TLEC is honored to have a new trainer join our family. Ms. Mary has been riding for over 40 years. Her love for horses began back when Roy Rogers was her favorite singing cowboy. While growing up in Nebraska, her horsemanship skills were honed with western riding, where a trail ride was over four hours long and meandering up and down dirt roads and through farmers’ fields. She began training with her first horse, a spooky quarter horse, who she was able to train from a bucking and spinning rodeo horse, to a confident trail horse she rode all over the countryside.
Moving to Georgia in the early 80s she made her entrance in the hunter world and began showing. She trained her horse “Heart’s Desire” and together they won many championships (they remain together to this day). Mary managed a barn and began training students in Alpharetta during this time, where she began working with mentally and physically challenged children. Her passion for horses grew even stronger, in a way she thought not possible. Horses showed Mary they can do more than just teach someone to ride, they teach confidence, and many skills thought “unreachable” by the rider.
Heart’s Desire was diagnosed with uvitus, a disease causing blindness. Mary moved to a dressage barn in 2000 to continue training and her horse willingly responded. After five years of dressage ,it was time to move to Marietta and begin teaching again at Rebel Woods Ranch. Here she started the Epona Equestrian Club where members learned to ride, as well as total horsemanship . There she taught children with learning disabilities, with Heart’s Desire as her lesson horse. One student, who had not spoken for two years, came with her mother to just observe. The child at first would just hang out with Mary, but then progressed to grooming, then riding, and finally taking lessons. After several weeks, the mother brought to the barn a smile, and the news that her daughter had begun talking again! Mary knew then that horses work miracles.
The program expanded to include teaching children at a private school, Foundations for the Future, which works with young children and there Mary began working with five to seven year olds. She helped to build their confidence through teaching about horses and total horsemanship. Mary continues to teach private lessons, working with children with disabilities, and continues her own training in the areas of hunter/jumpers, dressage, and natural horsemanship.