BY KAREN BOSSICK

Debbie McDonald is known as the first lady of dressage, having been one of the most successful competitors and trainers in American dressage history. She won a bronze medal in the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens as part of the four-rider U.S. Dressage team, then competed at the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing.

And on Saturday McDonald left her home in Hailey for Paris where she will coach this year’s American Olympic dressage riders, including Olympic medalist Adrienne Lyle who began honing her skills with McDonald at the River Grove Farm north of Hailey 20 years ago. The 2024 Summer Olympics gets underway today.

The dressage competition will be held July 31 to Aug. 4 amidst the gardens of the Palace of Versailles where Marie Antoinette once hosted lavish banquets.

“We’re going over there to go head-to-head with the best of the best,” McDonald said before she left.

McDonald, who in 2003 became the first American to become a World Cup dressage champion, has been working with several American equestrians, including Adrienne Lyle who won a silver medal at the 2020 Tokyo games riding Salvino with McDonald as team coach. Lyle also competed in the 2012 Olympics.

Lyle will be riding a new horse—a 12-year-old horse she only met in December—three months after the qualification period began for the Olympics. The horse is so new it didn’t even make it to the States until Jan. 15.

“Helix is extremely talented, but he had been ridden by a Swedish rider who had no chance of making it to the Olympics,” said McDonald. “The owner put the horse on the market, and we went over and tried him and felt in a short period of time that Adrienne could make things different and better.”

Lyle focused on simple steps like walking and trotting the first month. But by the second month she was able to meld her touch with his people-pleasing ways to secure a place on the team, winning at TerraNova in Maly in only their second international competition together.

Finding a horse with Olympic potential is extremely difficult—like finding a needle in a haystack, said McDonald.

“It can take 10 years to build a grand prix horse because their muscles have to be managed and developed to do the things they do. Sometimes you put in six years and decide they’re not going to make it and you have to sell them and start over again.”

The United State does not have a medal-winning team this year, McDonald said. A stallion was on the silver medal team in Tokyo, but it’s getting too old for competition. Another is 10 years old, which is very young.

“Adrienne is not all that familiar with her horse, but she does have the experience, this being her third Olympics. She has a lot of natural feel for a horse and the ability to train a horse not with force but to get it to work for her. And this one loves to come out and work,” said McDonald.

While McDonald flew to Paris in a passenger jet, it was a different story for the horses. Their trip to the Palace of Versailles began by boarding cargo planes, accompanied by their grooms. The planes fly 30 horses on a flight if they’re headed to a country where the horses have to be quarantined.

Like people they must pass passport control, ascertaining that they’re who they’re supposed to be and that they’ve had the necessary vaccines and blood tests. They’re then put onto pallets and lifted onto the plane by forklift where they’re put in stalls and given giant nets of hay and water.

Upon landing, they’re checked through customs. And, yes, they have to deal with jet lag, just as humans.

“Usually, flying is a smoother ride than standing in a trailer going down a bumpy road. If there’s no turbulence, they can fall asleep standing,” said McDonald.

At the Olympic site, their riders will work with them. Other days they may go on easy trail rides, workout on a water treadmill or even enjoy a day off. They’re immersed in a 32-degree cold water spa after workouts.

“It’s like a football player—they have body parts that get sore and tight so we cool them down right away,” McDonald said. “The maintenance that goes into these horses—I don’t think anybody has a clue how well they’re taken care of. Acupuncture, massage, laser treatment, treadmill work so they can keep fitness up without pounding their legs all the time…”

Many of the horses went to Germany a couple months ahead of the Olympics where they have been working in “terrible weather” with temperatures in the mid-60s and pouring rain, McDonald said.

“Adrienne was in competition when the sky just let loose. She closed her fist really hard and the water just poured out of her glove. Paris, they tell us, could be quite warm, and it could be rainy. So, we’re ready for whatever.”

McDonald, who stands five feet tall, started in show jumping but switched to dressage after she fell and her horse somersaulted over her, breaking her ribs, rupturing her spleen and fracturing a vertebra in her neck.

She switched to dressage, training at the River Grove Farm, then owned by Parry and Peggy Thomas, and made a name for herself on Brentina, a chestnut Hanoverian mare that she and her husband Bob obtained at a German auction in 1994.

With Brentina, she won Individual and Team Gold medals at the 1999 Pan American Games and was named 1999 Equestrian of the Year by the U.S. Equestrian Federal. The U.S. Olympic Committee named her Female Equestrian Athlete of the Year.

She and Brentina was the first American rider to win the Dressage World Cup in 2003. And a couple years later she and Brentina placed third at the 2005 World Cup. They also won a team silver and bronze at the 2002 and 2006 World Equestrian games.

McDonald was named the U.S. Equestrian Federation’s Developing Dressage Coach in 2010.

“After I went to Hong Kong for the 2008 Olympics, I was already thinking I was going to be retiring. I knew I needed to pass the torch to somebody young. I had left my two other grand prix horses with Adrienne to ride, and she did such a beautiful job I said: What would you say if I said you could take over the ride on these horses? Parry sponsored her until the end of his life. Then Betsy Juliano bought a stallion for her and she did amazing things with him.”

This will be McDonald’s fourth Olympic Games coaching.

“I just give them pointers on where they can get better—picky little things,” she said. “Coaching is just as nerve wracking as being on the horse myself. In fact, I’m even more nervous because I can’t control anything. Inside I’m a nervous wreck because I want it so bad for them.”

Today’s riders have more stress than she did.

“When I competed, there were four riders on a team and the lowest score was dropped. Now they only allow three horses on a team. Since you can’t drop a score, there’s a lot more pressure on riders—no one can have a mistake.”

This could be the last Olympics for McDonald.

“I will always be there for Adrienne and the others, but I’m not going to spend all winter in Florida coaching,” she said. “I want to spend more time in Sun Valley because that’s where I want to be. My son and daughter-in-law and grandchildren are in Boise and I want to see more of them. Sun Valley is where my heart is.”

OTHER OLYMPIANS WITH IDAHO CONNECTIONS:

Matteo Jorgenson, Boise, Cyclist fresh off the Tour de France and only the third American to win the Paris-Nice race

Marisa Howard, Boise State University graduate and coach-to-be, Women’s 3000m Steeplechase

Alyssa Mendoza, Boxing, Caldwell

Chari Hawkins, Rexburg, Women’s Heptathlon

Haley Batten, Women’s Cross-country Mountain Biking, coached by Boise’s Olympic Gold Medalist Kristin Armstrong

Chloe Dygert, Women’s Cycling Time Trial and Road Race, coached by Kristin Armstrong

Airi Miyabe, College of Southern Idaho, Women’s Volleyball for Japan

Avery Howell, Boise, Women’s Basketball for Canada (alternate)

Emily Sams, Boise, Women’s Soccer (alternate)

Elizabeth “Lizzie” Bird, coached by Boise State’s Pat McCurry, Women’s 3000m Steeplechase for Great Britain

Sam Atkin, Lewis-Clar State College graduate, Men’s 5000m for Great Britain