Adrienne Lyle’s Chance of A Lifetime

Whidbey, also known as Joey, is one of the young prospects Adrienne is developing for the Thomases.

Photo © Nancy Jaffer

As a small child, Adrienne Lyle visited River Grove Farm in Hailey, Idaho, to watch a horse show.  Adrienne Lyle's memories of the trip to the home base of future Olympic dressage rider Debbie McDonald are a little hazy, but one experience there made a permanent impression.  Lyle's experiences with dressage rider Debbie McDonald have changed her life forever.

“I remember being led into the ring on the back of a big, beautiful warmblood, and it was all over after that,” says Adrienne Lyle, recalling that she’d been put on the horse for an awards presentation because “everyone knew what a horse-crazy little girl I was.  Lyle was excited to be working with Olympic dressage rider Debbie McDonald.

“I grew up on a small cattle ranch, and I’d never been around anything like that.”

Someday, though, Adrienne knew she’d be riding those warmbloods for real. What she didn’t know was that she’d return to River Grove in 2005 as Debbie’s working student. Or that her work ethic and riding ability would parlay that experience into a full-time position, which includes training and showing young horses and even exercising Debbie’s Olympic and World Equestrian Games partner, Brentina.

But at that time, Debbie’s universe—at the high end of the dressage spectrum with trips to shows in Europe and competing against the world’s best—was a long way from Adrienne’s life on rural Whidbey Island in Washington state.

Starting Out in a Western Saddle
“We had cows and a couple of ponies,” Adrienne recalls of life on her parents’ small farm. “I started hacking around, riding Western and bareback—I never had formal lessons then. I joined the US Pony Clubs when I was 9 years old because some of my friends joined.”

Adrienne went to her first Pony Club dressage lesson with a Western saddle on a $200 pony named Salsa. From there, she rode in Pony Club Mounted Games and started eventing. Her instruction came in group lessons because her mother, Ann, a doctor, and her father, Greg, a lawyer, “had a vision of a hoity-toity” horse-show world and wanted to keep their daughter grounded.

“My parents have always been supportive, but they’ve totally kept my head in the real world, because it’s so easy to go to a horse show where everything’s gorgeous and fancy and get swept away,” she says. Her big birthday present was always two private lessons a year.

As Adrienne continued with Pony Club, she also began to develop a small business at her parents’ farm, both bringing horses in to train and managing the barn. “I was mucking and grooming,” she recalls. “I learned how to write down all my income and expenses—what you can write off and what you can’t—and how to keep track of everything.”

Often at the beginning of the summer, Adrienne would take on a group of young, inexperienced horses belonging to people from her area. She trained them over the cross-country course her father built and at eventing competitions. “I’d get to Novice level with them and then send them back to the owners,” she says.

One of Adrienne’s duties is cleaning tack: “I enjoy all kinds of barn work, and I thoroughly believe that being a good horseperson means you must participate in ALL aspects of the horse’s care.”

Photo © Nancy Jaffer

Fascinated by Dressage
As her event riding progressed, though, Adrienne found herself fascinated by the dressage aspect of it. “I’d get problem horses and spend so much time in dressage work that when I finally put a jump in front of them, it wasn’t a big deal anymore,” she says. “I just loved the training process.”

Though still dabbling in lower-level eventing, Adrienne started to focus seriously on dressage in 1998 when she was 13—a move that surprised her parents. “I’ve always been a thrill-seeker. Mom called me a total adrenaline junkie,” she laughs. “But I find dressage more challenging than anything else I’ve ever been involved in. I never get bored because there’s always something more to improve on.”

She soon began taking lessons with dressage trainer Carol McArdle of Bellevue, Washington. “I very much admire her gentle training philosophies—being sure to look at things from the horse’s perspective,” Adrienne says of her mentor. “She taught me that every horse is different, so you have to evaluate each one on an individual basis. While you, of course, stick to some general training guidelines and principles, you cannot be arrogant and think you can bully a horse into doing something your way.”

Adrienne was often riding and training by herself, so Carol taught her “how to evaluate things thoroughly and truly understand the mechanics of what was going on, because then I was able to create a plan and fix things on my own.