All Heart: Seize The Moment and Emily Pope Continue their Sensational Journey

The horse world exists in two parallel dimensions: the events occurring on the show grounds and the constant stream of chatter about those events in the gossipy halls of the Internet. If the Internet world is to be believed, hoards of people wear rust colored breeches and we live on the perpetual verge of a Thoroughbred renaissance in all three rings.

At the shows though, I really don’t see any of these things. Thoroughbreds still stand out in the grand prix-sea of big, chunky imports. At the Vermont Summer Festival, Seize The Moment, a 17 year-old chestnut mare (with a double whirl) was small, slight, and fast, announced as the only Thoroughbred when she entered the Grand Prix arena. 

“I smiled, and then I was sad,” said owner and rider Emily Pope, whose mount was also the smallest and oldest in the class. “A bunch of the prixs I’ve done with her, I’ve been the only Thoroughbred.” 

Pope and “Nikki” put in fast and clear rounds in Grand Prix classes throughout the Northeast and have an Internet following of Thoroughbred enthusiasts. It seems everyone respects her do-it-yourself attitude and work ethic. When I met her, she was walking Nikki back to the barn after giving her a post-grand prix bath. Nikki was eagerly hunting around the barn for Pop Tarts, her favorite snack, which Pope readily produced. 

“People always come up to me after a class and talk to her because they hear that she’s a Thoroughbred, and now they hear that she’s 17 and [tell me] that’s amazing,” Pope relays.

Pope and Seize the Moment finished 11th in the grand prix at Week II of the Vermont Summer Series. Photo ©Dr. Piper Klemm

In getting to know Pope, 22, it is clear she is just as committed to her education as to her horse. She recently graduated from the University of Minnesota and will be studying abroad this fall in Madagascar. Next year, she plans to go to graduate school for cancer biology research. 

Pope started riding with her mother, professional Cyndy Pope, before she could walk and trained with her until the age of 10. Pope has been riding with her current trainer, Kip Rosenthal, ever since. Cyndy continues to be very involved and she and Emily do all of their own grooming and care of Nikki.

Rosenthal enthused about Pope, “I’ve trained her since she was even more pint sized than she is now. She is a phenomenal student and she’s a very bright young woman. She has been a delight from the time she was 10 years old and I feel very fortunate that I’ve been a part of her life- first ponies and now with this wonderful mare that she’s transformed.”

Rosenthal’s Benchmark Farm is located at the picturesque Coker Farm in Bedford, New York. The miles of trails suit Nikki’s training schedule. Pope explains, “I am almost never go in the ring with her- we have so many big fields. So, I do a lot of hillwork and a lot of gallops because she’s a Thoroughbred, she loves running around. We school her over fences about once every two weeks. We almost never jump height at home- we can work on what we need to work on over smaller fences.”

Under Rosenthal’s eye, Pope bought Nikki in 2006 to show in the Small Junior Hunters. The mare had been showing with Bill Ellis in the Green Conformation Hunters. While Nikki was brought up on the track, she bowed a tendon as a 2 year-old and never raced.
Her scope and athleticism led to two successful years in the Small Juniors, including qualifying for National Junior Hunter Finals. Pope hoped that Indoors Championships would be in their future. 

However, to watch her energy in the Grand Prix at the age of 17, it is clear that Nikki was never an easy hunter to get to the ring. “I had to ride her down a lot to get her quiet. She’s a fireball. Trying to get around nicely in the hunters when 3’6’’ wasn’t hard for her, it just wasn’t fair to her,” says Pope.

Tragedy struck when Nikki had colic surgery right before Junior Hunter Finals in 2007. When she recovered, Rosenthal decided that she might be better suited to the jumper ring and Pope started to test her scope. As they learned together, Pope and Nikki showed in the Low Junior Jumpers in 2008, soon followed by the High Junior Jumpers, and then their first grand prix less than a year later. 

As Pope is the only one to jump Nikki (Cyndy flats her to keep her in shape while Pope is at school) moving up in the jumper ranks has been a true learning curve for all involved. “She never got professional rides when she was a jumper. I’ve really liked bringing her along. Every time we go in the ring, we’re learning. That’s been one of the hardest things about it- we’re both green on green. She had never jumped this high before I got her because she was a hunter and I had never jumped this high because until I had her, I didn’t want to do jumpers. I thought going fast was scary!”

The whole team has learned to work around Nikki’s idiosyncracies. “Nikki doesn’t approve of flatwork,” Pope adds. “This is a horse where if you’re going to school over jumps, you can’t do flatwork. You have to hack her on a loose rein and then start jumping because she gets mad if you do real flatwork first. Once she’s mad, you can’t calm her down and it makes everyone’s life really unpleasant.” 

The biggest issue with her is rideability. It’s getting better,” Pope laughs, “but sometimes we just don’t have brakes. So we just do a lot of small stuff. Nikki is freaky smart- she learns so fast. She’s gotten better as she’s getting older.”

Pope keeps in shape by riding with Elspeth Lampbert while at University of Minnesota, which is not always as helpful as she hopes. “I have an easier time, honestly, when I haven’t been riding [at school] because [Nikki] is such a complicated ride. I’ve never ridden a horse as difficult as she is. She is constantly changing and it is so much of a take and give and you have to make her think that it’s her idea to do something because if it is your idea, you are automatically wrong.”

At Grand Prix time, Nikki has a very short schedule. “She comes down when I’m ten horses out, she does a tiny bit of flatwork, six oxers and one vertical and she goes in the ring. We try not to prep her too much because she works up the more she does and then we lose rideability. She just gets really excited- she loves her job.”

Pope, who shows as a professional to accept sponsorships, is also an Ambassador for Just World International. She often dons the signature light blue hunt coat for Grand Prix classes and donates a portion of her class winnings each year. “It is an amazing organization- I’ve gone down to the project in Guatemala, it was life changing. I’m just so glad that being so privileged and able to do this, I can help people that aren’t as fortunate. Going down to see what the money is going towards is amazing.” 

Pope believes in focusing on one day at a time and the personal journey with each horse. She is so far from where she started with Nikki, and relishes that she was flexible and didn’t focus on one goal. 

After hearing about every one of Nikki’s difficulties, I asked her why anyone would own a Thoroughbred, and Pope smiled. “I don’t think that there is anything else you get like the heart from a Thoroughbred. I would only have Thoroughbreds for the rest of my life.”