Will Coleman and Twizzel represented the United States at the 2012 London Olympics. He was again part of the U.S. Eventing Team at the 2018 FEI World Equestrian Games in Tryon with Tight Lines. A career highlight came when Coleman and Off The Record won the prestigious 2021 CCIO4*-S Aachen in Germany. Continued success a year later led to Off The Record’s selection for the FEI Eventing World Championship in Pratoni del Vivaro, Italy. There Coleman helped secure a team silver medal and finished as the highest-placed American in seventh. U.S. Equestrian named Coleman a 2022 U.S. Equestrian of Honor and he received the William C. Steinkraus Trophy. Similarly, U.S. Equestrian named Off The Record as a 2022 Horse of Honor.

For the last three years, Coleman has won the Carolina International CCI4*-S on three different horses. Most recently, he and Chin Tonic HS won it in March 2023. Coleman placed seventh in the 2022 Land Rover Kentucky Three-Day Event CCI5*-L and the 2022 MARS Maryland 5 Star at Fair Hill CCI5*-L with Dondante. He earned a pair of top-10 placings at the 2022 CCIO4*-S Aachen with both Chin Tonic HS and Off The Record. 

Coleman is living a “lifelong dream” that began at 6 years old on a Shetland pony in Charlottesville, Virginia. He now operates Will Coleman Equestrian, which is based in Gordonsville, Virginia, and Ocala, Florida.

Getting to Know Off The Record

Q: What is your FEI Eventing World Championship and CCIO4*-S Aachen partner, Off The Record, like to ride and train? 

WC: I got him as a 4-year-old. He was a very talented horse, but he was hard to make music with initially. He was opinionated and not in the nicest of ways. But as we grew up together and I got to know him more, we developed a better understanding of one another. Where he was presenting himself as being a little difficult, he was almost just trying too hard. It took a while for me to see that. Once I did, that’s when we started to really gel as a partnership. 

He’s not amongst the most talented horses in the world, but he just has an incredible drive and amount of effort that he puts out. He’s a real fighter. We’ve tried to nurture that. He’s 14 this year, but I feel like the best might still be in front of him. He seems to be enjoying his work and carrying himself like he knows about some of the things that he’s done, and it’s very cool. 

Q: You talked about Off The Record being a bit challenging in his younger days. How so?

WC: He would go to an event and his energy would be very up and he was almost like kids who act out, but it’s not that they’re bad kids. They just don’t always know how to handle their energy. He was that kid bouncing off the ceiling. It’s easy to label those horses as bad actors, but in his case, over time, we realized that helping him develop some coping skills and learn to listen instead of just react was an important part of his development as a competition horse. And it was maybe, to a degree, me maturing as a horseperson and as a professional as well. 

Q: What were the specific things that you did to help focus him? 

WC: We did a lot of groundwork. We focused on using competition outings as opportunities to help develop some coping skills. We started to pay a lot more attention to just how we handled him on a daily basis, not just me and [wife] Katie, but everyone who worked for us. Anybody who came into contact with him had to understand that there had to be a lot of structure with how you approached him. And he seemed to thrive on that sort of structure and very regimented handling. So, taking into account our program in a very holistic way was a good evolution for us as a horse operation in general. But with this horse specifically, it really changed his life and has allowed him to become a much more trainable and happier horse. 

Dondante

Q: You’ve also done very well with Dondante in the last several years. What’s he like?

WC: He’s a much different horse than Off the Record. He’s much less outwardly confident. He’s a bit of a worrier, which is odd because he’s an enormous horse. He’s nearly 18 hands. But he’s a little less sure of himself. He needs more emotional support, from both me and Erin [Jarboe] and Hailey [Burlock], who look after him.

But like Off The Record, he’s also a horse that kind of almost gives you too much of himself sometimes. He tries so hard that he can worry himself. So a big part of how we approach him is just trying to make him realize that we’re there to make the job easier for him and to make him more cognizant of his capabilities. But he gives me a thousand percent every weekend. That’s a really rewarding thing to train as a horse person—a horse that has a conscience and wants to do the right thing. 

Training and Horsemanship

Q: How would you describe your training philosophy? 

WC: It’s an amalgamation of a lot of people and a lot of influences over a lot of years. But on the whole, it all stems from our foundation on the flat. The flatwork and the basic horsemanship are the most critical pieces trying to train horses at a high level. With all of our horses, we always try to make sure that we’re predicating the approach on clear communication, that the horses understand what’s being asked of them and what the answer is. Whether it’s teaching them how to do something in the jumping or on the flat or on the cross country, we try to break down the communication to something that’s very, very simple.

Q: Similarly, what do you think makes a good horseperson? 

