About Us
YSH specializes in training and showing quality Arabian & Half-Arabians, Andalusians, Morgans, and Saddlebreds in multiple disciplines with an emphasis on amateur and youth equitation. The focus of our training program is to develop our horses’ natural talents, and match the discipline to their desire. YSH can provide your horse with the training needed to flourish in any ring. In addition to training, we also offer lessons for riders at all levels of ability.
Josie York
Josie’s first experience with a horse was a pony ride at the age of 6 when her family was stationed in Sicily. From that moment she was hooked on horses and regularly begged her parents to allow her to take lessons. When her father retired from the Navy, the family moved to Pensacola Florida, and at the age of 8 years old, Josie was finally able to fulfill her desire to ride horses again. After taking western lessons for a few years, she expressed her desire to jump. This led to her training under Julie Catone at RTS, where she pursed the disciplines of Eventing and Dressage.
While Josie was blessed to have the financial support of her parents to ride, she also worked at her stables in order to help pay off her lessons and have the opportunity to lease and catch ride horses. Her trainer Julie allowed her to shadow her, and begin teaching beginner lessons under supervision at a young age, learning to coach and train with strong classical Dressage principles.
Her trainer gave her the opportunity of helping bring along the green horses that were bought to be future lesson horses, most were Grade, Arabians, Quarter horses, and Draft crosses, and Thoroughbreds off the track - all bought green and fairly cheap. While not all of these horses were athletic or naturally talented for the sport disciplines, Josie came to appreciate the skills she gained learning to train such a wide variety of horses, and also came to value the mind and heart of the horse, over their price-tag or physical abilities.
Josie continued her work in Dressage and Hunter/Jumper and fell in love with the breed show world in her late twenties. Now focusing on the pleasure disciplines for the horses, and Equitation for the riders, her Huntseat and Dressage background serve her well in creating solid training plans for riders and horses in all disciplines.
