On the Triangle with: John Amber
- Quinnten Alston
- Mar 18
- 11 min read
Updated: Mar 18
A Meeting of Old Friends
I first met John some 15 years ago during the early stages of my professional career at Rolling Stone Farm in Slatington, Pennsylvania. He had a few years on me (I still like to remind him) and was just coming off of a twelve-year tour in Germany as an employed rider. If I was the Daniel, maybe we could say he was the Mr. Myagi. We became good friends and over time built a mutual respect for each other based on our love for the horses. In my eyes, John may be one of the "best kept secrets" of the North American dressage world, but for Wellington, Florida, he plays an integral role in keeping the "machine," as it is, well-oiled.
John and I sat down to speak at length about his background in the industry, the state of dressage in North America, as well as what to keep in mind when breeding for the modern sporthorse from a rider's perspective. I also visited with the promising My Fair Lady, a direct daughter of the former Danish Grand Prix team horse My Lady sired by Franklin. Bred by Janne Rumbough and now owned by Pam Wildman, "Mimi" is a testament to the devotion that John has put into his craft throughout a career spanning both the United States and Germany.
Photos of My Fair Lady and Just a Secret by Quinnten Alston
Quinnten: How did you get into horses. What is that background?
John: I got into horses through school, actually. I think I was in second grade and one of the assistant teachers at the school taught lessons in the afternoon. I think my mom figured it would be like [the sports] and everything else that I did, just something that I did along the way. Little did she know that it was going to be the path that my life took.
I still remember getting to that first lesson and just feeling like that was where I was supposed to be. I stuck with it from there. I think it was a large part of me even getting through school. I wasn’t exactly the best in school — I had learning difficulties and it was never a simple process for me. My mom said to me “if you really want to ride, whatever we need to do we’ll figure it out, but you’ve got to make it through school.” The last couple years of high school I did a lot better, but by that point I had also realized that this was the path that I wanted to take in life.
Q: That was going to be my next question. When did you start thinking that you wanted to do this professionally and what was that path like?
J: In high school I became even more interested in looking at horse riding being a path of profession for me. I started working for Ann Kitchel at Huntington Farm in Vermont and went from a working student position there to an assistant trainer position — working and riding a lot of the young horses and getting on them for the first time. I was the teenage boy that loved the adrenaline and didn’t mind getting on young horses. If they bucked and things like that, I thought it was fun [laughs].
I had an opportunity of going to Lendon Gray’s but I made a deal with Ann that I would help her when her trainer was out having a baby. In return, she needed to help me get to Germany. Ann and Holly Simensen set me up with my first boss in Germany, Johannes Westendarp.
Q: You worked for a couple different farms while you were in Germany...
J: I started at Johannes’ place in Osnabrück working with a ton of young horses — young stallion prospects, mares, and sales horses. I got to go with him often to watch them get ready for the auctions in Vechta. I worked for Johannes for maybe two years, but I couldn’t get an actual worker's visa through him.
Along that point in time, Lisa Wilcox contacted me about a job with Gestüt Sprehe. I started working for Sprehe doing mainly the training for all of the young stallions — getting them ready for their 30- and 70-day testing, preparing them for the Bundeschampionate, and the World Championships as well. I was able to work with some incredible trainers, including Holga Finken, Karin Rehbein, and Falk Rosenbauer. Holga and I worked well together, and I still admire him and his young horse training ability.
I worked for Sprehe for quite a few years. Towards the end of my time in Germany, I moved over to Clemens von Merveldt. Clemens had a facility in Vechta, quite close to the auction house. Clemens had his Masters in horsemanship, the Pferdewirtschaftsmeister. He was very educated both with the breeding and the training. Really also a great guy to work for, I was with him for about two years.
Q: I know you rode [the international Grand Prix horse and sire] Desperados as a young horse, are there any other “famous” stallions that you rode during your time in Germany?
