Shelley Van den Neste

I cannot continue this blog without honoring the coaches and friends who have helped me so very much. This blog post is to honor and thank Shelley Van den Neste. I met her about 2 years ago, when I found that Walter Zettl was having a clinic at her farm. I emailed her and asked if she had an opening and if she might have a horse I could lease for the clinic. She did. (I forgot to tell her I was disabled, lol. Walter did that for me, ha ha.)

Since then, I have traveled to FL whenever I could make it to take some lessons from her.

More recently, when Michelle Donlick's horse, Babe, went lame, and it was apparent I would need a new mount (2 weeks before the last World Equestrian Games qualifier), I called her up and asked if she had a horse I might could take. She did! However, this mount (Windsor's Mira) also went lame (5 days before we left - which is how I ended up riding "Ollie" - another story!)

Shelley flew to Canada with me (well not exactly WITH me...she got diverted to Philly and then bumped off her flight). I then promptly got lost, driving round and round the airport trying to find her friggin gate at the Canadian airport to pick her up when she finally arrived. THEN her luggage and the horse's luggage got lost. THEN, we took over an hour finding our hotel room the next night when we moved into the athletes' hotel. THEN, when I went to pay, my credit card company thought my card had been stolen and the motel could not take my payment with my only credit card I had brought. That was straightened out, and, well, the whole trip was, well, interesting. Shelley braved it all and even laughed at all my attempts to make it funny anyway, lol. So many things went wrong, we started making private jokes about anything and everything and laughing about it all.

I can't say enough good things about her. She is a great coach, a good friend, and I never would have qualified for the Selection Trials without her help. Oh, and I would have never made it up that hill 1,000 times without the help from my GBE helper!

You can see her blog by going to http://sunrisefarms.blogspot.com/

You can see her website by going to http://www.srfsporthorses.com/

If you live in FL, she is a great coach who doesn't skip steps in the training of her horses or riders.

Thank you, Shelley :)