Young hunter/jumper rider and trainer Cathleen Calvert is stepping out on her own with Belle Terre, her new hunter/jumper training barn based at Valenti Estates and Saddle Club in Rancho Santa Fe. The full-service, modestly-sized business is new on the Southern California A-circuit scene, but Cathleen is anything but. Since winning gold at the 2000 North American Young Riders Championships, the Canadian native has been a regular in this area.
During her prime Young Riders years, Cathleen commuted to California to campaign under Karen Healey’s direction. Cathleen and her Young Riders partner, the mare Shania, were steady contenders in the Grand Prix ring for many years, and Cathleen worked privately for a Southern California family for the last several years.
Cathleen envisions Belle Terre as a 20-horse training barn and hopes for a variety of clients and horses that will compete on the local A circuit and beyond that as abilities and ambitions dictate.
Whatever the level of its competitive efforts, the stable’s focus will always be on each horse’s well-being, Cathleen emphasizes. “It’s a horse-oriented program,” she explains. “Our main concern will always be their health and soundness.” That approach is good for the horses, of course, and it’s good for the people, too. Since stepping out on her own, Cathleen has done most of the horse keeping herself, a mode that has always served her well as a horsewoman and a competitor. “Not having a big staff has sort of reconnected me to working with our young horses and show horses,” she observes. “It has reminded me that everybody rides better when we are involved in our horses’ care.”
Cathleen knows that busy schedules often prevent kids and amateurs from spending as much time at the barn as they would like to. Belle Terre provides full-care grooming service to accommodate this reality, but Cathleen is confident that horsemanship can be conveyed by teaching students as many whys as hows. “I think riders have more success when they understand why we do what we do,” she says. “I’m not planning a cookie cutter, assembly line training business.” Throughout her super successful junior and young amateur days, Cathleen did the majority of her own horse care and preparation.
Asked whether she detects demand for horsemanship-based training, Cathleen laughs with characteristic cheerfulness: “I hope so!” The industry at large seems to be leaning that way as programs like the Los Angeles Hunter/Jumper Assn.’s Horsemanship Challenge and George Morris’ Horsemastership Program attract many applicants and generate rave reviews.
“I think there are a lot of people out there who want to show, and also want to have their horse as a pet and to spend all day at the barn when they can,” Cathleen notes. “I think there are people that want to know their horses, to do things slowly and properly. I hope to attract some of them.”
Belle Terre is French for “good earth,” and Cathleen has in mind a down-to-earth ambiance at her barn. She’ll be running things with help from her parents Janie and Ernie, who spend part of the year in Del Mar, and her boyfriend, Tony Oddo, who Cathleen describes as a budding horse enthusiast. “It’s a family style operation.”
As for her own riding, Cathleen is out of the Grand Prix ring for the moment. At presstime, Shania was due to deliver her first foal, by the Dutch Warmblood More Than Luck, any time. Cathleen’s mounts are mainly youngsters and she and her backers have their eyes on a few jumper prospects.
For more information about Belle Terre, please contact Cathleen Calvert at 858-353-8479 or via e-mail at cathleencalvert82@hotmail.com.
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