Sonoma State Equestrian Team

Hunt Seat: Walk/Trot                                                               Graduating Senior
Hometown: Arroyo Grande, CA

Heather has been riding since she was about 8 years old, doing mostly English Pleasure.  She took a break from riding during High School to focus on her studies and is now back doing the thing she loves.  Heather joined the SSU Equestrian team in Spring of 2010 and has been a team leader ever since. Heather's dedication and competitive drive are evident in her show record: she has placed in every show she has entered.  She is hoping that through practice and through competitions, she can improve her riding and her horsemanship skills.




Rachel Krein- Vice President of Hunt Seat
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Hunt Seat: Novice Flat and Fences  Hometown:                                                                Sophomore

Rachel started out riding Western at horse camp when she was a little girl. She switched to riding English when she was in junior high school, and started seriously training in her sophomore year of high school, and started showing my junior year. She has been riding and showing hunters and equitation since then. This year is her first year on the Sonoma State Equestrian team showing in the novice level of the Hunt Seat team. Her goal this year is to improve her equitation






Ali Wildenthaler -Treasurer
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Hunt Seat: Novice Flat and Fences                  Sophomore
Hometown: San Diego, CA

Ali has been riding since she was eight years old and showing since she was nine. She started out leasing a pony and then owned a horse named Petey from 5th grade to tenth grade. In her last year of showing she was doing the Children's Hunters and the 3' ft and 3'3 ft jumpers. She leased a horse named Tino for the jumpers. She then took a break from riding because of personal reasons. She hasn't ridden up until joining the Sonoma State Equestrian team. Her goal is to eventually point out of the novice division and to continue to improve my riding skills so that she can get back to the level she used to be at..



  Olivia Colombo- Public Relations Chair
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Hunt Seat: Novice Flat and Fences                        Sophomore
Hometown: Winters, California

Olivia's horse obsession all started with that one pony ride at the County Fair which lead her to a lifetime of riding and loving horses. She started riding English attending monthly horse camps in Davis slowly getting the basics down. Soon, she switched to the Western discipline competed in many 4-H shows, and soon moved up to competing in Western pleasure, trail, and equitation on the show circuit. Completing all of the elements successfully in Western, Olivia moved on to training a horse to ride both English and Western. She went from teaching him the basics to winning 3rd place in an "A" rated English show jumping. She later switched back to riding English full time and leased horses through a private trainer for 7 years. Through out that time she attended rated shows and schooling shows competing in the 2'9" Hunters and Equitation. Olivia still continues to ride with a private trainer and lease horses to compete on the circuit. 

Her goal is to win a Flat class and move up to the Intermediate level.

Victoria Spiegel

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Hunt Seat: Walk/Trot                                                                                                             Freshman
Hometown: Aliso Viejo, CA


                                                                                  Shira Rebibo
  
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Hunt Seat                                                                                                                           Senior
Hometown: North Hills, California

Since Kristen was young, she knew that the best place for her was always with a horse. For her 9^th birthday she got her first little trail pony who introduced her to the horse world. A few years later, Kristen decided she wanted a “project” which led to her getting a 3 year old mare named Dolly who wasn’t broke. Without a trainer and only having books to learn from, training, not only Dolly but herself, became a huge task that she found to be a welcoming challenge and extremely gratifying. Now the two of them are inseparable. It wasn’t until Kristen was 15 that she joined the Blue Shadows Mounted Drill Team and competed for 7 years in small shows along with 2 CSHA competitions each year. This has been her only show experience, which is why she is very excited to be involved with Sonoma State’s Equestrian Team and to learn as much as she can from everyone.

                                                                                  Christina Maslyar
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 Freshman

Hometown: San Jose

Hunt seat: Walk-Trot-Canter

 

Christina has been riding since she was able to walk.  She started out western building her confidence by taking lessons for a number of years. The more she rode the more she became curious about barrel racing and gymkhana. She competed for NBHA and Gold Coast barrel races for two years winning competitions towards the end of the second year.  After moving from her home town, San Jose, to Sonoma state as a freshman, she joined the Hunt Seat team to challenge herself in another type of riding. Her hope is to become confident in Hunt Seat just as she became a confident, prize-winning barrel racer. 

                                                                                              

                                                                                              

Ana Torres
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Freshman
Hometown: Paso Robles
Hunt Seat: Non-showing

Ana has always had a love for horses, but never had the opportunity to learn how to ride or be around them as much as she wanted. In her freshman year of high school she made a friend who happened to have horses. She would volunteer at horse shows whenever she could, as well as a horse rescue in her hometown.  When she found out there was an equestrian team at Sonoma State she felt it was a fantastic opportunity to learn to ride and be in a team environment. Her goals are to improve her riding, and maybe show next year.  

