GLOBETROTTING FRIDAY DRESSAGE STAR PRESENTER

When EQUITANA Melbourne dressage star presenter Will Rogers talks about connection with the horse, he’s meaning a far higher level than most can even imagine.

It’s his gift for helping others “find the magic” that allows them the most balanced, harmonious and happy dressage horse that takes him into a rather special league.

The German based Aussie may have spent decades with horses but recent years have been a revelation for him. He and wife Anna Blomgren, who rides dressage at top level for Sweden, with four-year-old son Jasper are based at Monica Theodorescu’s old yard in Warendorf town near Sassenberg. It is where Monica and her father George won gold medals from and is a place steeped in history that has also played a part in Will’s own journey.

Will has spent time training and working with some of the best in the world as well as performing at key European events, but his biggest learnings have come from horses not humans.

Rhythm and relaxation are critical to create a balanced, comfortable and willing horse. “I like to start by finding each individual horses preferred rhythm and balance as a baseline to build from.” Having a horse perform to its best in a dressage arena called for many layers of discovery and “opening doors” to find answers and reflection. Will is hoping to make that journey a little easier for others.

“My path has been a series of really hard moments of lessons” he says. “The thing is that what we are all looking for is not actually to win a competition but rather for the felling of what that would be like. If I worked my whole life to win an Olympic gold medal, and then I won it, the next day I would have to find another thing to create that sense of fulfillment. The crux of it is what we can learn and develop through working with horses and riding dressage . . . this is where the magic lives.”

He has always been good at getting his horses to perform. “So why did I feel I was just going through the motions? I realised I was not giving the horse enough space to find themselves in the work,” says Will. “When you start to reward the horse for finding their way in the training, the horse comes to life.”

The discovery has been lifechanging. “I have been a very analytical thinking person my whole life and now I try and focus on feeling and not thinking as much.”

He has had to do a lot of “undoing” to get out of that constant thinking, analysing and judging perspective.

“I have nothing to teach horses, they have been teaching me all along,” says Will, “I just didn’t know it. People are always trying to control horses . . . but really we want the horse to find themselves in the work so they can do it in a way they enjoy. My whole thing is about personal change in humans. If the horse is uncomfortable or stressed for extended periods of time they go inside themselves and start to shut down.”

At EQUITANA he plans to give people reflective tools so they can see if they change within themselves, everything with their horse will also change – for the better. “The secret to each person and each horse is in being yourself.”

He feels the biggest “difference” between people is awareness. “I will help them find a higher level of awareness in what they are doing so their dressage dreams become more possible. It sounds esoteric, but it is true,” says Will. “Much of the time we try and focus on just techniques and systems, but that is not the right place to start. You have to start with awareness and then take that into the practical application.”

Horses are masters of reading energy and body language. “People are often unconscious of their own energy and what their bodies are doing. A horse will mirror what the rider is channelling. I want to make every day’s work fulfilling, and not just about winning. If we want dressage to thrive we need to develop our awareness and knowledge of horses further.”

Will says it was now “heaven” working his own horses. “There is nothing people could offer me that is better. This is the first time in my life I have felt this and the most valuable thing ever. What we can learn from horses can teach us more about ourselves than anything else.”

Will grew up on a farm in Victoria, Australia, with two very passionate farming  parents. “We moved around a fair bit – mum and dad bought and sold farms before moving on to the next one.”

His mum bought him Jinksie the pony when he was four. “She was probably a sweet sort of pony but frustrated with me who didn’t really know what I was doing.”

He clearly remembers a turning point in his fledgling riding career. “I was about six and mum picked us up from the bus. We were moving sheep along the road and she was leading me on her thoroughbred. She let me go, the horse bolted through the mob and went to run home. I was just a passenger and had no control at all.”

That put a stop on those usual crazy hooning around the farm the most youngsters thrived on. “I came off on the road and was knocked up pretty bad. I was terrified of horses until I was about 12 after that.”

By then the family had moved to New South Wales and the family started doing stock horse classes and camp drafting. Will proved a natural and as his confidence grew so too did the realisation he wanted to build his life around horses.

Between the ages of 13 and 22 they became his obsession and dressage certainly wasn’t on his radar. “I was training and starting young horses and cutting horses. At 20 he headed Stateside to continue the work. He wanted to be the best, so he sought out the best and based for a time with Lloyd Cox, the leading money earner and greatest of all time in cutting.

“It was my dream to go and learn from him so I could be the best in the world, but that wasn’t my path,” says Will. “What you want to have happen is not always your way.”

He moved on to spend a year-and-a-half with one of the top cutting breeders in the States and thrived during his time there. I would ride 30-odd  horses a day and after a while it becomes like a factory feeling and you are judging the horses on how good they are instead of what they really are and trying to develop them.” He met all his heroes but felt they weren’t really that in love with what they were doing. “I wasn’t about to dedicate 15 years of my life to end up like that.”

So he turned to his mate Tristan Tucker. Their very different worlds of dressage and cutting horses had crossed in Australia some time back and a special friendship sparked.

Will had been told by his friend and farrier what a great horseman Tristan was. “That pricked my ears and then we met on a birthday fishing trip and immediately I felt there was something about him that was different. He was obsessed like me too.” Turned out they lived just two minutes apart and they started doing things together. “He taught me a lot in the beginning. Before I went to the States we would start a lot of young horses together. I remember feeling disappointed he was into dressage and I was into cutting because I felt if we worked together, we could do something great because we shared the same philosophy and that was the way I wanted to go.”

Fast forward a few years to when Will was in the States and Tristan called him to suggest he come to Denmark to join him. That was when Will saw Totilas compete at Aachen and became fascinated with dressage. “When I saw that horse, I realised he was light years ahead of anything else. I remember seeing this spectacular horse mesmerize the whole audience, and I knew that was the direction I wanted to go.”

It challenged Will to find an even more refined communication with horses.

“A lot of these performance trainers don’t really understand horses internally but Tristan was onto something interesting. He too felt we could so amazing stuff together.”

He wasn’t wrong and they moved from working with horses no one could do anything with, to being more specialised in dressage. “The early horses had so many bad experiences and trauma so there is quite a process to undo that, and to replace that fear with something else. In this process both Tristan and I learnt so much.”

They earned a reputation for training horses to be far more relaxed, balanced and easy to handle.

But there was another lesson in the making. “The thing with the cutting horse industry is that it is a lot about numbers. You have to educate and ride a lot of horses to select the top few.

“For so long I was trying to everything I could to be great and along the way I slowly realised that at every turn it became more apparent that I needed to change, not the horse,” he says.

“Once you start to wake up and change yourself, everything else changes and the big lessons come. In essence my journey has been about horses and life helping me wake up further and further to where I now recognise all change starts from the inside.”

His dream is to see things become “more beautiful” so riders are continually creating magic with their horses. “That is my wish. Happy horses and happy riders. I want to help people find theirs and their horse’s best version through connection and respect.” Rhythm and relaxation are critical to create a balanced, comfortable and willing horse.  “I like to start by finding each individual horses preferred rhythm and balance as a baseline to build from.

I am not only living my dream but I have far exceeded any dream I ever had . . . I never thought I would say that.”

And now he is on a mission to help others find that same solace.