Chatting with Gina Falcone Haden

Gina Falcone Haden is an American dressage rider and horse agent. Based in The Netherlands where she has lived for nearly three and a half years, Gina has her own independent company for her work as an agent – Haute Horses. Originally from Southern California before the move to Europe, she primarily rode and trained dressage horses – mostly young horses, project/sale horses, and some problem horses. Gina combined this with teaching and training  her own group of clients and their horses. Now happily settled in The Netherlands, Gina and her husband welcomed their first child, Harrison “Sonny” Falcone Haden into the world on 19th November 2025.

 

Can you take us back to the beginning and then how you get to where you are now?

I was really not exposed to horses where I grew up, so when the bug bit me, it bit hard! I am from Los Angeles and it only took a handful of pony rides and a neighbour who let me tag along to her riding lessons to really become horse obsessed. My neighbour’s trainer finally took pity on me and let me “work off” lessons at the grand age of seven, when I would get dropped off at the barn and be the resident barn rat all day.

I started as a jumper, spent some time retraining off the track racehorses, and stumbled on dressage when I was grounded from jumping for a year due to a back operation. I never went back to jumpers. I worked for a string of professionals as a working student, and then assistant trainer, always chasing opportunities to learn and grow – that still hasn’t stopped.

I still feel like such a beginner in dressage, my oldest horse is turning eight this year and he is the oldest horse I have ever kept for myself.  I am learning how to train him without ever having had the consistent ride on a trained horse of my own, so we are bumbling about together – but it’s starting to get really fun! Hopefully he can become my first FEI horse. It would be really rewarding to be doing it all on a horse I have trained myself from the beginning.

 

What does life look like for you with your own riding?

In my own riding, my biggest goal is to keep learning. I have a specific taste in horses that I can pretty much describe as biting off more than I can chew and then trying to learn to chew it. I always say my goal with riding is to learn how to ride my taste and then learn how to train it up the levels. So, at the moment I have two riding horses at home of my own, one broodmare, and then three young horses that are growing up – two from my own broodmare and one bought last year in Germany.

I really enjoy breeding as well and would love to do more, but juggling accumulating horses for riding and horses for breeding with the work as an agent, it is hard to be consistent with my own horses. I had a baby in November, so I haven’t really had time to prioritise competing – but the goal is to balance life a little better this year and hopefully get into the ring a little, at the very least on my older horse who I have had and trained now since he was two and a half!

 

Do you have a trainer?

I don’t! I am one of those crazy people who never thinks things are “good enough yet” to work on with a trainer, which is completely backwards and I have gotten myself into trouble with that. There is definitely a lot in my riding that I am wanting to unravel and smooth out with the right help. I have taken a handful of lessons here and there with some really amazing riders. For several months in 2024 I had the help of Thamar Zweistra at Stal Hexagon whenever I could make the time in between clients, which was such a cool experience. The hope is that this year I can find coaching that is logistically possible to be consistent with.

 

What do you love about dressage?

I love that it is the endless pursuit of making things more and more refined. I am always striving to make each moment lighter, the communication clearer, the aid softer, the reaction cleaner – that is such a satisfying partnership with the horses that I feel really leaves them space in the relationship as well and brings them out of themselves. They get confident with you and show you all the quirks in their personalities – what they like, and how they like things, to be the happiest and most willing in the work. I love to know my horses inside-out and work out as best I can, the formula of what makes them tick and how they communicate that to me, and then try to transfer that to the training. I also think the masochist in me loves that it is like a forever unfinished project that realistically you can never get perfect, but that you absolutely can torture yourself endlessly trying to get it there!

 

Proudest moments?

I think I am proudest of simple things. When I have the vets do a routine check on my horses and they are super healthy and sound, when they look/call for me in the barn aisle and are happy to see me, when I feel like I can spend time with them outside the arena and they enjoy my company, when my gelding feels fresh and happy as the work gets harder, and clearly proud of himself after our rides. The horses I keep for myself are my best friends, so those are the achievements that are important to me. I have stuck with it with both the horses I have now when a lot of people told me I shouldn’t, so the farther they get, the more I am proud of that too.

 

 What challenges have you encountered?

I think my dressage journey has been a series of challenging moments, but without those, it would be hard to appreciate the simple things, so the challenges have helped me to prioritise what matters – the horses, and how they make me happy without any goals or aspirations attached.

 

 Aims for the future?

I would love to find a coach/mentor to build a relationship with, that I really feel fits me and my horses. Beyond that, my biggest aspiration in dressage is to be able to pick out horses that make me excited, and then be skilled enough to train them to the highest level.

 

What led you to be a dressage horse agent and how has that evolved?

It was a natural transition for me! When my husband and I decided to move to Europe, it was in search of more opportunities for riding and for having access to great horses – I was already doing sales on a small scale in Southern California, and I really enjoyed the process of truly match-making horses and riders. In CA I was never in a rush with it, and developed a good reputation – normally the horses I was selling would go to the first or second person to come out and try them, because I really liked to talk with the clients and describe the horses to the best of my ability so that no one’s time was wasted, and so that the horse wouldn’t have a bad experience from a ton of strangers having a sit when there wasn’t a chance for chemistry.

