Jean Kaplan-Thornton

USDF Bronze, Silver and Gold Medalist. Owner and head trainer of Equivale Jean has been riding horses since she was a toddler. Originally from Minnesota at age 12 she started competing in various 4H shows and attended horse camp every year and quickly became the youngest person in MN at the time to pass the Adavnced Level Certified Horsemaship Award. As a teenager Jean bought a purbred arabian named Galcimer (a.k.a Ghost), they showed all of the disciplines offered at the arabian shows. Soon after being introduced to dressage in college, Jean and Ghost quickly recieved Arabian Grand National and Reserve Championships through 4th level together. Ghost also took Jean to her USDF Bronze Medal. Ghost lived a long life of 34 years on the farm at Equivale. Once Ghost was retired Jean was determined to find her Grand Prix star and she did in Conversano II Aloha II (a.k.a. Lou), a young Lipizzan stallion who captured Jean's heart. Jean has trained Lou since he was 4 years old and has succesfully brought him to Grand Prix. Together they have earned over 28 USDFAll Breeds National Championships through Grand Prix and Jean's Silver and Gold Medals. In the most recent years Jean has ridden Lou in sidesaddle dressage demonstrations and she has also trained him to drive. Jean has studied dressage with numorous trainers inculding, Dominique Barbier,Conrad Schumacher ( one of the world's foremost dressage trainers) Michael Poulin (Olympic Bronze Medalist), Jan Brink (Olympic competititor), Tom Noone (former World Cup Competitor), Rodrigo Matos ( Principle rider at the Portugese riding school), and many others. In 2004 Jean imported a young cremello ZFDp stallion Blue Eyed Dream and purchased several chestnut mares in the hopes of breeding Equivale's 4-inhand driving team of dark golden palominos! Jean is now focusing on breeding her future combined driving team, competing her new driving pair in combined driving events as well as teaching students and judging dressage shows.

Charity L. Messer

Originally from Tennessee, Charity came to work at Equivale in 2005. Starting out riding with the Pony Club at 14 she quickly was mesmerized by dressage. She rode as many horses as possible at the local eventing barn but a good dressage trainer was hard to come by in Tn. At 19 she worked for a while as a Barn Manager in Maryland only to find that managing a 30 horse boarding facility left not much time for riding. So she sold her Tb mare and started loooking for a dressage related job, fate stepped in and brought her to Equivale. Charity is now the barn manager/assistant trainer at Equivale and does all of the training and undersaddle competing of Blue Eyed Dream, and is training/competing many of Equivale's other young horses to ride and drive. Charity has big plans to take Blue Eyed Dream all the way to Grand Prix and Grand Prix Freestyle! The two are currenly competing succesfully at 4th Level ( recently scoring a 66% in their first time out in 4th level recognized competition) and competed for the first time at the Region 3 Dressage Championships together in 2008, has brought Dream to win the First Place USDF National AWR First Level Horse award for the 2008 competition year and the 3rd Level AWR Champion for 2009. Blue Eyed Dream is also the first stallion Charity has trained and the pair have earned Charity her USDF Bronze Medal and Musical Freestyle Bronze Bar together. Since beginning working at Equivale Charity has gained expereince in breeding, collecting stallions, foaling, and working with foals and horses of all ages. She has been able to emerse herself in dressage and work with many different trainers including Erin Brinkman (FEi competitor/trainer),Conrad Schumacher (one of the world's foremost dressage trainers),Tom Noone ( former Wolrd Cup competitor), Dominique Barbier, Rodrigo Matos ( principle rider at the Portugese riding school) and many others. She also updates/mananges Equivale's website and is an ambassador for Kerrits brand riding apparel.

Chewy

Chewy is Charity's pomeranian and resident cheerleader. He's our golden palomino colored mascot and loves hanging out at the shows ( shown above) and helping at feeding time.

Amanda Baker

Amanda is our newest working student. She rode horses as a teenager in Utah, is now discovering dressage and works with us on the farm and is looking forward to learning alot! She recently purchased Equivale bred Berekely (shown above) to be her first dressage horse and the pair are excellent match!