Words Cassidy Nunn
Photos Nunn Other Photography
Zorro peeks over his stall door at John Road Barn in North Saanich. His bright blue eyes pop in contrast to his creamy Perlino-coloured coat as his rider Rosalie Richards, age 13, gently strokes his face. He munches on his hay contentedly and soaks up the attention. The 10-year-old pony has come a long way, from being rescued from an auction on the mainland as a yearling to becoming the 2025 Canadian National 3rd Level Junior Dressage Champion – ridden by then-12-year-old Rosalie. It’s quite an accomplishment for the pair, who’ve grown up and trained together, putting in years of hard work under the tutelage of Alexandra Richards, Rosalie’s mum and coach, a dynamic that doesn’t always work out but has been a successful combination for this mother-daughter duo.
Alexandra has been running John Road Barn for the past 30 years and has also grown up on the property. The barn was once home to a quarter horse breeding and racing facility and then switched over to thoroughbred racehorse training. Alexandra grew up riding in pony club, but had a deep love for the discipline of dressage and switched her focus to it at the age of 13. “I used to gallop my dressage horses with the racehorses,” she says with a laugh, gesturing to the track that still resides on the farm. Now the centre of it is filled with horses who live in a herd. She’s an accomplished rider herself, an Equine Canada Licenced coach who runs John Road Barn – now owned in her family – and operates a second small horse boarding barn, Hidden Creek Farm, also in North Saanich.
Zorro was purchased by Rosalie’s dad as a birthday present for her mum for $600 (plus $200 for transport to the Island). In a sport where horses often cost in the tens of thousands – and more – the $800 pony is a rare find these days. The pony had arrived at the auction on a livestock trailer full of cows, with no information as to his breeding or history. Alexandra says she “had this overwhelming sense that I needed to buy this pony.” Her intuition was right, and Zorro has ended up being the perfect riding partner for her daughter. They later did a DNA test to find out more about Zorro’s breeding and it showed that he’s half Arabian and half Andalusian. He’s only 14.2 hands high, the cut-off height to be classified as a pony; although Rosalie meets the age requirement next year (14) to compete internationally in the Junior FEI division, Zorro is one centimetre too short to meet the height requirement.
Rosalie and Zorro have grown up together on the farm where Rosalie began riding “before I could walk,” she says. She’s always been a horse lover and Alexandra recalls how she went into labour with Rosalie while she was hand walking a stallion on the farm. “It was fate!” she says of her daughter sharing her passion for horses. As a toddler, Rosalie would tack up her Great Dane dog and pretend to pick out her “hooves” (paws!) and she’d watch intently as her mum taught riding lessons and “sit there and soak it all in,” says Alexandra. There’s never been any wavering in
Rosalie’s love for horses – she never wanted toys, tried dance lessons but didn’t enjoy them, and asked for a saddle pad for her eighth birthday. All she wanted to do was ride and be at the barn, so much so that the family made the decision to pursue homeschooling for her so that she could better structure her schedule to allow for maximum riding time. When Rosalie was nine years old, she and Zorro competed in their first dressage show season together. The two have climbed their way up the levels in dressage, competing locally and on the mainland and achieving great success together. “I’ve never really been nervous about showing,” says Roaslie. “I find it fun!”
Rosalie is now helping to ride Alexandra’s client horses, and together they’re bringing along some younger horses for her to compete with in the coming years. As she’s still growing, she may eventually be too tall to compete on Zorro in the future. But Zorro is “very much part of the family and always will be,” says Alexandra, who says they’ll always keep him, even though they’ve had offers to buy the talented pony. Rosalie has big riding dreams, with her sights set on the Olympics as well as following in her mother’s bootsteps to becoming a dressage coach one day. For now, she’s continuing to train Zorro to the next level in dressage and take him for rides around the racehorse track whenever she can.
