Amelia discovered her passion for horses when she received four riding lessons for her eleventh birthday. Little did her parents know that these four lessons would fuel a passion for riding that would grow into first leasing a horse, then owning a horse – then several horses, and then a truck and trailer. Growing up, Amelia could usually be found out at the barn. Eventually, when her parents finally tired of driving her to the barn, she was so determined to ride that she hopped on her bike and rode the seven miles along the highway to get to the barn.
When Amelia was fourteen, her family purchased a three year old Dutch Warmblood, Geronimo, who forced Amelia to prove her determination and passion for riding. Soon after arriving from Holland, Geronimo developed a horrible rearing problem. Many suggested selling him, but Amelia was determined to figure out how to work with him. Learning how to “fix” Geronimo meant leaving the security of her barn, her riding friends, and the dressage world completely. Geronimo was sent out to Hudson, Colorado, to an incredible horseman by the name of Larry Fleming. Larry had to start over from the beginning with Geronimo. Everything from leading properly and taking the halter properly, to being respectful of the human on the ground had to be retaught. Amelia recalls, “Geronimo used to rip his head out of the halter when you would put him back in his pen. I never realized that this was an indication of his disrespect for the human until Larry told me that I was not to let him loose until he stood there patiently while I removed his halter. Larry told me: ‘it might take you more than a hundred times, but it won’t take you more than a million.’”
It was a long journey with Larry and Geronimo, but eventually Amelia got to the point that she could ride Geronimo without him rearing. She even won a ranch roping competition on him and a dressage show all in the same summer! Amelia credits the experience that she had with Geronimo as the beginning of the road to becoming a true horsewoman. Many people know how to ride, but have no understanding of how to actually train a young horse or fix a serious behavioral issue.
The day after she graduated from high school, Amelia moved to Kiowa, Colorado, to work for Mindy Bowers. “I got an enormous amount of experience working for Mindy,” says Amelia. “I would ride from dawn to dusk six days a week and ten to twelve horses a day. Sometimes my butt would get so raw it would start bleeding, but I just kept on riding.”
After working for Mindy for a year and a half, Amelia returned to Boulder to finish her bachelors degree in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at the University of Colorado. Every second that she was not studying was spent riding. By the time she graduated, Amelia had enough clients to go right into a full-time career as a dressage trainer, training horses and giving riding lessons.
