It turns out the rules of royal interaction these days don’t always involve a formal bow or curtsey. The proper pronunciation of a Dutch princess’s name, though, goes a long way in building a rapport between reporter and royalty. A handshake will also say a lot about you; for best results, it should be firm, brief, and authentic.
So began an interview with Her Royal Highness Princess Margarita de Bourbon de Parme of the Netherlands at the Hampton Classic Horse Show in Bridgehampton on Friday afternoon. A palpable glow surrounded the white, wooden picnic table where the interview took place, attributable either to the blazing late-summer sun, the fever-inducing experience of meeting actual royalty, or perhaps a combination of both.
To Princess Margarita, “horses are magnificent beings. They are big and warm and willing to do something with you.” It’s a partnership some 6,000 years old, she said, and one that has shaped the history of man. Think about it — so much travel, trade, and war happened on the backs of horses.
This was not the first time a member of a royal family attended the Hampton Classic, which marked its 50th anniversary this year. But H.R.H. Princess Margarita was not there to compete. Rather, she was there to learn all she could about American forward-style riding in an effort to popularize the hunter-jumper technique in Europe.
You could say she’s putting the “quest” in “equestrian.”
Trained in the traditional dressage and show-jumping disciplines since a young age, Princess Margarita said she enjoys trail riding through forests and across beaches to relax. She recently began participating in hunter-jumper equitation clinics facilitated by Patricia Bade van Motman, the founder and president of the Hunter-Jumper Equitation Europe Foundation.
The American forward-riding style “changed the communication with the horse completely. It made it much better . . . much lighter and softer,” Princess Margarita said. “This is the kind of riding you can do your whole life.”
In addition to clinics, the eight-year-old equitation organization also hosts horse shows, including one later this month that will be its 43rd. Based on the American competition system, it even brings in professional judges from the U.S.
“Along the way, without wagging a finger at anyone, you learn horsemanship, you learn better riding skills, and therefore we improve the care and the welfare of the animals, and that is very important,” Ms. Bade van Motman said. “The jumping sports need to be fair and decent to the animals.”
It makes so much sense to take American hunter and jumper equitation to Europe, she added, because of what she called “a fabulous synergy.” The “gold-standard horse” for this style of riding is the European warmblood, “and particularly the Dutch warmblood. So the horses originate from Europe for this. . . . We’re trying to explain to a society, to a community, how to make use of the horses that North America is using a different way.”
Her Royal Highness said she likes that, at a hunter and jumper equitation show, the entire family can compete at various levels. “It’s for all ages, so if you’re older, in the 50-plus category — I would fall in that category — then I can still jump. Show jumping is much more scary at that age, I can tell you, so I think it’s really cool that I could start jumping again.”
Princess Margarita and Ms. Bade van Motman have American partners in their quest: Kristen Baran and Andrew Lustig, founders of the Baran Global Hunter Classic.
“The collaboration between our two organizations is wonderful because Kristen and Andrew did what everyone said was impossible,” Ms. Bade van Motman said. “They set up a top-quality, triple-A hunter event in Europe. It had never been done before. They had horses flown over from the United States. They took one of the fanciest venues in Europe. They had custom-made jumps, they made teams that incorporated Olympic show-jumping riders, and they gave them hunter horses.”
“That raised the bar,” she continued. “It raised the awareness that this isn’t just for the amateur rider, this has some of the top riders in the world, and it got people’s attention. So now we’re going to be working together to support the Baran Global Hunter Classic as the highest-echelon-type horse show competition, and using that as an inspiration for amateur community horse shows, very much the way that World Cup soccer inspires soccer clubs in every town.”
Princess Margarita balances her interest in hunter-jumper equitation with work: She is the owner and designer of a jewelry brand, De Parme Design. “It’s all nature-inspired,” she said. “I try to be as green as possible.” (While she wore some of her jewelry to the Hampton Classic, for safety reasons you won’t find her wearing any when riding.)
After their series of interviews concluded on Friday, Princess Margarita and Ms. Bade van Motman headed over to the show office to get judging cards. This would enable them to sit with the judges for a certain class of competition “and just talk through how this would be judged,” Ms. Bade van Motman said. “As a patron, Princess Margarita isn’t coming to this with a superficial knowledge. She’s learning how it all works, because it’s a real addition to our equestrian society in the Netherlands and Europe.”
The princess called her visit to the Classic “a learning trip.”
“If you don’t know enough about the sport, then you cannot really be part of it, so that’s why I’m jumping into it,” Princess Margarita said. “Jumping, literally, into this new world.”