Joie Gatlin is Succeeding at All Levels

I remember the first time I saw Joie Gatlin ride. I had just begun this sport of show jumping myself and was competing for the very first time in Arizona. It seemed as though this immaculately groomed rider and horse just flashed in front of me as they trotted into the “big ring” in Tucson.

I said to no one in particular, “Who is that?” “Oh. That’s Joie Gatlin.” “No,” I replied. “Who is that person?” The same someone responded, “She’s out of California and she and her horses are amazing.”

Amazing indeed. Gatlin and either Sun Cal’s King or Cameron Hill’s Quick Dollar (I don’t remember which) won the Grand Prix that day in Tucson as those two horses and Joie won just about everything they entered in 2008-‘9. But it wasn’t her winning that awed me. It was her riding. Up until that point in time, I hadn’t seen another person ride a horse the way Gatlin rode. She appeared as a single drop of water that slid over and around her horse. She appeared to be glued onto, without being glued into, her horse. Together, Gatlin and her horse appeared to me as one being rather than two… completely in tune, completely in sync, completely in harmony.

Gatlin and Odyssey, Del Mar Showpark 2012

But what did I (a too old to start riding amateur) know? Nothing. Obviously. So I asked Becky Warner of Morning Shadows Farm in Scottsdale, AZ. . “She was a natural the first time I saw ride her years ago. She’s a natural today. She has an impeccable eye. She always sees a distance. She always helps, never hinders, her horse. She’s been this way from the beginning…always with…always for her horse.”

Gatlin began sitting on horses when she was 2. “Nothing serious…just hacking around with my parents (her dad, a movie stunt and a top rodeo rider; her mom, a Miss Rodeo America). When I turned 10, a family friend suggested to my mom that I might enjoy jumping lessons,” said Gatlin. “That was ‘it’ for me.”

That was “it” for the horse world as well. All eyes have been on Gatlin as she went from cross rails to winning the USEF Medal Finals and the Rhulen Rookie of the Year award as a junior and as she has earned every award and privilege available within the world of Hunter Jumper riding as a professional. A partial list of Gatlin’s accomplishments include earning several Hunter of the Year honors, numerous Grand Prix championships, representing the US in several World Cup competitions, competing in the Olympic Trials, winning the Bauer Style of Riding Award at the Del Mar National Horse Show as well as the Jimmy Kohn Style of Riding Award at a HITS Desert circuit, and competing throughout the world (Kuala Limper, Mexico, Canada, Japan, Europe).
Reserved, quiet, shy about her own abilities and accomplishments (I learned everything in the above paragraph from other sources, not Joie herself), Gatlin is more up front about the achievements as well as the promise of her riders.

At the top of the order, Alexandria Smith, 19 and a 10-year Gatlin veteran, has set her circuit sights on earning a spot in the $1M finale plus the World Cup qualifiers with Albatross. She has already captured a 2nd and 3rd with Capituno in the 1.30m. Lauren Hester, 24, has two Grand Prix mounts, Warinda Z and Abigail. Gatlin herself pilots the 9-year-old Miss Cash Call (owner, Greg De Long) in the Futures and the 1.40m along with her homebred, Tristan, a 7-year-old stallion in the 1.30m and the 7-8 year olds. She anticipates Miss Cash Call may be ready by late summer to enter the big classes. In the hunter ring, Gatlin and Kistler were champions in the 3’6” Division during Week III as were she and Lugano in the green confirmation classes. Other top performers among Team Gatlin include Rita Golleher, champion in the 55+ AA Hunters, Jennifer Elliot, winner of the AA Jumper Classic, and Equitation and Medals riders Chandler Meadow, Macay Martock and Alexis Meadow.

As if she didn’t have enough to do, Gatlin also shared commentary duties with Mike Moran in the featured Lamborghini team competition during Thermal Weeks I - III. “I love being able to give the public an insider’s view of the sport, a head’s up on potential trouble spots on course. A reminder of the subtleties of a rider and of a horse. Let’s face it,” said Gatlin, “if I’m not in a class, I love to talk about it.” Let’s hope she gets the nod to do the same during Weeks IV – VII.

Wherever she is and whatever she’s doing at Thermal these next four weeks, Gatlin represents the hard work, focus, courage, and commitment to excellence that are required to succeed at all levels, in all arenas, in all roles that contribute to the sport. These are the attributes that catch the eye of an old newbie, a seasoned pro, a motivated student and a savvy sponsor. Gatlin was and continues to be with and for her horse.