Rebecca Schurink grew up riding and jumping horses and competed in Medal Maclay Equitation before attending college and turning to eventing. Several of her event horses had the talent for upper-level dressage, and this became the focus of her competitive career fifteen years ago. She has earned year-end awards with her horses Abasco and Gibson and is a USDF Bronze and Silver Medalist. Rebecca currently has two horses that she trains and successfully competes at the FEI levels. She attributes her success to keeping their program varied; she trains them “out of the box” on a regular basis and also jumps them over small fences and cavalettis. For the past seven years Rebecca has spent the month of January training and competing in Florida with notable equestrian Gunnar Ostergaard and, more recently, David O’Connor. Additional trainers that have made a positive influence upon her teaching and training techniques over the past twenty years include Kathy Connelly, Pamela Goodrich, Eric Horgan, Roel Theuneissen, Volker Bromann, and Lendon Gray. Rebecca attends USDF instructor workshops and has benefited from the teachings of Major Andres Lindgren, Michael Poulin, and Lilo Fore. Additional inspiration comes from the NEDA bi-annual Training Symposiums with World Class Trainers and through FEI Trainer Seminars. This continued professional education keeps her teaching fresh and her standard high. It also supports the happy relationship she has with horses. “I strive to help my horses understand their job. I want them to perform out of their respect and willingness to work with me as their partner and not out of tension or force.” Rebecca is a dressage instructor, trainer, and intercollegiate coach at Mount Holyoke College. She uses the “training scale” to improve the quality of the widely varied school horses she works with and to give her riders not only the skills and seat they need but also the theoretical understanding of what they are trying to accomplish during a ride. Rebecca particularly enjoys working with students who bring their own horses to the College and typically teaches them in private lessons. Students need not have competitive goals or aspire to be dressage riders in order to ride with her. She is interested purely in developing good horsemanship. She also works with students hoping to make the NAYRC. Rebecca has had remarkable success as a coach. The Mount Holyoke College dressage team has won three consecutive national championships in intercollegiate dressage, which marked the beginning of this National Association in 2001. In 2005 they lost the title by one point and were reserve champions. Her students also dominate national and regional individual awards, and in 2005 two of her students received the USDF Team Leadership Awards under her guidance. Many students have opted to stay in the area to continue to train with her over the summer and to compete in Region 8. There are many fine boarding facilities available to them when stalls are limited at the College during the summer months. As one of the founding members of the IDA, Rebecca has served on the IDA board of directors since 2001 and is the chair of the rules and standards committee. She is also a committee member of the New England Dressage Association. Rebecca is called upon frequently to contribute to magazine articles and recently wrote a piece for Dressage Today in the “Schooling Notebook” section about how to improve the trot halfpass. Also coming out soon in the Equine Journal is her article on cross training for the dressage horse. Rebecca has an M.A. in education and is a professional artist. She works in oils and oil pastels and has guest lectured at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Her husband is the Director of Equine Studies and Director of Riding at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, MA. They make their home in Amherst and both train their horses at the UMass Hadley Farm.   |