About SARAH

My horse training started when I was a young 4-H kid. When I ended up with two yearlings I took lessons from Marian Crumb, my 4-H leader, to train them. I learned so much from Marian about starting horses. A few years later I got to help train two colts from three days old until they were weaned.


My neighbor was watching as I started riding my QH filly. When he broke his leg right after his young horse came back from training he asked if I would ride his horse. His professionally trained horse could walk, trot, and lope both directions. Being a 4-H teenager who was learning to train horses from a true horsewoman, I was bored after the first ride. So I taught the horse all of the basic 4-H trail skills: turns on the forehand and haunches, side-pass, half-pass, and backing. My neighbor was so thrilled he asked me to teach his mules the same things. Then his riding buddies wanted their horses to have the same skills. Pretty soon I was helping other 4-Hers with their young horses. I kind of fell into becoming a horse trainer. It was a blessing that my riding instructors were happy to answer a lot of questions about horses that I was training.


After I graduated I asked Marian Crumb if I could help with 4-H so I could continue learning from her. The next thing I knew, I was teaching the intermediate jumping project and giving the kids their test! When riding started, Marian apprenticed me until I was ready to teach on my own. It was through teaching the intermediate dressage project that I started saddle fitting. A friend who does bodywork on horses was going to teach my dressage kids about saddle fitting. Unfortunately, she had a family emergency. She told me that I knew all of the information and that I should teach it myself. Since I was working at Spokane Tack Trunk, I started helping fit saddles there. I never turn down an opportunity for more training, so I was delighted in 2019 to go to a Saddlery Brands International saddle fitting symposium to learn more about fitting the Wintec, Arena, and Bates saddles.