Untacked

CO T H . CO M | S E P T E M B E R /O C T O B E R 2 0 2 0    21 W atching Geoffrey Hesslink navigate the showgrounds, whether teaching or riding a green horse, you'd think he'd been a professional for decades. The 24-year-old is quickly making a name for himself with Hesslink Williams LLC, which he runs with partner Brendan Williams. "Being a young professional isn't easy at the beginning—I think it's hard to be taken seriously, which can make it difficult to get off the ground a little bit," says Hesslink. "If this is what you want to do, you just have to find a way to make it happen. There is a lot of opportunity in this industry that can get you there." Since aging out of the juniors, where he won titles like the 2014 Platinum Performance/USEF Talent Search Finals— East (New Jersey), Hesslink has earned second place in the 2016 WCHR Developing Pro Challenge (Maryland) and second in the 2017 USHJA International Hunter Derby Championship Section A, winning Section B. In addition to collecting tricolors in the professional divisions and derby victories—most recently the $10,000 USHJA International Hunter Derby at the Princeton Summer Classic (New Jersey) with Curo—he's helped clients to top honors at the Winter Equestrian Festival (Florida), Washington International (District of Columbia), Capital Challenge (Maryland) and the National Horse Show (Kentucky). "I've been lucky enough in my career to ride, train and learn from some of the top equestrians in the industry, but I always sort of knew I wanted to do it differently—my way," says the Wellington, Florida-based resident. "Not to sound cheesy, but I feel like I took something from everyone, and I'm trying to make it the best of everything that I learned. Andre Dignelli was a huge mentor of mine and still is, and I think his professionalism is something that really resonated with me. "I've been lucky enough starting out that people trust me and want me to be their trainer and rider," he continues. "I'm really, really blessed to have the incredible people that I do around me." 1. What's the biggest challenge you've faced? Last summer at the Hampton Classic (New York), I was showing one of my grand prix horses on the grass. I did local day, and I was third in the welcome. I won the first few hunter classes and was second in the hunter derby; I was off to a great start. I was really going for it, and my horse slipped. The grass gave way underneath him when I was doing a turn by the in-gate, and all four legs went out from under him. There was a lot of momentum because we'd just landed from a jump, and he landed on my leg, slid across it, and my foot was facing the opposite way. I compound fractured my tibia and fibula, and my ankle was shattered. I had to have three surgeries to kind of reconstruct my leg and get that back to normal. It was mentally the most challenging thing I've ever lived through, for sure. The timing of it was poor just because we were gearing up for indoors—although I guess there's never a good time to do that! It's like that time in the fall where everybody's sort of getting serious, and I was really excited for the horses I had to show at the championships. Watching those from the live feed in my bed was extremely hard. It really tested me in ways I didn't think possible—I definitely found myself in a dark place, not really OK with it, and someone I didn't really recognize. People who have experienced similar accidents have a way of reaching out when things like that happen. I spoke to a few different people like Cat Tyree and Kent Farrington, and they sort of gave me this pep talk and said, "This is what it is. You can make it a big deal, or you can make it not a big deal." That woke me up, and I chose from that moment on to [view it as], "This wasn't a big deal. I was going to be back soon, and I'm going to be back better than ever." My partner, Brendan Williams, stayed extremely positive the entire time. He kept the business running and horses in the groove, so that the day I could ride, everything was just the way I left it. I am very happy with how my year has gone so far, so I'm trying to not look back.

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