No one in Alexa Gartenberg’s family rides horses, but she told her parents from an early age that she wanted to own and ride horses. She tried her hand at horseback riding for the first time at her overnight summer camp, after which she immediately began her regular horseback riding lessons. Alexa, who grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs, began her eventing career with Susie Beer when she was based at Radnor Hunt Stables.
“I didn’t even know it was called eventing. I thought it was called field riding!” Alexa explains. Although she lacked her knowledge of the sport, she was not deterred from trying. Alexa started racing at the novice novice level with her first horse being a lesson horse. It wasn’t an accidental start at all. “I definitely scored 45 points in the flat and lost some of the first events,” Alexa said. However, she soon got the hang of the sport.
In 2016, Alexa moved into Matt and Cecily Brown’s barn to continue her mixed martial arts education. They were based at Windura USA, a Boyd Martin facility, at the time. This program required some serious commitment from Alexa. Because the barn was over an hour away from where she lived. “I would leave school at 3 p.m., change into my uniform at a red light in the car on the way to the barn, and get in the car before heading home to start my homework,” Alexa explained.
Alexa, now 24 years old, graduated from high school in 2018. The only college she applied to was the University of Delaware. Because it was the closest college to the barn. She enrolled in the honors program and studied business while attending school. She graduated in her 2021 year and then took the real estate exam to obtain her real estate license.
“I wanted to work in real estate because I could make my own hours,” Alexa said, noting that horses need flexible schedules, especially in FEI competitions. She planned to work on horses and had several beautiful horses at the upper levels, including the late Louis M. who took her to her first Advanced.
Then in 2022, she went out to dinner with her parents and they made a proposal that would change her life. It’s about moving to England to ride horses. Alexa was excited about her prospect of being based in the world’s busiest and most competitive eventing country. She asked Matt Brown, her coach for nearly six years, what he thought about the idea. He was very supportive and suggested she work with Australian five-star rider Kevin McNab.
It turns out Kevin was entertaining and training fellow American riders Jacob and Cornelia Fletcher, as well as Avery Krunick. Cornelia connected Kevin with Alexa, and a phone call soon after, and the plan took shape. With the support of his parents, Alexa was able to travel to the UK with her two horses and train with Kevin for the 2023 event racing season.
“My only goal is to get better,” Alexa said simply. “Everyone asked me what events I wanted to participate in and what I specifically wanted to accomplish. The overall goal was to improve and become a better rider.” This approach included: It required a certain amount of humility and a willingness to take the basics seriously.
Alexa returned to Novice (the US equivalent is Qualifier) ​​level at the beginning of the year with two horses, Flame Shamrock and Cooley Kildare (both of whom competed at 3* level). While many people go abroad with specific goals, such as a big three-day event, Alexa’s approach was to lay the groundwork for long-term education for herself and her horse. And it’s starting to pay off. She has had some solid top 3*S finishes over the past few months and is now focused on advancing and getting back to her 4* level.
So what is it like in Alexa’s daily life that has made her better? One of the secrets is that she sees lots of horses working in Kevin’s yard and attends jump school. It’s laying down the rails. “I’m like a railroad girl,” she laughed, noting that every time someone heads to her home arena to jump, she jumps at the chance to set up a fence and keep an eye on it.
Alexa also has the opportunity to ride horses other than her own, where she takes jumping lessons from Kevin twice a week to hone her skills. Finally, Alexa said that just participating in the competition is a learning opportunity for her. “You look to your left and there’s Tim Price, and you look to your right and there’s Ross Kanter,” she says (both recent world No. 1 riders themselves). “It’s so cool to be around people you read and respect,” she explains.
But Alexa’s time abroad wasn’t without an unexpected learning curve. Each place does it differently, but Alexa told us a funny story about her first competition in the UK, where she made some embarrassing mistakes. “In the UK, you have to wear a back number in dressage for national competitions. For my first competition, I had to walk quite a distance from the car park to the arena and I didn’t have a jersey number. Fortunately, I Alexa’s American accent saved my life and allowed me to take my dressage exams without an accent.” Learning from this, Alexa now always wears a dressage suit when performing dressage at national events. I’m trying to number them.
Reflecting on her experience in the UK, Alexa says that in some ways everyone is more laid back than eventers in the United States. She has a Type A personality, which has sometimes worked against her in the past. “In 2022, I was extra focused on getting to Fairhill 3L, but I didn’t get to have the season I wanted,” she explains. Her wheels were starting to fall off a little bit and Alexa was so obsessed with that one goal of hers that it really hurt that she didn’t make it to Fairhill.
In contrast, I now feel that I am able to mentally take things one step at a time and plan flexibly. She has participated in some big events in the UK as well as all over Europe including Ireland and France. She just tries to get better every time she competes. This may be a lesson for all of us. Focus more on incremental improvements rather than results. Because then the results might fall into place.
When asked about her future plans, Alexa admitted, “I was only planning to stay for one year, but since my visa is valid for two years, I decided to stay for another year.” She would love to see her familiar faces in her hometown and at shows, but her chance in the UK is too good to pass up. Eventing in England is also very competitive, with well over 100 participants in each division, whereas in the states each division usually receives between 20 and 50 entries. “I like competition, and I think it makes me strive to be better,” Alexa muses.
As for her future plans, we are still working on them every weekend, but after achieving this year’s 3*L goal, we hope to move both horses up to the advanced level next year. In the meantime, she plans to focus on getting better.