She grew up riding horses of all breeds and disciplines in Washington state. As soon as she was tall enough to open doors, Katie was sneaking outside to ride. This led to riding horses for neighbors, friends of the family, and local trainers. Soon, she was teaching lessons and riding young horses for others in the horse community. College brought Katie to the east coast where she attended Post Uni
versity in Waterbury, Connecticut. There, she studied equine management and principles of riding. She also competed on both the hunt seat and dressage intercollegiate teams. Wanting more horsemanship focus, she transferred to the University of Montana – Western. There, she was accepted into the natural horsemanship program. She continued to compete on both hunt seat and dressage teams. She was asked to manage the barn that hosted the teams’ horses, at that point she decided to focus on the training, teaching, and management aspects of the barn and stopped riding on both teams. She managed the 100+ horse facility for 2 years while attending college, studying business and equine studies. While in Montana, she spent a year working as a vet tech at the local veterinary hospital. She assisted in routine veterinary procedures as well as surgery and emergency situations. From Montana, Katie moved to Maryland where she was a working student at Bascule Farm. Here she was immersed in the day to day business of riding, training, and managing of a large scale breeding, training, and boarding three day event barn. She had the opportunity to ride many types of horses from young horses to older difficult horses. She also got to ride some really nice talented horses that showed her the ropes out cross country. Maryland led to Katie moving to North Carolina in January 2010, she managed a beautiful farm in Gaston county until January 2015 when she made the move to The Trails at Amity Hill. Over those five years, Katie focused on her dressage education, attending clinics, taking lessons, and riding as many horses a day as was possible. She also trained select horses and riders utilizing her knowledge of multiple disciplines, the common basics, and a balanced seat approach. Katie is excited to help riders and horses of all levels learn to work together better. Her main guiding philosophy is that riding should be fun, even if there are lofty goals to be met. Trails 2 Rails offers consistent, effective, and horse-centric training that allows a positive partnership to form. The foundation of this successful method is riding outside of the arena. With lots of land to explore and varying terrain, horses learn to trust their rider and become confident in themselves as well.
