Friday September 17, 2004

Horsey Honeymoon

By Amber Heintzberger

From California, Oregon and Arizona to New Jersey, South Carolina and Texas, competitors traveled from far and wide to attend the MSEDA Dressage Show and the USEF/Markel Young Horse Finals in Lexington, KY.  One newlywed couple, having traveled from Montana on a honeymoon trip with an equine theme, stood out in the crowd. 

Flamboyantly attired in a cowboy hat, hand-tooled boots and a scarf around his neck, and sporting a waxed moustache, Kip Fladland stood out like a paint pony in a herd of warmbloods, adding his Western flair to the staid dressage atmosphere at the Horse Park.

Kip, from Montana, met Missy Ellison from Nebraska at a Natural Horsemanship clinic with Buck Brannaman, for whom he was working at the time.  Despite their different equine forte’s, the cowboy and the dressage rider found that they had much in common and stayed in contact for the next two years.

“We corresponded with post cards and kept meeting at clinics,” said Missy. But it was on Missy’s birthday, at a dressage clinic with Walter Zettl – the first time Kip saw dressage – that he proposed to her, having driven nineteen hours to watch her ride.

“I hadn’t seen her in that environment -- and they are two drastically different environments – but to her they operate similarly because of the style of horsemanship,” he said.  “Where I come from there’s not as much pomp and circumstance.  Without question there are some highly bred and trained horses here.  [Back on the ranch] a horse has to pay the bills – I see horses differently, meaning how they move and perform their job.  But this weekend I have met some nice people and I saw some beautiful horses.”