Who's Who
Trae and Suzanne LaPorte of Gatewood Farm, Florida and Georgia

A Talent for Training Leads to Building a Career

If her mother is right that Suzanne succeeds at whatever she sets out to do, then we’ll one day see her on a U.S. team because she lists as one of her goals moving “up and show internationally, perhaps at the World Equestrian Games.”

But as her mother says, Suzanne has common sense and common sense tells her that to make it to the top, she’ll need to work because nothing comes free.

“One of my other goals is to take in more horses for training in order to pay for my own showing and training. Right now I’m still qualified to do young riders, so I’d certainly like to show horses for anyone wanting a horse shown by a young rider.”

Suzanne’s riding education began at the age of six and it was a “piggish mare pony” named Money to Burn that gave her many hard lessons in her early years. “She was an Appaloosa pony and I even did a bit of eventing with her, but it just consisted of her refusing all the jumps. So, we didn’t get very far.”

While the jumping portion of their eventing may have been a disaster, the dressage was not. And when Suzanne moved on to a Thoroughbred as her next event horse, she learned again that dressage was her best phase. At the age of 14, she decided it was best to focus her energy on her natural talent for dressage.

Her first real dressage instructor was Anneliese Vogt-Harber in Atlanta, Georgia. “That was my first real, basic dressage training,” Suzanne said.