:: Dressage by Design Bio & Background ::

• Olympic Screening Trials
• USDF Medallist
• Private Pilot
• Rhode Island School of Design, B.F.A.
• Teaching & Training for over 30 years
• Born in St. Louis - Grew up in New York

The best year of riding as a child (age 10) was with the Ackerls, an older Austrian couple who taught the Rockefeller children and ran a very structured lesson program in Pocantico Hills, NY. In the winter, we rode indoors, did lots of formation riding and riding to music. In the summer we rode out all over the Rockefeller estates, farms and orchards on wide groomed trails. The Ackerls, regrettably, retired the next year and moved back to Austria.

Amazing & Dangerous Adventures – Riding crazy rental horses in New York's Central Park when I was in High School. Rented from Claremont Stables, ridden through city streets to the park, with no helmets...(more>>)

Holly Howard, age 9 in her first horse show at Hackley School, Tarrytown, NY on Flyer. "I, of course, thought Flyer was the most beautiful horse I'd ever seen, with his long wavy mane...he taught me to walk, trot and canter.