Nicoke Vander Vliet

I grew up riding in my neighbors' back yards in Southern Maryland, and soon was hooked on the thrills and challenges of all the pony club activities, foxhunting, and lessons. Barely in the double digits, I spent summers with Debbie Rodriguez (R) in Williamsburg, Virginia, where she coached me to appreciate textbook dressage by rewarding me with jumping opportunities. While my passion grew in eventing, Susan Graham White helped me at home to bring along a complicated green mare successfully thru the preliminary level by emphasizing the simplicity of dressage. Even Jim Wofford referred to jumping as "dressage with obstacles."

Without ever loosing my love for jumping, I decided to focus on dressage with my talented Oldenburg mare, River Willow. As a working student for Scott and Susanne Hassler at Riveredge, Willow and I took advantage of our great opportunity to become reserve champion at 3rd level at the BLM's and I was awarded the "most elegant rider award." Shortly after this accomplishment, we discovered that Willow had lesions in both hind suspensory ligaments. Facing surgery,Willow would need at least a year to rehabilitate, and the Hasslers and I decided to turn a set-back into an opportunity to continue my education in Germany.

I spent a wonderful year and a half at a sales barn for Grand prix trainer, Hermann Goesmeier. I was able to ride up to 14 horses a day, at all stages of training, at all ages, with different athletic abilities and personalities. Meanwhile, Willow fully recovered from her injuries at home with lots of help from super friends and family. Florida is now our new permanent home state, and I'm very excited for the future and to be a part of Stacy's team!