California Riding Magazine • June, 2009

The Right Match
Kastel Coz Sport Horses and
Roo Alcantar’s Golden Pointe
training barn are a perfect fit.

After a five year hiatus, Irena Coz-Lucas returned to the sporthorse business knowing she’d need the perfect fit in a trainer for her Kastel Coz Sport Horses breeding and boarding center in San Diego County’s Ramona. Roo Alcantar’s resume looked great and interviews with the Ramona native hunter/jumper trainer boded well, but it wasn’t until Alcantar set up shop at Kastel Coz last September that Coz-Lucas began to sense that the fit would be more perfect than she’d envisioned.

With four children of her own, ranging in age from 2 to 14, and a mare-driven breeding program to re-establish, Irena Coz-Lucas needed a trustworthy and self-sufficient trainer. Alcantar has proven to be that and much more. All of Coz-Lucas’ children enjoy the horses and 14-year-old Gina, in particular, is flourishing under Alcantar’s guidance. Simultaneously, Alcantar’s hunter/jumper expertise is a boon to Coz-Lucas’ breeding endeavors. And the ability for Alcantar and her students to have a hand in developing some of the Kastel Coz young horses is a fantastic opportunity to advance everybody’s horsemanship.

“What’s evolving is a lovely symbiotic relationship,” Coz observes.
Alcantar grew up in Ramona, where she campaigned her Arabian pony in hunter/jumper and dressage competitions and earned lessons as a working student. Her passion for horses, quest for knowledge and willingness to work hard continued to earn her opportunities to advance her equestrian education while attending UC Santa Barbara. She served on UCSB’s Horse Boarders Assn. executive board for three years and held various volunteer posts that honed her teaching and working with kids skills, all while maintaining her own two horses and earning a degree in Environmental Studies with an education emphasis.

She taught riding throughout college and, after graduation, was the riding school director for Dana Sachey’s eventing stable, Raintree Ranch, from 1999 to 2003. Alcantar established her own Turning Point Farm in Santa Barbara and ran it successfully with the mission of “providing support and correct riding principles to create horsemen and horsewomen and an environment that fosters a sense of community, work ethic and responsibility.”

Return To Ramona

Successful in Santa Barbara for several years, Alcantar and her husband, farrier Bryce Petter, welcomed the chance to return to Ramona, in part to care for elderly parents. She changed the name of her business to Golden Pointe Farm, but the emphasis on creating effective riders and true horsemen stayed the same and the results are already great.

Golden Pointe’s riders were stars in the Greater San Diego Hunter/Jumper Association’s 2008 year-end standings. Kylie Hembree and Dance Card were Green Rider 12-and-under Champion; Aubrey Canfield and Official Request were Long Stirrup Reserve Champion; Daniela Dunne and Gucci finished third in the AA Jumpers; Waltz With Me was fourth in the Baby Greens and Rindi Kessler and Smooth Sailing earned the achievement medal in the Walk/Trot division. With the exception of Dunne, who relocated from Santa Barbara to continue training with Alcantar, all these riders were in their first year showing with the Golden Pointe Farms team.

Eloise King and Ursula Fuengerlings were Alcantar’s main dressage influences throughout her junior years. The applicability of classical dressage principles in all riding disciplines was one of many lessons Alcantar carried forward in her own teaching. Her program emphasizes the “building blocks of an independent seat and hand, with the end goal of being able to use their aids with finesse,” she explains.

“We’ll do ‘dressage geometry,’ where the students learn about suppling and balancing and how these really play a role when you are doing a hunter or medal class,” Alcantar continues. “They’ll see how the half halt and leg yield they learned makes sense when they need to balance in the corner of a jumping course. It’s all about instilling strong basics and realizing the potential in our riders and horses.”

Golden Pointe currently has 15 to 20 horses in training and students ranging from riding school beginners to experienced young amateur competitor Daniela Dunne, who will be showing off some of Kastel Coz’s up-and-coming stars on the circuit. Competitive goals are not mandatory for Golden Pointe riders, but the training program is geared in that direction. Alcantar’s students were stars in the Greater San Diego Hunter Jumper Assn. year-end awards last year and this year the trainer hopes to add the Santa Barbara National “Turkey Show” and a few other USEF rated competitions to the schedule as her students progress.

Back To Breeding

Meanwhile Coz-Lucas is thrilled to resume her breeding endeavors with Kastel Coz Sport Horses. An experienced dressage competitor with eventing mileage in the U.S. and France, Coz-Lucas entered the breeding business in 1994 using her Warmblood Hobby as her foundation mare. Between 1996 and 2004, Coz-Lucas had a successful show ring run with Hobby, her offspring and several of the other mares and offspring in her program. These show ring champs included Fiesta, Marahoote, Meeko, Prince of Prussia and Yoyo Mae. When her father fell ill, however, Coz-Lucas put the equine enterprise on the back burner and her beautiful training and boarding facility sat quiet for much of the next five years.

With Kastel Coz Sport Horses back in full swing, Coz-Lucas is particularly excited about two current breedings. Her Feiner Stern mare, Fiona, (one of that stallion’s last) is in foal to Hilltop’s Donarweiss GGF and one of Hobby’s daughters, Violet, is slated to be bred to Hilltop’s handsome grey Riverman. Above all, Coz-Lucas is happy to be back producing top flight sporthorses for any of the english disciplines. “I decide a pairing based on versatility,” she explains. “I am always looking out for the dressage horses because that’s my personal interest, but the hunter/jumper market is very important to me, too.” Ponies are on the breeding agenda in the very near future, she adds.

Conformation, temperament and performance records for the mare and/or its offspring, parents or siblings are the criteria she zeroes in on when evaluating a mare’s potential to join the Kastel Coz Sport Horse program. When contemplating various match-ups, “My rule of thumb is to look at the stallion and mare and ask myself, ‘If I got the worst of both horses would I still be satisfied with the outcome?’ If the answer is ‘yes,’ then it’s a go.”

The happy pairing for Golden Pointe and Kastel Coz means things are once again bustling at the beautiful, private 12-acre Kastel Coz Sport Horses facility. Top riders, true horsemen and great horses are sure to be emerging steadily from this strong base for many years to come.

For more information on Kastel Coz Sport Horses, visit www.kastelcozsporthorses.com or call 760-415-6044. For more information on Golden Pointe Farm, visit www.goldenpointefarm.com or call Roo Alcantar at 760-315-0271.