Kim Schisler: Dressage Trainer, Instructor and FEI Competitor

Kim Schisler & Smokey

Kim Schisler was on the back of a horse before she could walk! While she started out riding english and western on her parents quarter horses, she soon discovered that it was jumping horses that she wanted to pursue. After a short exposure to intensive hunter training, she was introduced to three-day eventing and never looked back. The combination of dressage and jumping was exhilerating.

Kim Schisler

Developing an early relationship with a life-long mentor has been one of the greatest blessings in Kim's career thus far. Kim began training with Julie Burns Richards, 2000 Olympian and 2004 Olympic team bronze medalist, at age eleven, and spent every summer during middle school as a working student for Julie. She even had the incredible opportunity to spend time with the Swedish three-day Olympic team in 1996 when they were stabled at Julie's farm for training before the Olympics. This relationship continued throughout high school when Kim traveled to Virginia to be a working student for Julie and Canadian Olympian Stuart Young-Black.

"The Princess" & Kim

In addition to great training, Kim has had the good fortune to have had a number of truly special horses to work with. The first of these got her started in eventing. Kim, then just 12 years old, purchased the 5 year-old Thoroughbred mare affectionately known as "The Princess" just two weeks after Princess ran her last race. The pair went on to compete through Preliminary, but Princess slipped on a cross country course at Stuart Horse Trails in New York and tore the miniscus in her stifle. She had to be retired from active work, but has produced two very nice foals as a broodmare on the Schisler family farm.

Greystone & Kim

Kim's next horse, an Irish Thoroughred named Greystone, joined the family one summer while Kim was a working student in VA. The pair had many top placings at Preliminary and went on to complete the Camino Real CCI* (Texas) in May 1999. Kim graduated high school in June 1999 and was scheduled to spend one year as a working student between graduating high school and starting college. After having spent the past four years in high school juggling playing on the Varsity basketball team and competitive riding, Kim was looking forward to focusing solely on the riding. She had qualified for the North American Young Riders Championships, and she was scheduled to take the test for her USPC 'A' rating the summer of 1999. Unfortunately, Greystone bowed his superficial flexor tendons (bilaterally) before the Championships and Rating, so Kim had to alter her plans. She was fortunate enough to use a borrowed horse, Patriot owned by Margaret Knox, for her USPC 'A' rating test, which like all her other ratings she passed on her first attempt. She was extremely dissappointed to not have the chance to compete at the North American Young Riders Championships, but was honored to be named the chef d'equipe of both the CCI* and CCI** teams. She continued with her plan to be a working student for Julie and Stuart Young-Black. Stuart offered Kim the ride on his horse (Irish Gold), but after winning the dressage and having a clean show jumping round Irish Gold was injured in a fall with Kim on cross country competing in an Intermediate horse trial in November of 1999. With all the misfortune of her horses being injured, Kim's love for them continued, but she felt like three-day eventing might not be the path that God had planned for her.

Irish Gold & Kim

Although she started college in January of 2000, no one could keep Kim away from horses. During her first year, Kim worked as an exercise rider at Chabboquasset Farm, a TB race horse training facility. She also worked exercising foxhunters, teaching lessons, conducting pony club preps/ratings. Kim had Greystone at college with her after he recovered from his bowed tendons so she did some lower level eventing with him. She gradauted cum laude with a business management degree in May of 2003 after having spent a summer studying international business at Oxford (England).

Kir Royal owned by Ite O'Higgins-Young & Kim

Kim knew that she wanted to continue riding and training as her profession, but dressage had become increasingly important to her and her friends and mentors encouraged her to explore this area where she seemed to have a natural talent. Taking advantage of an opportunity to lease an FEI schoolmaster, Kir Royal owned by Ite O'Higgins-Young, for ten months, Kim was able to earn the scores needed for her USDF silver medal, and she won the Region III Prix St. George Regional Championships (AA). As everything started to fall into place so easily, Kim felt that she was now on the right path!

Herr Wittig & Kim Schisler

By the end of the lease, Kim was certain that she wanted to pursue a career as a world-class dressage rider. To achieve this goal, she knew that she would have to train with the best. She traveled to Germany to become a working student for Wolfram Wittig, the coach of six time World Champion Isabell Werth. Upon Kim's return to the States, she spent a winter training in Palm Beach, Florida with FEI International Grand Prix competitor, Alison Sader-Larson. Although Kim plans to spend a part of each year training and competing in Florida, she has returned to Georgia to continue training and to share her knowledge with her own students.