D'Ambra and Udiana at the Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington, Florida. Photo credit James Parker and Kathy Russel at The Book LLC  This weekend’s Zoetis Zoetis $1 Million Grand Prix equestrian event in Saugerties, New York is a long way from a trail ride in the Catskills, but for 26-year-old Agatha D’Ambra, the journey has been a relatively quick one.  One of the competitors in this weekend’s event, D’Ambra grew up in Rexford, New York, just north of Albany. She’s loved horses her whole life, but she’s not one of those riders who was on a horse before she could walk.  When she was little, she and her father, Thomas D’Ambra, would go trail riding about once a month in the Catskills; when she was 10 years old, she began taking riding lessons at a local barn, and within two years, her parents had bought her her own horse, an OTTB–an off-track Thoroughbred–named Matty Monster that she renamed August Eclipse when she showed him.  Moving up quickly through the ranks of local horse shows, D’Ambra soon began to head south for the winters, to Wellington, Florida and the premier show circuit there. She had attended elementary school at the Doane Stuart School in Rensselaer and middle school at Shenendehowa in Clifton Park, but by the time she was in ninth grade, it was clear that her equestrian ambitions weren’t going to square with a traditional academic schedule.  “Horse shows chase wherever the sun is; the sport goes all year long,” D’Ambra explained, speaking by phone earlier this week. “I tried to do my Shenendehowa work by correspondence, but that wasn’t working, so we found a tutor in Florida and I was essentially home-schooled.”  As D’Ambra’s show career was taking off, her parents built a horse farm in their hometown. Her father, the co-founder of Albany Medical Research, Inc, which was instrumental in the development of the allergy drug Allegra, had developed an interest in Thoroughbred racing, and Agatha had become, in her words, “really particular” about the care of the horses that she rode.  “I have my own philosophy on horsemanship,” she said, “and it’s about putting the horse first. That’s why I decided to have my own farm, rather than trust my horses in the care of someone else.”  The result was Trade Winds Farm, a racing/breeding/training operation that sits on the Mohawk River and is now run by Agatha, employing 11 people full-time and housing 20 horses, from Grand Prix-caliber show horses to equine retirees to broodmares to a rescued miniature horse. Among the farm’s denizens is her first horse, August Eclipse, now 21 years old.  D’Ambra herself is one of the trainers, breaking young horses to get them ready for the racetrack and training horses to compete in the show ring. She also trains horses who have come off the racetrack to get them ready for other careers, including some that have raced for her father in the farm’s name.  Scientist, a seven-year-old gelding purchased by Tom D’Ambra as a weanling, won three races from 11 starts and is now being retrained as a jumper. The family’s homebred Scienziato (Italian for “scientist”) raced three times at Saratoga this summer and is now winless in six tries; he may follow his stablemate into the show ranks.  “My family would love it if I could train their racehorses as well,” she said, going on to say that a lack of time prevents her from doing that. She added, “I made it to the racetrack [at Saratoga] once this year.”  In addition to offering D’Ambra the opportunity to implement her own training philosophy, Trade Winds Farm is also revenue-producing, as she boards and trains horses for other people. Despite the lucrative purse money available at the sport’s highest levels–the winner at Sunday’s show will earn $325,000–it’s not easy to make a living competing in horse shows, particularly, she said, when you care about your horses.  “There’s a fine line,” she said. “In order to be constantly winning, you have to be constantly competing, and that can be hard for the horses. My perspective is that it’s handy to have some sponsors so that you can rest your horse and not have to compete every single week.”  So in addition to her competitive goals, D’Ambra set out to do well enough to attract sponsorship, recently when she signed her first two sponsors, Elite Equine Veterinary, a mobile practice in upstate and central New York, and Cavalor, a line of equine nutrition products.  Currently trained by Olympic gold medalist Peter Wyle, D’Ambra and her 12-year-old Dutch Warmblood mare Udiana won the Horse Shows in the Sun [HITS] Grand Prix show in Saugerties, New York in June, qualifying the rider for this weekend’s event, in which she’ll ride her horse Quivola. HITS is based in Saugerties and produces hunter-jumper competitions nationwide, including three $1 million events; the other two are in Ocala, Florida and Thermal, California.
Agatha D'Ambra got her start on a rented horse on a Catskills trail. On Sunday, she'll compete for the winner's share of $1 million in upstate New York.