 

                                                                        Karin Hitbrand

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Freshman

Hunt seat: Intermediate

 

Karin Hitbrand is a Freshman at Sonoma State. She was born in Columbia Maryland. She began riding at a summer camp there where she fell in love with horses. She then moved with her family to Menlo Park, California where she began to take regular hunt seat lessons. She always had the desire to ride competitively but did not get the chance until she was about 10. She started at local schooling shows and got the opportunity to move to the A circuit when she was about twelve. Since then, she has competed in all divisions- hunters, jumpers, equitation, and all sorts of medals. Her favorite is the equitation and medals. She has won the Norcal 3', Pickwick, Carousel, and Horse and Hound, She went on to compete in both the Norcal and the Carousel medal finals. (She considers the Carousel finals to be her biggest accomplishment- scoring 75's in both rounds). She plans to show on the team. Her long term goal is to win any medal final, or to win an open flat class while on the team. Her short term goal is to have as much fun as possible while competing with Sonoma State, and she says she wanted to join the team to be in a competitive team atmosphere that feels like home away from home.

                                                          Melissa Makita

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Freshman

Hunt Seat: Novice

Melissa is freshman from Santa Cruz and has been riding since she was 9 years old. She is riding novice on the hunt seat team. She has a horse named Tiger who is her life! Melissa and Tiger were in Santa Cruz County Pony Club for about five years as a C1. They have done two three-day events at beginner novice and hope to try another one soon! Melissa joined the equestrian team because horses are her favorite and it sounds so fun! She hopes to eventually compete in open in hunt seat and to join the eventing team next year.

                                                                                                            Niki Gutierrez

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Freshman

Hometown: Larkspur, California

Hunt Seat: Advanced Walk Trot Canter

Niki began riding at the age of 8, in a Peruvian military camp. There, she was taught the basics during a three month vacation. After she came back to the US, she wanted to keep riding. Since then, she's been riding english at San Domenico’s riding school. She's ridden there the majority of her riding career. She also kept her first horse there, Cruiser, until he passed away in 2007. After that, she took a break from riding, but started up again in 2009. Niki wanted to join the team because she wanted to represent her university in the only way she knew how. She was grateful to have been accepted into SSU, so why not do something back for it, while doing something she loves? Niki really wants to, hopefully, be able to jump next year in the Novice. Or, just be able to compete at higher levels in general.

 

                                               Kristin Kim

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 Junior

Hometown: Moorpark, CA

Huntseat- Nonshowing

 

Kristin began riding in middle school, but stopped taking lessons during high school.  She volunteered at the Handicapped Equestrian Learning Program in her hometown: middle school to high school, working with disabled children and adults, giving them the opportunity to be around and ride horses.  She wanted to join the team to get the opportunity to ride horses again and meet new people.  She hopes to obtain more confidence in riding horses and to better her riding skills as well as compete next fall. :)

 

 

 

 

                                                    Tori Sladek

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Freshman

 Pleasant on, CA

 HuntSeat: non-showing

Tori has been riding since she was ten years old and she took advanced Western lessons for six years. She will be trying Hunt Seat for the first time this year. Tori has never competed before, but that is her long term goal for the team.

 

 

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                                    Sarah Spina

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Freshman

Hunt Seat- Showing

Sarah began riding when she was about 9 years old by taking lessons in both english and western while she was also playing softball. After a few years, she decided to pursue softball competitively and eventually volleyball too in high school. After a bad knee injury in high school, she decided to begin riding again. She hopes to place in all her shows and hopefully make it to regionals!

 

 

 

 

                                                                          

                                                   Sydney Reckas

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Freshman

Pacific Grove

Hunt Seat: Adv. walk/trot/canter

 

Sydney has been riding since she was about nine years old, after her dad made the mistake of sending her to horse camp to "get the horse bug out of her system". Unfortunately for her parent's pocketbooks the horse bug triumphed over all attempts of banishment. She took lessons for about seven years, riding hunter/jumpers, and has spent the last two years trail riding and working mostly on the flat. She hopes to become a more efficient rider and is stoked to start jumping again. 

 

 

 

 

 

Elizabeth Grewal

Freshman

Hometown: Castro Valley

Hunt seat: Advanced walk, trot, canter

Elizabeth Grewal is a freshman from Castro Valley.  She currently is a showing Hunt Seat advanced walk, trot, and canter.  Elizabeth’s riding started in with Western riding for a year.  She then began learning how to ride English.  After three years of leasing horses her father bought her a green thoroughbred mare, Stella Rose.  After two years of training Stella, they finally stated showing Novice.  Elizabeth wanted to join the Equestrian team to continue riding while she doesn’t have her horse, and also to meet people who have the same interest in horses as she does.  She hopes to move up from walk, trot, canter and as well as improve on her position and become and better rider. 

 

                                                            Taylor Leigh

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Freshman

Hometown: Los Angeles

Hunt seat: Novice

 

Taylor Leigh is from Los Angeles and she is a freshman at Sonoma State this year. She is on the hunt seat teaming and showing at the novice level. She has been riding and showing hunter jumper since the age of six years old and currently has her own horse at home named Sage. She plans to major in psychology and become a therapist.