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[Up Front]
Horse Crazy
Sheryl Sachter Rudolph, with her 14-yearold
Welsh Cobb gelding Monty, shows
off the FITS Full Seat Breeches and Silk
Touch Show Shirt.
Reluctant entrepreneur combines her skills and passion to create comfortable,
functional, stylish riding apparel Story and photos by Deborah Moon
Sheryl Sachter Rudolph has been comfortable on a horse since
age 4. That’s when her father, Dave Sachter, started taking
her to ride Shetland ponies each week after Sunday school at
Congregation Shaarie Torah.
Comfortable, that is, except for the clothes she wore: archaic
full-seat breeches that featured inflexible leather panels.
She finally decided to combine her decades in technical apparel
product development and her equestrian experience to develop
comfortable breeches that enhance the riding experience.
Her basic premise: “Riders are athletes and they need apparel
that really functions for them.”
“It seemed like I was uniquely qualified to make a breech that
really performs for the rider,” she says.
But she didn’t want to be an entrepreneur.
“My parents had a business (Sachter’s Southwest Furniture)
so I knew how much work it is to have a family business. I never
wanted my own business,” she says.
For years she kept notes on why traditional breeches did
not perform well and why they were uncomfortable. She talked
to other riders and filed their concerns. And she talked to her
father about her ideas that breeches should have a lot of stretch,
be very durable, wick and have long-lasting good looks.
“When my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer, I spent a lot
of time with him. Dad got me started in horses,” she explains,
noting as a child she had loved to listen to her father’s stories.
“Some of my earliest memories are of Dad telling stories. He
loved horses and would talk about being a little kid at the
Meade Street Shul on Shabbat and looking out the window.
The garbage men kept horses in the field next to the shul and
he (Dad) would watch the horses. When he got older, after
cheder (afternoon Hebrew school) he would go out and ride the
garbage men’s horses with strings (for reins).”
“When I was 4, he started to take us (Sheryl and her sister
Elaine) to ride Mr. Coyle’s Shetland ponies in Tigard,” she reminisces
with a smile. “We (about 15 to 20 little girls) were the
Alpenrose Cavalry. We would ride in the Rose Festival Parade,
Fourth of July events… and drill team stuff at Alpenrose.”
Though there have been times in her life when she didn’t
ride, she says her love for horses has “been a constant in my
life.” From about fifth to eighth grade, she competed on a
hunter-jumper her parents half-leased for her. When she was
25, her husband, Steve Rudolph, presented her with a key, then
blindfolded her and drove her to a stable where she found a
palomino and a tack room that the key opened. In her early 30s,
her friend Mandi Chestler asked if she wanted to take a lesson a
week on her horse, which introduced Sheryl to eventing (where
horse and rider compete in show jumping, dressage and crosscountry
events). At 40, she switched to dressage and has done
that ever since.
And during all those years, she collected thoughts about how
riding breeches could work better.
While she spent as much time as possible with her father in
his final months of life in 2004, the subject came up repeatedly.
“He said, ‘Sheryl you need to do it.’ So that started me down
this road,” Sheryl explains. “It’s been a lot of work, but I’m really
glad.”
12 JULY 2012 | OREGON JEWISH LIFE