Joanne Coy | Board Member

Joanne Coy is a life long student of the horse, with a varied background in all things horse. She is on the boards of Glass-Ed (a group member organization of USDF), Western Dressage Association of Michigan, and delighted to be a new board member of Western Dressage Association of America. She co-taught the Group Apprentice Judging Program at the Western Dressage World Show in Oklahoma in 2017 and 2018, and will be teaching it again in 2020. She was one of the clinicians at the Western Dressage Judges Seminar this year and last year in Colorado and judged at the 2019 Western Dressage World Show. She is a USDF Bronze Medalist, L Graduate with USDF and a USEquestrian Western Dressage “R” judge.

Her other horse endeavors have included endurance and competitive trail riding, harness racing, racing harness horses under saddle, competitive mounted orienteering, Western and English pleasure, natural horsemanship training, trick training, showing English and Western Dressage, trail riding and just having fun camping with her horses.

Joanne is a semi-retired teacher and middle school counselor, and often compares training horses with working with middle school kids. The statement, “They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care,” certainly applies to both students and horses. She enjoys working with other riders who are interested in learning how to develop a partnership with their horses, gives lessons at her farm, and does clinics around the country. She frequently participates in clinics and lessons herself with those she considers horsemasters, and is currently expanding her knowledge working with a reined cow horse champion.

When not judging a show herself, Joanne enjoys showing her quarter horse and her half-Arab in both English and Western dressage and working with gaited horses. “I haven’t met a horse yet, no matter what breed, who hasn’t benefited from the elements of training as described in the training pyramid. Following those elements will always make a horse better, happier, and more correct so that he can live a long and healthy life.”

Joanne enjoys life on a small farm in Michigan with a collection of horses, a spoiled dog, and a cat who refuses to hunt mice.

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