Yann Ritter

[forte]

Full Name: Yann Sebastien Ritter
Nick Names: Yannie, Lehrer (teacher in German), several others that he doesn't care to share with the likes of you.
Student aor Staff: Staff, Dressage Team Coach
Age: 32
Ethnicity: German/French, with a little dash of Gypsy on both sides and a family tree going back so far that no one really cares any more. His accent is very subtle.
Gender: Male
Physical Description: When he's cleaned up, he's probably quite handsome. In his youth, he was extremely dashing, noted for being one of the most handsome young riders in the dressage arena, but events have caused him to let himself go altogether. Still, one can see a glimpse of the old majesty in the aristocratic long nose - now knotted where it was broken in the accidence that ruined his career, in the fine cheekbones under a gristle of beard, and in the honey gold of his eyes beneath a shag of dark hair. He stands at roughly 5' 11", but calls it 6' for simplicity's sake, with longer legs and arms that make him seem all knees on the ground. His fingers are extraordinarily long and fine-boned for his large hands.

Strangely enough, Yann has horrible posture on the ground. To seem him riding, sitting up straight as a rod and perfectly balanced, and to see him walking, slightly hunched, eyes a bit downcast, arms folded irritably as if against the wind are two entirely different things. When he's teaching, too, he straightens up considerably, and also when he's distracted from his normal dismal thoughts. It's as if the weight of life is bearing down on him at all times. He has a long face most of the time, although not exactly sad. More like distant, as if thinking of what would have and could have been. Reflection is the only time in which he is truly still. Otherwise, he's always playing air-piano or pacing, moving about restlessly to distract himself from the world.

Yann has a generally scruffier appearance than most teachers... mostly because he can get away with it. None of the other staff (who basically know who he is and what he used to do) would dare tell him to sharpen up. Students might think he's a bit weird with his slightly ratty jacket and scarf, never a tie in sight, a little drop of coffee or brandy on his collar, but after a while they, too, come to accept it. He doesn't dress the part of a serious teacher, but he is one. His intelligence is plain in the quiet tones of his voice, the excessive amounts of hand motions he uses when he can be coerced into talking, and the simple spark in his dulled eye. He's not to be scoffed at, for sure, even though that's generally the first reaction to him.

Personality: Yann is a bit reclusive, he likes to stay out of the limelight and walk in the shadows. He has a dismal melancholy air, a pensive sort of nature that makes most steer clear of him when he wants to be left alone. He's seen, for sure, but no one ever really looks at him. Not anymore. And he likes it that way. He's naturally happy, joyful, capable of great gaiety and a spirit of fun, but that has been tempered by the past, and now he seems almost sad most of the time. Teaching is really the only thing that can bring out the real Yann anymore, and when he is in the ring with students his old, slightly snarky, domineering, but above all kind and gracious mannerisms come through. He is really an excellent teacher.

Around horses he is quiet, methodical, and he seems to be able to convince them to do what he wants in one way or another. He rarely talks to them, although he does so more than he does to other human beings that aren't his students, and is rather fond of trying to communicate wordlessly with them. Such is the way of the dressage rider. He is not an aristocrat or a snob - he has always saddled and brushed and washed his own horses. He is not above dirty work. He is not some picture-perfect ex-professional rider. In fact, most of his students wouldn't even guess that he used to ride at the level that he did (he wouldn't admit it if they asked, probably.) He's fairly kind, extraordinarily patient, and loves difficult puzzles.

Puzzles and problems and predicaments are always his favorite parts of life. Yann loves to come up with out-of-the-box solutions for his students' riding issues, and in this way he can be a rather torturous trainer. However, he is not the dictator or the one who would make a student repeat the same thing over and over until it was perfect. Perfection can only be reached through understanding. Yann is really witty, knowledgeable, and, if you can get him to talk, is usually a very good listener. He's steady as a rock when it comes to friendships, although a bit emotionally unstable privately. He's vice-ridden - well, he smokes. And he has a fondness for brandy. Neither is too bad, but he's no angel.

Background: Yann was born in Germany to a pair of relatively successful dressage riders who were defying the age-old rivalry between the French and German styles of riding. His mother was a fiery Frenchwoman with a good pinch of Bohemian and maybe some Italian in her, quick as a whip and just as vitriolic. His father, on the other hand, was a rather strict aristocratic German with blue eyes and a very steady hand and whip. The two must have loved to hate one another, because eventually they married and had a child, despite the fact that each wondered at how they stayed together. Their tempers were well-matched, their hearts were both in the sport, and soon enough Yann was caught up in a tug-of-war between mother and father when it came to his training in dressage.

There was never any doubt that little Yannie would, indeed, be a dressage rider. Although he was fairly well pressed into it, Yann actually enjoyed the sport and he didn't mind at all. What he did mind, however, was his mother and father's constant battling over which horse was right for him and what he should be working on and etcetera. So, at the first chance he got, Yann flew the coop to go work with a rather eccentric Dutch dressage trainer, who really influenced the young boy's style. It was said trainer who set Yann in stone and made him really want to get into competitive dressage, so, armed with a rather inexperienced young warmblood with the ridiculous name of Vincent L'Amour, he went off into the competition world.

Yann's fame, and scores, skyrocketed, and soon enough he was marked as a potential member of the German Olympic team at the age of only 18. However good he was, though, the horse he was on was not quite good enough, and nor was any of the various others he was put on for the next three years... that is, until Abstractism came along. Abstract was a huge black Dutch Warmblood gelding, who, like Yann, was full of potential but had not yet reached it. When the two met, the horse was competing under a sub-par rider for a frustrated owner, who was trying to sell him. Of course, the price was high, but the first time that Yann rode the horse it was instant love. They were partners for life and all, and together rode their way to soaring fame.

For a short time, Yann was one of the highest hopes for the Dutch Olympic team (he had by then defected, rejecting the advances of his home country.) There was no doubt that he would carry the team to a dressage gold, riding that huge horse of his who seemed so clumsy without a rider. However, there was a catastrophic event during the Olympic trials, of all things. At some point, Abstractism had stumbled in a pothole out in a pasture, or something, and had injured his back coronet badly. Normally, Yann would have noticed something in his gait, but nerves were running high.... Preforming a series of flying lead changes, the horse suddenly stumbled and the ankle snapped as the big, infallible cruise ship collapsed in the middle of the ring, throwing Yann over his head and into the nearby fence, where his nose was broken.

Abstractism, whose ankle was grievously injured, was euthanized in the ring. It was one of the most unusual catastrophes in all of dressage riding. Yann was uninjured, except for a broken nose and a broken heart. He left the team before the Olympics, and disappeared from the face of the Earth. For a year or so he was too depressed to do anything except sleep, eat what was forced into him by the parents he had come crawling back to, and have vivid nightmares that woke him screaming from sleep. His parents bullied him into getting up, starting to train horses in the stable which they managed. He did so, but without any heart at all, for years and years. He never did compete again, nor did he train anything above average.

Just a year ago, he came back to life, saw the light in the windows, and knew that he had to get away from the life he knew. So he fled across the ocean, across the world, to the Americas, where he found a job as a dressage coach at Blue Ridge. It's a second chance for him, perhaps, and at least he has found something that brings out the joy that life used to bring to him.
Face Claim/Playby: Yann Tiersen (disregard the earrings, please xD)

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