I started Desperados (De Niro x Wolkenstein II) for Sprehe as a three-year-old. He wasn’t the easiest to start, had a lot of attitude, they wanted to geld him. I could feel that he had it in him though, and they gave me some time to just work with him and let him develop. And boy did he! Spectacular when he figured himself out.
I rode Fürst Heinrich (Florestan I x Donnerhall) for quite a bit when I first started working with Sprehe. Donnerball (Donnerhall x Alabaster) was a really cool stallion, won Silver at the World Championships. Christ (Competent x Picard) was one of my babies that I had as a three- and four-year-old.
Another one that people might not know quite as well was Kaiser Karl (Kaiser Franz x Lefevre). He was a young stallion that was Reserve Champion as a three-year-old at the Bundeschampionate the year that Quaterback won.
Plenty of jumper horses as well. Even jumpers we started like dressage horses. Quidam’s Rubin (Quidam de Revel x Landgraf I) and one of his offspring in particular, Quidamo (Quidam's Rubin x Lafontaine). I had an absolute blast with Quidamo. He was very compact, would have made an incredible dressage horse for sure. Super flashy, super athletic, and so much fun to ride.
Stalypso (Stakkato x Calypso II) was another jumper-bred stallion [that was an] incredibly talented dressage horse.
Q: How would you say your years in Europe influenced you as a professional?
J: The horse industry in Europe, especially Germany, it’s such a huge part of their culture and it’s such a big business. Starting on average 50 horses a year for Sprehe, I got on so many different types of horses. Oldenburgs, Hanoverians, Westphalians, Rhinelanders, Trakehners – you name it, we had it. You build vocabulary so to say. We had a game that we’d play, where we would get a new group of horses in and the managers would have ahold of all the passports. We would get on and try to figure out what their bloodlines were just from what they looked like and what they felt like. Sometimes you’d get on these young stallions and they would be just like their fathers, you’d swear they were little carbon copies just in their personality and how they work. It was pretty incredible.
I got very used to horses doing all sorts of things. A horse rearing or bucking doesn’t worry me as much [now] — you’re so used to how the horse moves. You’ve been on a horse that is bucking like a madman, or a horse that’s been rearing or bolting a little bit, that you can ride to the other side of it. [Now I can also] evaluate why is the horse acting like this? They’re acting out for some reason, what is the reason behind it? I’m not just getting on and trying to ride the buck out of it, I’m getting on and evaluating and trying to figure out where the issue is coming from and then from there how can we address that? How can we help it?
On the other side of that, I often say I learned a lot about what I want to do and also what I don’t want to do. You were constantly on "go" and there wasn't a lot of time to do some of the training that you really wanted to do. So there were often corners cut, maybe good horses fell through the cracks because they didn’t get the opportunity to take the time necessary. I learned so much on so many different ends.
Q: Can you tell us a little bit about what you’re doing now, what your business looks like and what makes you unique in Wellington?
J: I moved here probably about 12 years ago. I saw a place where I could build a business around my expertise: young horse training, starting as well as working with younger horses, sometimes situations with problem horses that have rearing issues, bucking issues, or whatever else and working through that.
Wellington is a place where I can go from one place to the next and ride horses all day, focusing on the training end of it but not really having to focus on having my own facility. I could outsource that end of it to other farms. If I’ve got young horses coming in, I often send them to Jane Cleveland’s Poinciana Farm. They’ve got a good team that does all of the care, then I can come in and be able to focus on the training part of it and know that the horses are going to be well taken care of.
I try to stick to about 10 to 12 horses because then I feel like I have the time to work with each one of them individually; correctly. You get beyond that, and it starts to get just a little too rushed. You don’t want to rush.
Q: Jumping back to the your time spent in Germany, it reminds me of a topic you and I talked a lot about earlier this season: the gap in education as far as horse professionals in the US versus Europe.
J: There is definitely a gap. When it comes to the younger generations coming up now, there are so few of them that are really getting into working with young horses or training along the process. When you come up through the levels as a kid, you’ve got your ponies, you’ve got juniors, you’ve got young riders, then you do U25, and then it’s like “hey, you’re a professional!” But there is not a lot of time spent on training the young horse up through the levels. There is no emphasis put on “let’s make trainers,” instead it’s “let’s make strong competitors.” While I think it’s great that we have really strong competitive aspirations, on the other side of that we need trainers. It’s shocking how few young horse trainers there are in comparison to upper-level riders and trainers.
