Karl Slezak’s father, a policeman in one of Toronto’s high-crime neighbourhoods, wisely figured the best way to keep his children out of trouble as they grew up was to get them involved in activities. When the family moved from the city to rural Tottenham when Karl was seven, his parents suggested riding lessons and he and his cousins went to summer camp at Park Lane Ranch. By the time he was 12, Slezak was guiding trail rides and working part-time at the ranch.
The children of the ranch’s owners trained with eventer Garry Roque and Slezak ended up tagging along. At 15, he discovered eventing and become hooked. About the same time, he got his first horse – an off-the-track Thoroughbred gelding that “was all over the place like a drunken soldier.” The horse’s show name became He’s a Little Tipsy. “He was spooky and had a lot of stops and I think I mastered most ways of getting eliminated,” recalls Slezak, 33. “But when I got things right, we were competitive.”
Karl joined Pony Club and in 2001, achieved his A level and became an Equine Canada Level 1 coach. In 2002, Slezak was the youngest male to be awarded the Ontario Horse Trials Leading Male Rider award.
Slezak planned to go to university to study to become a veterinarian. But when Roque invited him to work in Florida for the winter, “that changed everything. I went to Garry’s and it was my drive to excel that kept me in the sport, and the only way to pay for it was to teach lessons and sell horses. It wasn’t a conscious decision, but here I am, still in it.”
Slezak earned a reputation for being able to turn around difficult horses. One of his first was Private Ryan, a Dutch warmblood that had been sent to a cowboy’s barn because of his penchant for bucking. “The first day I stayed on, but I think I got bucked off once a day for the next three months,” says Slezak. Still, he pressed on and Ryan became the first horse that Slezak brought from ‘barely broke’ to the CCI three-star level. They were short-listed to the Canadian team for the first time in 2004.
Training with then-team coach Jimmy Wofford and later with David O’Connor were pivotal for Slezak, “although I really got to understand the sport from Garry and riding with him was definitely important.” In 2005, Slezak became manager of Wolf Run Farm in Caledon, which is where his teaching and training business is based today. He’s been joined in the business by his fiancée and fellow event rider, Katlyn Hewson. They met in 2009 and are getting married in August of 2016.
Slezak has developed 11 horses to the advanced level, including VDL Ulando (last ridden by Michael Pollard until the horse was killed in a trailering accident) and Jessica Phoenix’s Pan Am partner, Pavarotti. And despite being short-listed seven times, he has yet to compete for the Canadian team, although that remains a goal. “There are so many highs and lows in this sport,” he says.
Earlier this year, Slezak was short-listed as a Pan Am team candidate with Fernhill Dutch Design, owned by Kirk Hoppner, one of two horses Slezak and Katlyn found in Ireland at Fernhill Stables. Hewson was also listed with her horse, Fernhill Cascum Marco (although Marco is a Fernhill horse, he was purchased in the US). After suffering a minor injury earlier this year, Fernhill Dutch Design (“DD”) is back in action and Slezak may try for the 2016 Olympic team with him, if he feels the horse, who is only seven years old, is ready.
Slezak continues to develop young horses and looks for ones that are good movers with great trots and canters, with the goal of achieving good dressage scores. Fortunately, his current string are not “problem children” like his earlier mounts. Slezak has two promising young horses coming up the ranks – Riviera and Excellence – as well as Fernhill Wishes, a gelding that is currently competing at the preliminary level. “I much prefer to make my horses. I feel it makes for a better partnership and helps build confidence in our relationships,” he says.
Horses don’t necessarily need to be the tidiest over fences as long as they are careful, and Slezak has a knack for instilling confidence in his mounts on the cross-country course. “It’s about being confident yourself,” he says. “There’s not much that makes me nervous on cross-country. It’s about me beating the questions the course designer produces, and I take it as a challenge.”
