Nick Haness’ resume reads like that of somebody at least 10 years older. The hunter/jumper rider is only 18, but he is already well underway in his professional career. He’s filmed a fun role in a TV show set on the show circuit, he has a big league sponsor in UlcerGard™ and he has three years worth of horse buying and selling experience under his belt.
A native of Orange County’s Coto de Caza, Nick became a full-fledged professional this year. He has partnered up with top Northern California trainer John Bragg to run a Southern California satellite of Bragg’s Bridgeport Farms, which is based in Woodside.
Nick started the year off at HITS Thermal, then will move into a private barn in San Diego County’s Rancho Santa Fe. The professional relationship with John began during Nick’s final junior year, a period in which Nick catch rode many Bridgeport horses and earned top finishes in almost every year-end category.
On the national circuit, Nick scored top 10 finishes in the ASPCA Maclay Finals, the Monarch International Equitation Championships and the WIHS Finals. A long list of 2006 West Coast accomplishments is highlighted by champion of the area’s USEF Show Jumping Talent Search Final and receipt of the California Professional Horsemen’s Association’s Junior Achievement Award.
On the PCHA circuit, Nick rode Glen Eagle and Providence, two Bridgeport horses, to champion and reserve champion in the year-end Junior Hunter standings. These were two of 80 championship and reserve championships he piloted horses to in the junior and rated hunter divisions last year.

Classic Go-Getter
Nick is a classic go-getter. At 15, he and his mother Shawna Dakides made a nice profit from the sale of a horse named Carson. Nick realized then that buying, developing and selling horses could go a long way toward covering the escalating costs of his increasingly ambitious equestrian dreams. He’s been going to Europe regularly ever since and has earned a solid reputation for identifying equine potential.
“It’s mostly a gut instinct,” says Nick of the horse selection process. “If I like riding them and have a certain connection with them, I usually have good luck with the horse.”
Nick’s ability to connect with horses may have something to do with his background as a self-sufficient junior. Although he worked with various trainers over the years, Nick spent a lot of time developing his mounts on his own. Allison Sherred was his main Southern California trainer, and in 2006, Nick met up with John Bragg at competitions. He often did his own grooming and horse care chores at home and at shows.
Turning professional has not been a huge transition. “It’s not so much different from what I’d been doing,” Nick reports. “I’m basically in the same position, but in some ways, there is less pressure. Now that my junior career is over, I don’t have to make the money to keep showing.” He has his eye on a few hot jumper prospects and is optimistic that, in time, he’ll find sponsors to support a Grand Prix track.
Going pro has changed Nick’s perspective. “I’m enjoying not just focusing on short term things,” he relays. “I’m just being myself and developing good horsemanship and sportsmanship.” Nick seems remarkably at ease socializing, an important part of an aspiring international rider’s success. “I have developed a lot of relationships with people on the East Coast and I know that the more people you know, the better off you are in life.”
A very popular young man on the circuit, Nick admits that choosing horses over college has its price, namely in the form of seeing many show friends leave the scene for school. While he relishes his independence and freedom from studies, Nick is also contemplating community college courses.

Loves the Horses & the Sport
The young rider has a great appreciation and enthusiasm for the sport and its history. He enjoyed his own time in the awards banquet limelight at January’s PCHA/CPHA convention, and took equal interest in the presentations made to the men and woman who came before him. Seeing Hap Hansen receive the Lifetime Achievement Award, for example, “made me realize that the sport provides a good lifestyle and what a privilege it is to do something you love to do. You see that, even as the people come and go, it’s all about the horses.
“It’s nice to look back and see how much the sport has changed. Someday, I’ll be looking back and it will have changed a lot, too.”
What hopefully won’t change in Nick’s era is the sport’s tendency to help good things happen to good, hard-working kids. The UlcerGard™ sponsorship and his role on the TV series LA Riding Club are two such examples. Both came Nick’s way two years ago. “I was stressed out for a lot of financial reasons,” he recalls. “I had a horse and the points to go back East, but not the money.”
That was right when Gennifer Gardiner was creating and pitching her show circuit-based TV program, LA Riding Club. “They were looking for eight top riders representing different ends of the spectrum. There were kids from really wealthy families, and I was the kid who had to work for it. UlcerGard™ saw this as an opportunity when I asked them to sponsor me.”
Nick had competed mostly on the regional circuit at that time, and greatly appreciated the company’s faith in him. “It was really nice, in my last junior year, that I could prove to them that they’d been right to sponsor me.”
The TV show has yet to air in the States, although it has run to good reviews for two seasons in Europe. It was originally pitched to American networks at the same time as Road To The Maclay, which ran on Animal Planet. Nick figures that show may have hurt LA Riding Club’s prospects, but says the program detailing these riders’ lifestyles is still a going entity with the possibility of filming new episodes.
Another great opportunity came by way of an invitation from the United States Equestrian Federation to attend the Horsemanship Sessions with George Morris (see story by fellow California participant Zazou Hoffman on page 34).
“We learned a lot of things in addition to basic riding. We went into complete horse care, conformation, barn management,” Nick explains. “Having that time with George Morris was really valuable. He talked a lot about his goals for American riders over the years, and treated us like the next generation of riders.”
Beezie Madden tops Nicks list of most-admired American riders. “We got to watch Beezie school some of her horses in Wellington. She is so quiet as a rider, it’s amazing. When I do the jumpers, I feel like I’m working a lot harder.”
In his dwindling amounts of free time, Nick likes to snowboard and hit the beach. He hopes to return to the Indoors hunter/jumper circuit back East this fall, but knows that that will be John Bragg’s call. In the meantime, Nick looks forward to settling into new digs in Rancho Santa Fe and to parlaying his junior accomplishments into equally impressive successes as a full-time professional.