compadre developed into a virtuoso performer.
CARLYLE COMMAND
Holiday Compadre was one of Carlyle Command’s second crop of foals out of Deb’s mare Holiday Temptress (“Tess”). Carlyle was a beautiful young stallion with big promise, but like Compadre, he did not come into his own until he was six when he won World Champion Morgan Stallion and Reserve World Champion Park Harness Horse in 1986. The next year he captured both World Championship titles. Compadre is the best-known representative of the many sport horses Carlyle sired.
Deb clearly recalls when she decided to breed her mare to Carlyle: “Cheryl McLean suggested I breed Tess to Carlyle Command….Cheryl assured me that I would be very impressed with him. I went to the Morgan Horse Show in Monterey, California, just to see him. He was to be shown at halter by Tim Arcuri. I could hear hoof beats approaching the arena but could not see who they belonged to—but I knew it had to be Carlyle Command. The cadence told me it was a great horse entering the ring. I was right. He took my breath away.” Although she was not conscious of it until seeing him in the ring, Deb says she made the decision upon hearing his hoof beats.
Carlyle Command (Compadre’s sire) as he was when Debbie first saw him, shown by Tim and Jean Arcuri at the Golden West Morgan Horse Show in Monterey, California.
The power and grace of action that made Carlyle Command an impressive park horse was passed on to Compadre. You can see it in the videos of Compadre’s athletic movements: that 1993 victory pass evokes his sire’s struts down that same rail as Reserve and World Champion. And, they were struts: Carlyle Command had an amazing presence; he was hot stuff and he knew it. Holiday Compadre had that same attitude in the show ring.
After that initial Western Pleasure World Championship in 1993, Compadre went on to be the Morgan Grand National Freestyle Reining Champion the following year. He was pinned Reserve Freestyle Reining Champion in 1995, and once again Western Pleasure World Champion in 1996. More importantly, Compadre and Eitan became ambassadors for the Morgan breed and Eitan’s unique brand of horsemanship. Until Compadre was retired in 2002, they performed multiple times at Equitana USA in Lexington, Kentucky; at Equine Affaire in Columbus, Ohio; at Dressage in the Wine Country (Santa Rosa, California); and at the Western States Horse Expo in Sacramento, California, to name a few, dancing to different music in dozens of different arenas, in front of thousands of people. Together, Eitan and Compadre traveled from one side of the country to the other, performing and teaching.
Finally, in 2002, they traveled to a cattle ranch in Wyoming, where Deb and Eitan wanted Compadre to give his farewell performance before the men, horses, and cattle that worked there. There they filmed footage for the beautiful video Dances with Cows. When the work was done, Eitan dismounted and unsaddled the horse for the last time. Compadre was only fifteen, but he had given all he could to Eitan and his many adoring audiences. He was beginning to notice an old injury, vestiges of an accident suffered on the road to his first Equitana in 1996. During a bad rainstorm, the truck and trailer had hydroplaned, jackknifed, and ended up totaled. Compadre had vet-checked sound and gone on to perform as part of the Morgan group, but afterward was obviously sore. He worked through it, and went on to perform for years, but by 2002, he was ready for his last ride, and when he jumped off in Wyoming, Eitan knew it was the end.
As a tribute to Compadre, Debbie and Eitan produced Dances with Cows; so compelling was the narration at the end, full of phrases like “danced his last dance,” and “greatness leaves with quiet dignity,” that viewers thought Compadre had died, so they had to change the end. It now states clearly, “Holiday Compadre was retired to stud on June 18, 2002.”
Luckily, by the time Compadre retired, Eitan and Debbie had a promising young colt in training that would become Eitan’s new partner and Cowboy Dressage ambassador. Santa Fe Renegade won six Morgan World Champion Western Pleasure titles, starting when he was only three years old. He then went on to carry Eitan at performances all over the world. In 2006, Eitan and Santa Fe were featured in the Closing Ceremony of the World Equestrian Games in Aachen, Germany. Their performance was part of the show designed to promote the 2010 World Equestrian Games to be held in Lexington, Kentucky; Eitan and Santa Fe would be there for the opening ceremony.
Turning Points
September 25, 2010. Opening Ceremony, Equestrian World Games, Lexington, Kentucky. Santa Fe and Eitan had already given a spectacular performance earlier in the evening when they came back to do their part in the finale. They were to be the last out of the arena, but Eitan headed for the gate early, only to slide off Santa Fe as he suffered a ventricular fibrillation. Thanks to Santa Fe’s calm reaction and the fortunate presence of the paramedics and a retired doctor, Eitan survived. Ventricular fibrillation means cardiac arrest, and without a defibrillator, usually death. Eitan ended up in intensive care at the University of Kentucky’s Trauma Hospital with nine broken ribs, a fractured sternum and punctured lung from the CPR that saved his life. He was in the ICU for eight days, followed by another week in hospital. For a while, no one knew if he would make it. For Debbie, it was a nightmare.
There have been many times of defeat over the years during which Cowboy Dressage evolved from a dream to reality. It has been a story of passion, heartache, and starting over time and again, but those days in Kentucky were the worst. That was, Deb says, when the journey came close to killing them, but somehow, Eitan recovered, and together they found the strength and courage to keep going despite his long recovery and continued health problems.
HOLIDAY TEMPTRESS
Some people just have a feel for what will be a good cross. Deb chose to breed to Carlyle Command because she felt he was a great horse, even before he had proven that greatness. Before Carlyle, her “dream stallion” was Nemour’s Black Shadow, a beautiful black son of one of the Morgan breed’s most influential sires, Beamington. Deb won a raffle for a breeding to Shadow, and in 1981 bred her mare Decatur’s Magic Touch to him. A year later Holiday Temptress was born.
Debbie remembers Tess as a kind, wonderful mare with a big trot. She would pass her movement and heart to Compadre. Not long after Compadre was born, Tess was sold along with her dam to Dr. Lauren La Rue; both would become important foundation mares for Lauren’s Welcome Ranch. Tess would be bred to Fiddler’s Firstcommand—like Carlyle, a son of the renowned Waseeka’s In Command. That cross would result in a three-quarter brother to Compadre, De Novo Shameless, who would, in turn, sire many horses.
Not surprisingly, when I asked Eitan if there had been any turning point in his career that led to Cowboy Dressage as it is today, he immediately said, “The World Equestrian Games in Kentucky.” His collapse and its aftermath were not what made the impression, however. It is natural for people to ask if that experience changed him, but when we were talking, Eitan said emphatically, “No, not the collapse. But the 20,000 emails did. I had no idea I had touched so many lives.” That overwhelming support of his fans showed Eitan that he had reached many more people than he had ever dreamed. It was marvelous, but it came with a new feeling of responsibility.
Eitan’s first question when he woke up in the ICU was if he would be able to get back on a horse. By the time they aired a short video of Eitan and Debbie at the closing ceremony of the Games, he knew he would be able to ride. The question was
