Each month, we will be profiling one of our Strides Student Members, so everyone can get to know each other a little! This month, let’s get to know Wendi from Missouri, USA
How long have you been a member of Strides?
Joined last August!
What’s your favorite part of Strides?
SO hard to choose! I love the guest lectures – what a wonderful complement to Amelia’s courses, which help to break down training steps in easy to understand, comprehensive steps. I am a huge fan of the video reviews – Nicol, Nicole, and Amelia have given me so much useful advice! Nicol has also recommended some useful books that have enlightened my approach (not so much mechanics but philosophy of training). I am learning so much from Nicole’s Train Your Eye series. And the community – I have struggled with my balance issues, and my inability to be consistent with Niles, and there are so many people in Strides (and in TSMC and RPB) who have encouraged me. I don’t get that kind of support from my barn. – it is small, I am usually here by myself, and there isn’t the same community. Plus, being able to click “complete” each time I finish a video makes my geek brain smile. I love that the community is international!
How has Strides helped you achieve your goals or work through challenges?
Where to start? When I started last summer with the TSMC, it was the Facebook group and Nicol Hinde who called me out and encouraged me not to be so hard on myself. It was because of the community that I sought answers – and was able to start correcting my issues. The January 2025 bootcamp and the shaping plan was an enormous jumpstarter. I am finally able to see the path, and envision future steps. I am a softer, more thoughtful, and more discerning partner to my horse.
Tell us more about your horse:
Niles, my Squee Boy! Jockey Club name “Beyond the Nile” – dad was Pioneer of the Nile, and mom is Beyond Price. Niles sold for $250,000 at the Keeneland sales as a yearling, but while he broke out of the gate fast, he did not like track life. He was retired at 5, and I adopted him from The Secretariat Center. Niles also serves as the Equine Advocate for the charity I run, Special Horses, which helps small, in-the-trenches equine rescues with fundraising, marketing, and grants. Niles is extremely fond of alfalfa, grazing, rolling in mud, and German Horse muffins. His mantra is, “Everything’s a toy, except a toy.” He has been so kind, so patient, and so willing as I have fumbled and worked my way through different health issues. There are not many horses – much less OTTBs – that I could ride at the walk and trot with my eyes closed, with no one else around, and not be concerned. He is so smart. I am so grateful to have found Amelia’s Dressage Academy so I can step up to the plate and be the partner he deserves.
What’s your goal for the next year?
I WILL CANTER!! If we have the Canter Challenge it would be fabulous to enter the Canter Cup division.
I will master soft feel from the ground, and leg yields from the ground and in the saddle, on our way to shoulders in.
And should the weather and everything else align, it would be a blast to go to a schooling show and see how solid we are in a different environment.
What is something unique about you, your journey or your horse?
Probably the charity – I kind of fell into that by accident, and since receiving our nonprofit status in 2015, we have raised over $225,000 to assist over 100 equine welfare organizations, plus created flyers and brochures and helped with crafting and submitting grant requests. I used to run my own biomedical research lab (was a Professor of Pharmacology, PhD in Biochemistry, but as I tell people, “That and $7 gets you a latte at Starbuck’s.”
Niles’ breeder (Lantern Hill Farms) used to call Niles “The Master of Disaster.”