WC: Empathy mostly. We’re competitive people, and we want to go and do things, but the horses, they’re not really born with our ambitions. We have a responsibility to make their lives happy ones. We always want our horses to be appreciated, but also learn to enjoy what they do and find comfort and happiness in it. That’s part of how we define ourselves as an outfit and as horse people, that we’re fair and competitive, but that we are conscious of making sure that we’re always remembering that these are creatures and they’re not machines.

Staying Present While Training Horses

Q: Do you have a favorite training exercise that you do? 

WC: Over the years it becomes kind of this telephone book of just different things. I have a system of how I start approaching the horse in each session, and I have routines and different patterns that I do, but I try to stay in the moment each day and not be overly regimented in how I’m planning out that ride. You can overthink how your horse is going to come out, but sometimes they’re a little stiffer than they were in the last ride or maybe they need a little more time emotionally or mentally. I try to keep each day as an open book and approach it with a bit of a curious kind of “what do we have today” sort of approach. 

Wins and Losses

Q: You helped the U.S. team win silver at the World Championships, and you won the prestigious CCIO4*-S Aachen. What other wins in your career stand out?

WC: We’ve had some success. But I still feel like I have a long way to go before becoming the best version of myself as a competitor and as a horseperson. And I really just enjoy that process. I enjoy challenging myself in new ways. And that’s the real blessing of doing this as a profession—your mind is always being lured into new ways of thinking and new ways of honing and fine-tuning what you do. I like always feeling like I’m a kid learning new stuff. So the competition part of it is just a plus. 

Q: As horse people, we all know that you lose more than you win. How do you handle a loss mentally? 

WC: Well, I’ve lost a lot. Anytime you lose, you can find things that will show you the way to be better. You learn probably more from the losses than you do your wins. So I embrace the losses. They happen, and they are very informative. By extension, sometimes your wins are not your best work either. You have to learn how to make nonjudgmental takeaways from your wins and your losses. To separate the result from what you were doing with that horse and did you execute your plan or did you veer away from it because of X, Y or Z? When I look at things in that way, I tend to do a lot better. 

Competitive Mindset

Q: Do you ever get nervous before a competition? 

WC: Sure. I think everybody does to a degree. It’s part of it. You’re at the precipice of this great challenge and that should excite you a bit. I’m less nervous about the end result. It’s more the feeling of caring about what I’m doing. Usually nerves are because you’re associating your nervousness with a question about your ability to perform or it’s about your readiness or your preparedness. As you get older, you start to have more confidence in your system and your approach and your preparation. 

Q: Do you have a routine before a big competition, things you have to do? 

WC: No, I don’t because sometimes you can do those routines and sometimes you can’t. And I never want to feel like I’m reliant on anything like that. Every competition can be a little different and taking that for what it is, is an important part of me feeling like I can deal with little adversities that come my way. I wasn’t always good at that. I was maybe a little more routinized and maniacal about every little thing being just so, and you just realize that it’s impossible and kind of a waste of energy.

I try to be rested and just look after myself as an athlete. I just do what I normally do. It’s just riding horses, and it’s no different, no matter how many people are there or where it is or whether you got on a plane to get there. It’s still just a horse and jumping jumps or doing shoulder-ins.

Love of the Sport

Q: What is it about eventing that you love?  

WC: I do love the jumping. And growing up, that challenge of being so proficient and so skilled in the three phases—kind of the complete horsemanship that is eventing—that seemed so hard and so exciting. And at the level where this sport is going, your skill levels in all three phases now have to be incredibly high.

Then it’s also managing horses to be this trained, this strong, this fit and this prepared. It’s fascinating and it’s so difficult, and I just like that about the sport. And the cross-country part of it is still the heart and soul of the sport. I just don’t think there’s any feeling like crossing the finish line at a five-star event. Just doing that with a horse is the most incredible thing.  

Sidebar: Rising Star

Coleman and Chin Tonic HS won the 2023 Carolina International CCI4*-S—Chin’s third at this level—in March. Coleman plans to debut the horse at the five-star level at the 2023 Land Rover Kentucky Three-Day Event in April. Here are a few details about this up-and-coming star.

The Holsteiner gelding was found as a 2-year-old colt by longtime owner of Coleman’s horses, Vicky Castegren of Hyperion Stud. Chin was gelded at 5 years old before being imported from Germany so that Coleman could campaign him. After success in the CCI2* and CCI3* divisions, Coleman and Chin Tonic HS continued their winning ways into the CCI4* level. In 2021, they won the Morven Park Fall International CCI4*-S in Leesburg, Virginia, and placed third in the Tryon International Three-Day Event CCI4*-L in North Carolina. In 2022, they won the Stable View Spring CCI4*-S in Aiken, South Carolina, and placed second in CCI4*-L in Leesburg, Virginia. They also received the 2022 U.S. Equestrian Team Foundation’s Connaught Grant in memory of R. Bruce Duchossois. 

Check out more Paris 2024 Olympic Games coverage.

This article originally appeared in the Spring 2023 issue of Practical Horseman.