We know Carole Lieberman as the bold Starter Rider contender. Her beloved partner is the 23-year-old Paint, Gimli, a former school horse at Mill Creek Equestrian in Topanga Canyon.
The world knows Carole as “Dr. Carole,” “America’s Psychiatrist,” the “Terrorist Therapist®” and as an internationally renowned media therapist. She’s frequently featured in the news and as a forensic psychiatrist and expert witness in major criminal trials. (the Terrorist Therapist name relates to Carole’s work helping kids and families cope with fears of a terrorist attack.)
Despite the celebrity from a career dedicated to helping people become or stay sane, Carole is flat-out crazy when it comes to horses — just like the rest of us.
Crazy In Love
Carole met Gimli about 15 years ago. She had ridden a little as a child, then came back to it in adulthood. While property shopping in her Malibu area, she stumbled upon Mill Creek Equestrian, rekindling dreams of a having a horse in her life.
She also stumbled upon one of the eventing world’s most revered instructors and horsewomen. Mill Creek’s owner Cory Walkey received the US Eventing Association’s Cornerstone Instructors Award in 2012 and the equestrian opportunities she made possible through Mill Creek are the stuff of legend.
Carole only needed a few rides to fall in love with Gimli. “I begged Cory to let me buy him,” Carole recounts. “I mean, I begged her and begged her and begged her.
“But she said no,” Carole continues. Gimli was a gem of a lesson horse and those are hard to find. And Cory wanted Carole to have the benefit of riding different horses as part of her horsemanship education. Instead, Cory found her a horse named Sage that Carole bought and showed for a while. When Sage retired after injuring herself, Carole went back to persuing her true love, Gimli.
Carole persisted. “I whispered in his ear, ‘You are going to be mine one day’.” She leased him. She kept begging Cory to buy this horse named after a heroic Lord Of The Rings character.
A Mother-Daughter Adventure
Cory eventually relented and Carole and her daughter Tiffany now share and enjoy every day they get with him. Tiffany started in riding camps at 3 and continues to enjoy the sport. She leaves the competing to her mom, but helps keep Gimli fit at home and grooms for them at shows.
“We’ve bonded through our countless hours together with horses,” Carole notes. Their shared saddle time includes many equestrian adventures. A horseback safari in Botswana, chateau-to-chateau gallops in France’s Loire Valley and riding “the wild white horses of Camargue” in the South of France are among their treasured times together.
Since Mill Creek was sold, Carole and Tiffany moved to ride with McKenzie Rollins and Jennifer Johnson in Malibu. Jennifer and McKenzie came from Mill Creek, where Jamie Mann was another one of Carole’s influential coaches. “I am grateful to all of my coaches and trainers whose encouragement over the years has been invaluable.”
Horses As Helpers
Carole is uniquely qualified to explain why horses are so good for people.
“Horseback riding is a fabulous way to get away from the craziness of the world,” she confirms. That’s always been true and especially now as the world seems more troubled than ever. “It’s easy to feel helpless when so much is going wrong. With horses, at least you can feel that you are spending your days in a productive way that will diminish stress and that you are following a passion.
“Because of COVID, we have all become more aware of our own mortality,” Carole continues. “That makes it all the more important to use the time we have doing something joyful.” Tackling the challenges that arise on course, in the dressage court or stadium jumping make it easier to tackle challenges in the bigger arena of life.
“Whenever I have a jumping lesson, it makes me feel like I can jump over other problems.”
“In riding, we are interacting with this other living being who is much more powerful than we are,” Carole continues. “It’s a partnership that has no comparison. When I went to medical school in Europe, I did a lot of skiing and I kept up with that until I started riding. I loved it, but there’s no question that I prefer riding. There’s nothing like it.”
A Happy Ending at Galway
Carole and Gimli’s Starter Rider outing at the Galway Downs Spring Horse Trials started on a high note. After a helpful practice test that reminded her to address Gimli’s resistance to dropping into a relaxed frame, their actual test earned them one of their better scores.
Their equally feared and favored phase, cross-country, had a glitch. For no apparent reason, Steady Eddy Gimli decided on an impromptu dance number after fence 5, perplexing Carole to the point that she missed fence 6 and was eliminated. Not before finishing the rest of the course, however. She then asked the technical delegate’s permission to ride the stadium jumping for a more positive ending, and wound up feeling very happy about their performance.
“I walked the cross-country course three times. It was a very good course — all laid out in a circle– and I felt very confident about it,” Carole reflects. “Maybe I was too confident.”
Going off course, after Gimli’s unusual antics, only spurs Carole to work harder before the next event. With a busy fall and so much rain early this year, Carole was not in as great of shape as she’d like to have been coming into Galway.
“Can’t Be Complacent”
The Spring Horse Trial’s takeaway is that “I can’t be so complacent in trusting that my horse will just take me everywhere without my being more alert to anything that can happen.” The fact that so much can happen in any of the three phases is one of several reasons Carole loves eventing. Ideally, training as an eventer makes us all more able to react quickly and handle life’s many surprises, Carole says.
Flintridge Dressage, Shepard Ranch and Twin Rivers are on Carole and Gimli’s agenda in the coming months. So are lessons four or five days a week and, hopefully, spending a little less time sitting in her office and a little more time improving her fitness for riding.
The pair won many ribbons over the years, including 7th in the Area VI Introductory Championships at Ramtap last fall and a Galway Downs 1st and 7th in earlier outings. But there’s no resting on laurels. Clinics and schooling shows will be woven into their schedule to keep the learning curve in motion.
Above all, she’ll keep being crazy in love with her horse.
“There’s something so special about loving a horse,” Carole concludes. “Even when he does silly things like dancing on cross-country!”