Stephanie Burnham

Stephanie has more than 17 years of experience working at equestrian facilities, teaching lessons, and training horses. Stephanie has competed her own horses in Hunter/Jumpers, Dressage, and Western Pleasure in her career. She educates her students in the importance of good horsemanship and building a partnership between horse and rider. Using classical dressage and natural horsemanship techniques, Stephanie can encourage confidence, softness, and the adaptability in both horse and rider.

A Letter from Stephanie to Prospective Students or Parents

Throughout the years I have stressed safety, horsemanship, and discipline and helped adults and children of all levels meet their goals at home and at horse shows.

My main focus is the creation of safe, effective and confident riders.  Whether you want to develop your skills toward competition, learning a new style or skill, or simply improving your riding and your horse, we can work out the most appropriate program for you.  There is no one “right” way to learn, and there is no one “right” speed of progression. I firmly believe in tailoring each program for each rider, and not a “cookie cutter” approach.  The basics cannot be over-learned, and I will take as long as necessary until a rider is comfortable before we move onto something more demanding.

My own equestrian background has been quite varied. I was fortunate to have a very good trainer myself, who was not only able to train me in riding, but who also taught me how to break down different skills to enable them to become a true horsewoman. I would like to be able to pass that along to future students.  

My childhood trainer taught me that there’s always another way to explain something, and that if the student isn’t picking it up, perhaps the trainer needs to try a different approach to make it more easily understood.  This has stood me in very good stead over the years.