Carolyn Rathwell
Carolyn is the owner, trainer and coach of Preston Rosedale Farm. She grew up on a farm outside of Stittsville, with all kinds of animals but most including their pony Ginger.

When her kids were very young she returned to the saddle, after a spell of working in the high tech industry. By the time her third child was on the way she only stopped riding when she could no longer get up on the horse. One more caesarian, a little girl, and three and a half weeks later she was back in the saddle.

Since then, Carolyn has brought along many promising event and dressage horses. Since moving to the farm in Perth, Ontario she has focused on dressage training as a base for all disciplines. Carolyn trains through the philosophy that all horses need a strong basic training in dressage before they move into any discipline. She specializes in preparing young horses for their first outings as competition horses. She starts all horses with the same patience and great care whether they are future FEI stars or your next great trail horse. She likes to produce a horse that anyone can ride.

Carolyn has competed at the Royal Winter Fair in the Lieutenant Governor’s Cup as well as the Governor’s Cup. In 2003 she was assistant to the trainer for the RCMP sale horses, working closely with Ron King who prepared the horses for sale.

Carolyn is a Level One CEF Coach. She has coached students Schooling through Trillium and National Level Dressage. Having competed herself in eventing she finds it a lot of fun to get back to the eventing scene as she also takes many young riders to their first events and jumper shows.

You will find no one more honest and hard working than Carolyn, and you will always get more than your monies worth.

Carolyn is currently working with an absolutely lovely grey Westphalian mare by Santiago. Carolyn has very high hopes for the three year old warmblood and will be campaigning her this summer in Training Level Dressage.

Together Steve and Carolyn Rathwell, along with their daughter/step-daughter Mackayla work very hard to provide their boarders with a highly efficient, clean facility, which is run in a relaxed enviornment.

Samantha Barter
Sam is the assistant trainer here at Preston Rosedale Farm. This past December she returned to us from Australia after graduating from Marcus Oldham College with a Diploma in Horse Business Management.

Sam is quite an accomplished rider. While in Australia she brought along her green horse up to Preliminary Level in Eventing. Here in Canada she has competed several seasons as a Trillium and ‘A’ circuit hunter/jumper rider, taking many green horses to their first competitions
While in Australia she spent a considerable amount of time working with Richard McCubbin breaking in and training race horses. She has developed her skills as a track rider and horse breaker and is continually working to increase her skills starting young horses. “Dick is an incredible horse person who taught me so much about difficult and hard to train horses, he made me learn very quickly how to be a gutsy but safe rider.”