Breeding, training and riding award-winning Hanoverians

One of the things many college students miss when they head off to school is their pets. That wasn’t a problem for Eliza Rutherford. When she enrolled at the University of Vermont she brought her horse with her.

Growing up in Milton, Rutherford developed an early interest in horses and after a lot of pleading, her family allowed her to go to what was then called Contentment Farm in South Hero for summer camp when she was 10 years old.

An aunt who lived nearby had a farm horse that Rutherford helped take care of, but her first formal riding was at the summer camp. After her camp experience, Rutherford began taking weekly lessons and in her early teens, she started working at a large stable down the road and soon got Sunny, her first horse.

Initially, Rutherford wanted to do eventing, which consists of cross-country jumping, dressage and show jumping. The stable where she worked only had a jumping trainer, but Rutherford found an eventing trainer and began to work with her.

Sunny had crooked legs, which made jumping difficult, so Rutherford sold her before college and brought her new horse to UVM where she majored in animal science. Her life changed when she responded to a notice on her dorm bulletin board from a Williston woman looking for someone interested in grooming horses. The Williston farm had a dressage professional which led Rutherford to switch her equine goals.

Rutherford groomed horses at the Williston farm through college and while getting her master’s in equine reproductive physiology. In 1997, the dressage professional left and Rutherford took over the boarding and training operation. Three years later, she had her first foal and was bitten by the breeding bug.

Rutherford’s second horse was a Hanoverian/Border Horse cross. “That became my heart horse,” she said. “I fell in love with the breed through that horse.”

Hanoverians are from the Hanover region of Germany, and they are bred mostly for dressage, show jumping and eventing.

Rutherford’s Williston farm was at Taft Corners, and as big box stores began to appear around her, she knew it was time to go. It took a year to find land and another year to build a place, but she was able to move to Charlotte and establish Foxwood Hanoverian Farm in 2003.

Rutherford has competed in dressage for years. She won U.S. Dressage Federation silver and bronze medals and has twice competed at the U.S. Dressage Finals.

“I like the mental challenge of dressage,” Rutherford said. “It’s teaching the horse how to use their body in a different way than they naturally would. You teach them to allow you to break down their pieces and reassemble them, so they move and carry themselves differently.”

It requires a strong relationship and building trust with the horse.

While Rutherford is proud of her competitive victories, she thinks the most important thing about them is that they were on horses she bred and trained. She believes this is why she was invited to be a board member of the American Hanoverian Society. Having just finished a five-year term on a Vermont State Senate-appointed livestock welfare advisory council, she felt she had time to help out. Rutherford represented the equine world on the council which trained humane officers and reviewed proposed legislation.

Rutherford had already worked with the American Hanoverian Society for years, presenting mares and foals for inspection. She said very few breeders ride and compete on their own horses, but she believes riding gives her more insight into the bloodline combinations so she can tweak her breeding program more precisely.

Rutherford breeds four to five foals a year, almost exclusively using frozen semen from European stallions, although she currently has one young stallion of her own. Some of her horses are sold before they are born, and others leave the farm as foals. Rutherford’s Hanoverians have been purchased by buyers across the country as well as internationally, but she keeps some foals to raise that eventually become broodmares.

Rutherford continues to compete in dressage, mostly in New York and New England, although the U.S. dressage finals are generally held in Kentucky. She does so on horses she has bred and trained.

Rutherford said Europe has more of a pipeline for young breeders than the U.S., but she feels her situation is more like the European model.

“I’m a link,” she said. “I breed the horses; I start them; and I train them up the levels.”