High Mountain Dressage

Born in Bucks County, PA (horse country!)… I was bitten with the horse bug at an early age. At the age of 3, my cousin gave me my very first pony ride. Ever since then, I've been crazy about these amazing animals. My dad was nice enough to rent me horses to trail ride on or ask friends if I could spend time with their horses. When I was 10, my parents signed me up for a 2 week summer riding camp. I learned basic care, how to tack up, and rode English for the very first time! I continued trail riding and doing summer camp but this was not enough. By the age of 12, my parents realized my begging to be around horses was not going to stop. They said I could take weekly riding lessons only if I gave up my dance lessons. Though I loved dance, this was not a hard choice. I started taking lessons once a week. After falling in love with an Arab gelding named Romeo, going to the barn once a week quickly turned into spending as much time there as my parents would allow.

In 2006, I met a brilliant girl who inspired me to stop "riding" horses and start training horses. This was my first taste of dressage, though at the time we thought we were just 2 kids trying to figure out how horses work. I stopped showing and taking hunter lessons and started leasing a little mare named Tequila. Together with my friend and our ponies, I learned more about the horse's mind and training than I had in the years of lessons. When we weren't riding or playing games with our horses, we were reading training books and watching videos. We did anything to get as much information as possible. We eventually started our own training and lesson business together in 2008.

I felt I was still missing a chunk from my equine education so in 2009, I moved to New York to be a working student for a dressage farm. All the missing puzzle pieces were filled in and that's when my career in the horse industry started to take off. Returning home, I got a job at multiple barns teaching beginner riding lessons including a therapy barn. I found that teaching riders is more difficult than teaching horses. The challenge was exhilarating and every lesson inspired me to work harder at becoming the best teacher I can be. I began to throughly study the most basic aspects of dressage so that I could give every beginner a rock solid foundation, no matter what dicipline they chose to ride. Though I have taught more advanced students, I find beginners are the most rewarding.

I am now here in Arizona to continue my education at High Mountain Dressage. I feel very fortunate to have been able to turn my passion into a career. Every horse, student, and instructor is bringing me one step closer to achieving my goals as a professional horsewoman and I can't thank them enough.