Q: We even talked about judging…
J: This is a problem where there’s not any emphasis being put on all those parts of it. So you know ten, twenty years from now, you look around — who is starting young horses, where are they coming from? You want to go out and show, well who is going to be judging? There is nobody coming up through it and there are some issues in that area as well. The time needed to go through the judging program, the cost, and trying to run a business and do your judge’s program on top of that is almost impossible.
This is one of the big things that I am trying to work on lately with a couple other people and those ideas will become more public in a while.
Q: You have this cool little mare in training right now - My Fair Lady, aka "Mimi." I know you love this horse, she's out of the international Grand Prix mare My Lady. Can you tell us a little bit about her?
J: This is a very special little mare. Pam has basically given me the keys to train her up. Having something that I can really put all my time and effort into, knowing that that horse is going to be for me, is a great feeling. This mare is everything that I want in a horse, which means she would be the last thing that I would be looking for for a client of mine [laughs]. She’s hot, she’s temperamental, she’s incredibly opinionated. She is the reason why I’ve done everything I’ve done. Everything that I’ve learned has given me the ability to come to a horse like Mimi and find a positive path forward. We have really built a great relationship of trust. We just did Third Level a couple weeks ago, the first time at Global. She was rock solid, we got tons of 7s, 8s, few little bobbles along the way, just rider error.
At home we’re already close to PSG level work, and a little bit more, too. Just the other day I got five 4s on her. Her half passes are amazing. She’s got an incredible talent for the collected work. You don’t even have to try, you just ride a half halt and she’s in a passage. For the fun of it [the other day], I collected her back and got five steps of on-the-spot piaffe and she had never done it before. It’s just there! For her, I am always trying to say “not too much, not too quick.” I know you’re cool, let me help you learn how to really show that, you know?
My first big goal with her is getting her ready to go out and do some Developing PSG, and then from there progressing into I1, I2, Developing Horse Grand Prix, and then being able to step over to the CDI realm. The sky’s the limit, really.
Q: Last question. From a rider’s perspective, what are the top three things you would suggest breeders pay attention to when breeding for sporthorses?
J: First and foremost, I would say the brain. Having a horse that is there with you, thinking, trying to figure out what it is that you’re working on is such a huge piece. We have talked a little bit about the Secret bloodline — my personal experience has been pretty amazing. I’ve had 12 of them now. They are just so good in the head, they don’t get worked up over little things, they are just trying to figure it out. And then when they do figure it out, it is just there. Having that “want” to learn is so important.
Second — the right kind of body type to be able to work these upper-level movements. A more compact body can carry collection easier, something not too long in the back. They don’t have to be huge. Mimi for example is 16.1 — perfect size, she is compact, she’s got really good muscle, she’s built to carry collection and is able to use her body so easily.
Third — the feet. Uniform, good foot bed, nice round feet with good angles, has some heel on it, that’s so important. If you’ve got this dropped heel and funky angles, before you know it you’ve got suspensory issues, you’ve got all types of tendon issues. Plus, if the foot is really tiny it’s like standing on stilts.
As we finished our conversation, I knew there was so much more that John could say. It's one of my favorite things about him — when it comes to horses, you could talk to John for hours. He is a man of theory, and genuinely cares about the future of both sport and breeding. His wealth of knowledge is vast, he enjoys sharing it, and he offers a frame of reference to process my own experiences.
Success in horses is not a linear thing, whether it be in breeding, raising, owning, or training. There is no rule book to follow. No surefire way for each one of us to reach the desired goals we chase. But for me, sharing our stories helps to build a community where we are thinking proactively towards improvement, regardless of the ups and downs.
John Amber is based in Wellington, FL, where he offers
training and instruction from young horses through FEI level.
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