About Us
Alexandra grew up in the Carribean on the little French island of Martinique surrounded by animals. For her 5th birthday, she got every girl’s dream, a little white Shetland Pony named Blanche, that lived at home with her. Life was animals. When she wasn’t with them, she pretending to be them with her sister.
She always knew she wanted a future that revolved around horses. Her vision took many different forms over the years. As a child she wanted to be veterinarian to help horses and animals. Then she wanted to trick train horses for movies after seeing a poster of Mario Luraschi straddling a friesian laying upside down. She started her first horse at 11 with her uncle. Prince was a 16.1H black Quarter Horse gelding with a bald face, she learned a lot. It was a good thing she bounced as well as she did as she spent a fair amount of time getting familiar with the dirt. After that, she thought she wanted to start colts and problem solve. She tried pretty much anything she could think of that involved horses.
When she was 18, she traveled to Spain to work on a P.R.E. breeding farm for 4 months starting colts and riding. She also assisted with some breeding. The following year she met Kevin Wescott, a natural horsemanship clinician and friend of Tom Dorrance, and had the opportunity to spend a month with him and his daughter, assisting with clinics on the east coast. While she was studying towards her bachelors degree in psychology she starting training horses professionally. She felt something was missing, thinking that was technique, she went searching. She played with different forms of natural horsemanship, dressage, liberty training and more.
In 2009, she spent a month in Denmark with Klaus Hempfling participating in his compact schooling. While there, she realized it wasn’t a technique she had been searching for, rather she wanted to focus on her own personal development in order to help horses. She took a break from training to explore a more integrated approach of mind and body.
During that sabbatical, she heard about Mark Rashid and had the opportunity to audit one of his clinics. She felt there was more to what she experienced than she actually understood. Time passed and she continued with different jobs in the equine field. For a year and a half, she worked at an equine rehabilitation facility. She then did a year long program with Shelley Rosenberg and Linda Kohanov to become a riding focused equine facilitated instructor. She learned to hear the subtle feedback she was receiving, from herself and horses. She knew she wanted to work with horses again, still unclear of the path.
In the spring of 2016, she audited another Mark Rashid clinic. She still had the feeling that there was more to what she was seeing, so she decided to attend as many of his clinics as possible. Through working with Mark and his wife Crissi, Alexandra found what she was looking for, a considerate way of working with horses and people which requires continued learning and personal work. She was introduced to Aibado, Aikido for horsemen, an art developed by Mark Rashid. It’s a practice of listening with our bodies. We develop softness, centering, compassion, self control, mindfulness, blending, directing, which we bring to our work with horses. Instead of trying to learn how she can change horses to help them, she is learning how she can change to help horses.
Alexandra is honored to have been asked, by Mark and Crissi, if she wanted to be one of their student instructors. While she continues to learn from horses and people, which she believes will be a lifelong journey, she would like to share with others what she is learning.