Community
Maxine Hladky:
“Rachel has helped me come a long way, and I am deeply grateful for having found her. She is an awesome rider, trainer and person! She is skilled and knowledgeable in training both horses and riders, and is an exceptional all around horsewoman, personalizing each lesson to what that individual pair needs and wants.”
Beatriz Infante:
“I will always be grateful to Rachel for her incredibly patient and skillful teaching, helping me find myself again as a rider and helping me learn how best to train my current unicorn. I'd earned my silver medal a little over 10 years ago, but after my then-trainer retired, I had a sequence of very unfortunate combinations of trainers and horses. After over a half dozen hard landings (though thankfully no broken bones) at no-longer-young age, I was, for the first time in my life, scared to ride. Over several months, Rachel helped me find my old riding self on a safe horse, until I regained my old confidence and seat, and advised me while I searched for my current horse, Dancer. Last year, Dancer was the #3 US PRE horse at Third Level, and this year, achieved #3 US PRE at Fourth Level.”
Kristin Luce:
“Our family met Rachel Williamson a couple of months after the pandemic began. While our world was getting smaller, with distance learning and working from home, Rachel opened up a new community for us, one that she filled with friendship as much as she did with FEI-level dressage instruction. Rachel began teaching our teen rider, Cassian, and Cassian’s horse Atlas, and it’s been a pleasure to watch the three of them work together, and to see Cassian grow into a much happier, more confident rider. With teenagers of her own, Rachel understands the unique joys and challenges that the age brings, and her relationship with Cassian reflects that insight. She offers emotional and logistical support in addition to a lifetime of equine experience, and her generosity is touching.”
Christine Cordeiro:
“I have been riding with Rachel since 2011, and to me she is my inspiration, the ultimate teacher, my friend, and my partner in helping me to achieve my dressage goals and dreams. I love Rachel's holistic teaching style. She is an effective riding coach and shares with me how to feel what the horse is doing and how my body and cues affect the horse, the basics and foundation of dressage training, how to deal with tricky situations like spookiness and misbehavior, and how to reason about what the horse is thinking/feeling. Outside of riding, Rachel has also taught me about groundwork and lunging, soundness, conformation, and more. Words cannot fully express my gratitude to have Rachel in my life, and I look forward to working with her for many years to come!”