Meet Sandra
Creativity is my connection to the horse. ❤
For me, the horse has always been the ultimate muse. Every ride, every breath, every moment together - it’s art in motion.
The Creative Equestrian was born from that idea - that horsemanship can be more than training or technique. It can be a creative expression…a way to tell your story with your horse.
The Moment It All Began
My life was pretty normal—until the day I saw my first horse. I was seven years old when my after-school program took us on a field trip to a local barn. A horse cantered past me, and it was like time stopped. I don’t remember breathing. It was as if something deep inside me woke up that had been waiting all along.
When I got home, my mom couldn’t make sense of what I was saying—I just kept repeating, “I have to go back. I have to go back.” Thankfully, she tracked down the barn, and soon I was taking my first riding lessons.
From that moment on, I breathed horses from sunup to sundown. I had a herd of Breyer models and built elaborate barns and arenas for them. I taught my dog to jump and lunge like a horse, galloped through the woods pretending to be one myself, and probably gave my poor dad a few gray hairs when he caught me hitting myself with a stick while holding a jumprope in my mouth as “reins.”
That passion spilled into everything—I began drawing horses endlessly, filling sketchbooks with their powerful shapes and flowing manes. Looking back, my riding and art began together, two threads that would eventually weave into the creative life I live today. ❤
Olympic Dreams
When I turned thirteen, I was offered the chance of a lifetime — to join an intense riding program in Maine modeled after a European training school. Each student had project horses to bring along, learning how to train them from foals all the way to the upper levels.
I was all in. I dreamed of someday riding in the Olympics and becoming a top-level dressage judge. My days started early and ended long after dark. I rode between six and thirteen horses a day, competed almost every weekend, and set my sights on earning my rider medals from the Maine Dressage Society and the United States Dressage Federation.
While most of my friends were thinking about college, I was thinking about collection, cadence, and connection. At nineteen, I became a USDF “L” Graduate with Distinction — one of the youngest at the time — and spent my twenties judging schooling shows across New England.
Those years taught me everything about discipline, patience, and partnership. I learned not only how to train horses, but how to listen to them. Looking back, those long days in the barn were the foundation of everything I do today — the 10,000 hours that shaped both my riding and my creative eye.
