Orcutt Veterinary Hospital owner Brenda Forsythe has an unorthodox and longstanding routine for her lunch break.
After a long morning of treating animals at the clinic, Forsythe hops in her car and heads for the stables. Her husband meets her there.
“I eat lunch on the way out there and then ride my horse during my break,” Forsythe told the Sun. “We tend to ride every day.”
Horses are a lifelong passion for Forsythe, who tends to them both medically at her business (which she founded in 2006), recreationally, and competitively. She first started riding as a kid in Southern California.
“I’ve always been very passionate about horses; I grew up just loving them,” she said, “riding my whole life, training, breeding—everything.”
When it came to horse shows, Forsythe’s predominant interest for many years was in show jumping. But about a decade ago, her passion unexpectedly shifted to classical dressage.
“My wonderful, old retired horse now—he was a jumper,” Forsythe explained. “As he started to get older, it got hard on his body. When he was about 15, I needed to figure out some other way to extend his career, and I ended up exploring the possibility of transitioning to dressage.”
Forsythe described dressage—a French word that means “training”—as extremely technical, precise, and challenging. It demands impeccable trust and communication between the rider and horse, as the horse executes a “test,” made up of 15 to 20 elements or movements, that’s then scrutinized by judges. The sport has several levels of competition, from introductory, all the way up to Grand Prix, which is an Olympic level.
The transition to dressage clicked for both Forsythe and her horse, and it became her new focus. She was immediately drawn to all of its subtleties.
“What really intrigued me was just how much there is to learn, how much precision there is, how very specific all of it is,” Forsythe said. “Intellectually, I just became fascinated by it and realized that it was a whole world I wanted to explore.”
When her elderly horse reached retirement age, Forsythe started the process all over with her younger horse, Vinny.
She also got her husband, Jerry Beatty, hooked on dressage along the way.
“Jerry was kind of my helping hand at the horse shows,” Forsythe said, “and he eventually became interested in showing, just because he’d been watching me do it so much. Eventually he transitioned over to dressage as well.”
The duo’s dressage journey hit a pinnacle at the U.S. Dressage Federation National Awards in Lexington, Kentucky, on Dec. 2. Forsythe and Beatty took home five medals—two amateur titles, two “vintage” cup titles (for riders over 50), and Forsythe won an “open” title, which included professional dressage riders.
It was their first time winning national medals.
“It was a cool thing,” Forsythe said.
Dressage is an activity that Forsythe sees herself continuing for many years—and many more lunch breaks—to come, because it’s so challenging and difficult to master. That makes success all the more rewarding.
“It can be frustrating, just because it’s so specific and precise,” Forsythe said. “You just have to work at it so often and diligently. … It’s a really neat feeling when it all comes together, kind of like the perfect golf swing. That’s why everybody goes out and chases golf balls all day, because they’re all pursuing that one beautiful moment when it all feels perfect.”
Sports contributor Peter Johnson can be reached at pjohnson@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Dec 14-21, 2017.