Freedom Health is proud to announce a new member of Team SUCCEED: western dressage pioneer Eitan Beth-Halachmy and his Morgan stallions.
Eitan is our kind of guy. After a 45-minute interview the other day he was antsy to get off the phone because he was ready to get out of the house and ride his horses. We don’t blame him for that; it’s obvious how much he enjoys his horses and their unique discipline of western dressage.
Eitan Beth-Halachmy Pioneers The Western Dressage Movement
Eitan grew up studying classical dressage and horsemanship under Adam George, Director of the Israeli National Stud and a former Hungarian cavalry officer. However, from the time he was young, Eitan was enthralled with the Hollywood cowboy and the symbiotic relationship of the cowboy and his cowhorse.
After a 6-month stint as a farm exchange student in the US followed by 2-years of cleaning stalls at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, Eitan returned to the US for good. It was then that he combined his dual loves of cowboy and classical dressage to launch the western dressage style.
“My riding style is a combination of the classical riding I learned from watching the masters at the Spanish Riding School, from Adam George, and from a man I knew only as ‘Leopold’, a circus trainer,” Eitan says. “The ‘dressage’ I learned brings the element of discipline, and the ‘cowboy’ represents freedom: absence of confinement. The combination is unique, and lots of fun ― almost a dream.”
Western dressage’s primary goal is to bring the training benefits of dressage movements like shoulder-in, haunches-in, and half-pass to the lightness and spirit of the western horse.
In the last 20 years, Eitan has performed western dressage with his Morgan horses at major equestrian events around the world from Equine Affaire and Equitana to the World Equestrian Games in 2006 and 2010.
He has also helped to launch the Western Dressage Association, an organization dedicated to developing western dressage across breeds, disciplines, and competitions. The USEF is on-board and has helped develop rules and tests for the first western dressage classes held at Morgan shows.
Western Dressage Horse Santa Fe Renegade Struggles with Hindgut Issues
After traveling home from Aachen, Germany where they performed in the 2006 World Equestrian Games, Eitan’s Morgan Stallion Santa Fe Renegade was diagnosed with an enterolith (a “stone” or build-up of material around a foreign object in the digestive tract) and underwent surgery to have it removed.
After that, the previously healthy horse began to regularly struggle with his digestive health. From then on, Eitan had many sleepless nights living over the barn where he could hear his horse groaning and rolling in his discomfort.
Eitan Tries SUCCEED with Sante Fe Renegade
While wandering through the barns at the 2010 World Equestrian Games, Eitan happened to meet Freedom Health president John Hall. Naturally, the conversation turned to horses, Santa Fe Renegade’s GI issues, equine digestive health, and eventually to SUCCEED®.
Eitan went home with a 60-Day supply of SUCCEED® and immediately started Renegade on it.
SUCCEED Offers Peace of Mind and a Horse That Looks Like a Million Bucks
Here’s what Eitan had to say about the differences he saw in Sante Fe Renegade:
I started pushing SUCCEED into his mouth every day, and I started sleeping better at night.
Santa Fe Renegade has been healthy since. Things are really glowing down there. He looks like a million bucks. His coat is shiny, he’s dappled, and his weight is nice. He performs better than he ever has before. We started breeding him last week, and his counts were very high.
We know that Santa Fe Renegade’s life has become a better life. It’s very hard for us to put words in a horses’ mouth, but we didn’t change anything other than putting him on SUCCEED®. As long as he keeps doing what he’s doing, we will keep him on SUCCEED®.
The biggest thing is that SUCCEED® offers us peace of mind. We know we’re doing the very best for him. We now have all our stalled horses on SUCCEED®.
So many people do all they can to make the outside of the horse look good. SUCCEED® has given us a real education in what is good and what is needed for the digestive system of the horse – besides grooming, good hay, and exercise. It’s become a joy for us to enlighten others.
We are proud to have Eitan Beth-Halachmy and his horses on Team SUCCEED. If you would like to learn more about Eitan and western dressage, subscribe to the SUCCEED RSS feed (or use the email form in the sidebar) for future articles on this exciting rider and discipline.
