After seven years in Tewksbury, trainer Sara Schmitt next month is moving her operation to a larger venue at Riverfield Farm in Annandale, which was a top hunter-jumper operation when owner Karen Peterson Da Prato ran it as a show stable..
The versatile Sara, who specializes in both dressage and driving, needed more space after seven years at Centerline Farm, so the facility a bit further west next month will offer room for driving in particular on seven times the acreage she has at present, in addition to more than 30 stalls.
Sara is as committed to driving as she is to dressage. (Photo © by Nancy Jaffer)
Sara called her Tewksbury operation Sara Schmitt Dressage, so guess what the name of her business will be in Annandale? That’s right, Sara Schmitt Dressage.
“My name is my brand,” she explained.
“I keep reinventing everything and doing something new because it’s fun.”
A believer in broadening the experience her students and others receive, She notes clinics will be a feature at the new venue. Olympian Tina Konyot is coming next month and the August clinic with another veteran U.S. dressage team member, Pam Goodrich,is full. Also featured in August, Tracey Morgan is offering a driving clinic on dates yet to be announced.
Sara’s stable remains involved with driving. Assistant trainer Maggie O’Leary won the training level single horse division at the Elk Creek Combined Driving Event earlier this month. She also.got her USDF dressage gold medal this year on a horse Sara trained to Grand Prix, a 19-year-old Friesian/Arab cross.
The multi-dimensional Sara, who earned a Pony Club HA as a teen, keeps busy with judging, and is working toward her 3-star FEI license.
“I’m judging a lot and I’m really learning something,” she observed.
“I think it brings something back to the table when I teach.”
Sara Schmitt competing at Dressage at Devon. (Photo © by Nancy Jaffer)
Sara, always energetic, still finds time to be in the saddle, working most recently with Julia Greifeld’s six-year-old Westfalen, Sunflower at Third Level with an eye toward going higher. That horse also will be ridden by Sara’s para-dressage student, Alanna Flax-Clark. Sara meanwhile is still enjoying her two-time world championships pony, a Morgan named High Country Doc. She sold him in 2005, but he came back to her for his retirement.
Ask Sara about long-term ambitions, and she ponders what appears to be a novel question for her.
“Do I have big hopes of going to the Olympics?,” she asks.
“No. But I would like to try to do another team (in driving)” said the former national singles driving champ and veteran of four world championships in that discipline.
“Not this year, but maybe in two or three years. Why not?”
