Training

Training Board

• Full Training Board Stall available at Katie’s Personal Farm in Williston, SC - individual stall and individual turnout - ( please see The Facility page for photos and more information)

  • (Space is limited at her personal farm, so please inquire for availability and pricing)

  • Travel Training at Personal Farms local to Aiken

    • Partial or Full Training = 3 - 5 rides a week or 12-20 training rides a month

Boutique Sales

• Katie is happy to help market your horse for you, and find the perfect, loving home for them. This includes training, making professional sale videos, professional photos, advertising using her network, and taking to local shows and venues to help make your horse more confident and thus marketable. This also includes handling all of the interactions with potential buyers, appointments, and vet checks.

  • Cost is Training fees plus 10% Commission of Sale Price

  • Commission based sales are an option, though dependent on individual horse and situation

Lessons and Instruction

Katie is available to teach riders of all ages, disciplines, and levels. She is passionate about teaching correct rider position, effectiveness, and clarity of aids. As well as, teaching the owner/rider that they can be an advocate for their horse by learning to ride them correctly over their back in the correct balance, so that the horse is muscled properly, is happy, feels good in their body, and has a longer riding career.

• Available to Travel to Your Farm in the Aiken

• Trailer-In Lessons at her Farm in Windsor, SC - Irrigated, Regulation Size Dressage Arena with Mirrors

• Covered Arenas available for Rainy Days

• Riding Your Horse/Tune-Up Rides/’Nachreiten’

  In order to best help student and horse, Katie believes it’s important for one’s trainer to sit on the student’s horse. How would a trainer otherwise know what the student is truly feeling and experiencing? Katie is happy to do tune-up rides or training rides. Once, the horse better understands what is being requested of him/her, the student, who is also learning, will have better success to be able to plug-in the aids and feel what the trainer has taught the horse. In German, this is called ‘Nachreiten’ - when the trainer tunes up the horse, and the student gets on “after-riding” and feels what the trainer has ‘installed’. So much of riding is based upon feel, and without this important aspect, how is any student ever suppose to get ahead?

Training Philosophy

• No matter the breed, age, or background Katie’s passion lies in curating a training program that focuses on bringing out the talent and potential of each individual horse. This requires a system, intuition, experience, understanding of theory, and finesse for a trainer to know just how far to push the boundaries to be developed up the levels without over-facing the horse mentally and physically.
  The purpose and art of Dressage is to improve the Quality of Gaits. Katie’s training adheres to this goal by following Classical Dressage Principles that focus, first and foremost, on the correct balance of the horse, along with gymnasticizing exercises that aid in improving relaxation, suppleness, straightness, and ultimately developing the strength for collection.

  Starting of Young Horses Using Classical Principles

Katie’s philosophy in starting young horses slowly and systematically lays a solid foundation in Dressage right from the start - utilizing months of ground work and in-hand work to methodically and patiently teach the horse the mechanics of riding and correct balance before ever having a rider on their back. Taking this extra time to lay a solid foundation for the rest of their riding careers will aid in successful first rides that will imprint a positive first experience with a rider.

Young Horse and Ground Manner Training/ In-Hand Work

Whether it be a yearling, two year old or an older horse, it is important to establish basic ground manners - that the horse be attentive, waiting for commands, and have a respect and awareness of their space and the handler’s space. This work transfers over to teaching patience, mutual respect of space, as well as to work under-saddle. Many times for horses with vices or lack of basics, Katie will do ground work so that the horse understands what is being asked of them on the ground before asking under-saddle. This way we are always setting the horse up for understanding of is being asked of them and therfore, success in their training.