Marcasite, also known as Marc for short, came to the Beyler family when he was seven years old. He had been competed heavily in dressage as a three year old in the state of Massachusetts, but was put out in a field at the end of that show season due to “mysterious” soundness issues. Four years later, we were looking for a small horse for Sara, my younger sister, and heard about a nice eventing pony. It turned out the pony was not right for Sara, but our mother hit it off so well with the owner that she said, “I have a horse that I never thought I would sell, but you could take a look at him.” Marc got pulled out of the field for my sister and I to ride, and it was all down hill from there!
Marc spent the next two seasons competing in eventing and dressage with Sara and after winning many year-end awards those “mysterious” soundness issues caught up with him. After having surgery with an orthopedic specialist from England and six months recovery time, he was back at it again but with me instead of Sara. Marc and I hit it off, and worked together for many years – he even went to college with me! Marc and I mastered most of the upper level dressage movements including canter pirouettes and piaffe, and weren’t too shabby over fences either. I owe most of my knowledge and skill to Marc, as he always wanted to work but did it with his own flare and spirit, and ended up being a much more talented horse than any of us ever expected. He is now retired, and goes for short rides periodically (he truly misses being in steady work).    When I could no longer ride Marc steadily, I began teaching in 2003 to fill that void. I had no idea how much I would enjoy teaching, and become very attached to all of my students and their horses. I currently work with ten to fifteen horses, depending on the time of year, and cover a wide variety of breeds and disciplines. Some of my students highlights last year were completing their first horse trial with a young ex-racehorse, having a successful first season with an up and coming Arabian endurance horse, and a jumper-turned-dressage combination that were the ESDCTA Training Level Champions, the BLM Training Level Reserve Champions, and placed in the top twelve at the USDF Region 1 Championships their first year out. My teaching philosophy is to keep things easy to understand and fun for both horse and rider, and I use the basics of dressage to improve a horse’s strength and conditioning whether they are a hunter, eventer, endurance horse or dressage horse.