Current Project: Dressage Trainer Websites

It's no secret that I'm a horse nut... so any project that involves horses in any way is a treat for me!

I've had a great time lately working on websites for two local dressage trainers. Both trainers wanted sites that would be easy to update themselves, especially to promote their busy clinic schedules and other news.

Robert & Verena Gharibzadeh's "Top Riding International" features a bold, contemporary design, and some animated text & slide show elements to add energy and interest. Robert is a Pferdewirtschaftsmeister (I'm trying to learn German, but please don't ask me to pronounce that one!), which is the highest level master rider/trainer certified by the German government. One of the elements he wanted to incorporate was a calendar that he can easily update from anywhere to publish his very active schedule. We found a great solution by integrating a Google calendar into the website, which has worked really well for him. Robert also has a lot of videos posted of horses for sale, which were easy to incorporate through Homestead's YouTube tool.

Katja Elk is the resident trainer at Felicity Farm in Santa Ynez, and her dressage training program is called "Gentle Solutions for Horses and People." Katja is also a talented designer herself, and collaborating with her to create an elegant look for the site was really fun. I love all the great photos she had to work with! One of the things Katja wants to do with her website is to share the wealth of information and ideas that shapes her training philosophy, so clean organization and navigation was very important. Communication is a key element in what Katja does with horses, as well as people, so we built in a mailing list and blog, which I think she's going to have a lot of fun with!

Now I've been testing Katja's patience and skills as an instructor as she's giving me an introduction to dressage riding! ;-) I'm thoroughly enjoying learning about a world of subtle communication with horses that I've never experienced before. Katja is a wonderfully talented and insightful horsewoman, so if you're interested in horses on any level, I encourage you to check out one of her clinics, or take some lessons with her! Special thanks also to Ann Cain, for allowing me to ride her lovely thoroughbred gelding, "Si."