Since my background is in riding young horses, I didn’t have enough of a resume to move to Europe and go into a riding position, and I’m not so young and bold anymore where I thought it would be smart to try and find a position doing something like breaking in baby stallions. Although I worked under another company at first, I was lucky to have a lot of my clients trust me enough to reach out and find them horses after my move here, and when clients are happy with their horses, they come back and bring their friends, which has been wonderful now that I have my own company and can work fully in my own way. Additionally, I think my perspective working as an agent is different from a lot of agents because of my background of having been both in the shoes of the client and the seller, before having ever worked as an agent.

My first few experiences working with an agent was as the client, and it was a really emotional process for me. Both times I was fully reliant on the agent, buying from video, and one of the times I had only one shot to get something for myself by spending the money I had made from selling my own personal horse that I had developed from a foal. I know what I would have preferred from those interactions, and that has really shaped how I work as an agent! I realise that a lot of clients have worked really hard to be able to buy the horse they are contacting me to find, and I can really put myself in their shoes as a client who would want my agent to find me the absolute best horse my money can buy, not just the first horse they can manage to sell me.

The rest of my perspective going into this work has been as the previous rider/trainer of the horses being sold – not as a third party who was more detached from the process. So, when I am working with clients now, I really have the mindset of finding the right match for both the horse and rider’s sake, and I really work hard to treat my clients how I would want to be treated if I were the client myself!

 

How do you match a dressage rider with the perfect horse for them?

I think it’s really important to first get a feel for each other and be comfortable! I am really lucky that ninety-percent of my clients are personal referrals and repeat clients, so there is a level of comfort and often friendship that has the chance to develop when you work that way. I have to admit that I am also a bit picky with clients because of it! If I genuinely don’t think I have the right horses for someone, I will say it. So normally, I have a conversation with a new client via phone or via messages – then if we are both feeling positive and like the ISO is doable, I will send them some videos of what I envision I can show them on a trip, or what could fit their ISO if they are shopping from video. I always like to send a range of concepts of what could work for them – I think clients can sometimes be surprised what they gravitate towards, so it remains a fluid process until we nail down some prospects that they are excited to see, although there are always way more horses to see in person.

At that point we lock in dates for a trip if the client is coming, or I arrange additional video, test riding, etc if the client is shopping from video. Everything is handled by me, the vetting which I personally attend, transport, etc. I work hard to make it very full service, and should be as exciting and stress free as possible for the clients!

 

 What advice can you offer when buying a dressage horse?

I have a few tips!

1. Be open minded! The clients I have that are the most successful, are realistic about their riding and their goals but are open to try different ideas and see what they can find. A trip should be fun after all, and if the client is ruling out everything from video with a very narrow list of requirements, they really close the door to finding the perfect horse out there waiting for them that was maybe not exactly what they imagined down to the last hair on its head. I can’t say how many times a client has been really leaning on the side of “No” seeing something on video and then in person it’s a completely different horse, and they love it! Also, the opposite, they are so focused on one horse that they liked on video and for whatever reason it’s not a match, and they are so disappointed or were so distracted that they have disregarded the horse that could really work for them.

2. If you have a good feeling with your agent, don’t forget that they do this 24/7 and let them help you a little! Of course, there are pushy agents who are just trying to make a sale, but there is a very real moment when you take a client on a trip and you see them ride “their” horse – it is a very clear thing. Sometimes clients will confuse themselves because it’s a mare and they imagined a gelding, or they really wanted a black one and its chestnut.

3. The right match might not feel perfect from the first moment, but it should feel possible – especially with older, more trained horses. Some people think it is way easier to find a perfect match when a horse is already trained – it can actually be harder. They are used to a totally different riding style and have been ridden by someone else for a long time, so it’s important to keep in mind that there will always be some adjusting and getting to know each other. It’s ok if you can’t get the changes perfectly or the connection is a little inconsistent – as long as you feel like you have enough moments that you can bring together with time and training, don’t be too frustrated that everything isn’t perfect from ride one!

4. We ride the horses, not the X-rays or the papers. We can all say this until we are blue in the face but really things have gotten drastic with good horses being turned down over X-ray remarks. A horse should be healthy to perform its job without question, but I think from the perspective of the agent, I see horses every year that maybe were removed from the list of perspectives because of an X-ray comment, a few years later it’s happily competing up the levels with no problems and has tripled in value. I can’t say I have seen a lot of horses that a client turned away from an X-ray review that are now standing in a field – but I do see those clients that have said no to horse after horse on x-ray coming back around still looking a year later and getting very frustrated with not being able to find a horse.

 

Your Top Tip

Wherever you are in your journey – everyone is allowed to learn. If you are genuinely trying to improve, anyone who tries to make you feel bad for what you don’t know/haven’t mastered/haven’t accomplished yet, is not your friend.

 

 What is the best piece of advice that you have ever been given?

No matter what your school of training/style of riding – we are all trying to get to the same place. There is nothing wrong with finding the way to explain the training to the horses that works for your own brain and body, even if it is not the exact same as someone else.

 

It takes a team to do dressage, who is in your support team?

My husband, Heath! Literally could not exist without him. I have a lovely close circle of friends and clients who have become friends who also are MVP’s for tolerating my ramblings and random training conversations.