Looking to launch a “new generation of riders,” veteran dressage trainer and competitor Tina Caldwell started the Caldwell Riding School in January of this year. Demand for this basics-based program for beginning equestrians was instantaneous and continues to be strong.
Thanks to her many years of success as a dressage professional, Tina is primarily associated with that discipline. She emphasizes, however, that the point of the Riding School is to start newcomers with solid riding basics that will enable them to pursue any riding style.

Like her show-oriented dressage business, Caldwell Dressage, the Riding School is based at the Rancho Riding Club in San Diego’s Rancho Santa Fe. The School is run in close association with the hunter/jumper training barn at the Rancho Riding Club. When they are ready to graduate from Caldwell Riding School, students can easily progress to jumping with the Victory Stables team or to dressage at Tina’s barn.
“We are not teaching dressage per se, but using the tools and basic concepts of dressage to give students the basics that are so important at any level of riding,” Tina explains. “If you don’t have the basics, you don’t have anything.”
Tina’s training barn assistant Shannon Guty is the main Riding School teacher. “She and I work closely together with the students and I watch many of the lessons,” Tina says. Shannon has many years of experience in various riding styles. Dressage, hunter/jumpers and western disciplines are all part of the Michigan native’s equestrian resume. She has worked with young horses and beginning riders for many years, too. “Shannon is flourishing as the Riding School’s main teacher and the students love her,” Tina enthuses.
After a few attempts to teach her own now 4 year old daughter, Rachel, to ride, Tina was happy to entrust Shannon with that endeavor. “Rachel already knows what a frog is and she can pick her pony’s feet and groom him while standing on a stool,” Tina says proudly. On top of that, Rachel sits the trot nicely and shines in leadline classes.
Tina’s daughter is one of Caldwell Riding School’s many students who are progressing at an impressive pace. “We have an adult lady that only started three months ago and is now riding Training Level tests,” Tina reports. “And a 5-year-old who is already walking, trotting and cantering her pony.”

Filling A Need
Tina and Shannon barely had the barn doors open and the school horses saddled up when word of mouth attracted plenty of kids and adults to the beginners-based program. The School’s Rancho Riding Club location offers the advantage of on-site shows in both hunter/jumper and dressage. Tina reports that organizers have happily added classes to accommodate her students. It’s been fun for those with competitive ambitions to have convenient and attainable show goals.
Tina, of course, is a veteran of the competition world. She grew up in La Jolla and rode at many of the cornerstones of San Diego’s equestrian history: La Jolla Farms, the Del Mar Riding School, Seahorse Farm and Little McGonigle Ranch. It was at this latter facility that Tina met Guenter Seidel. She started out as an eventer, but soon realized that her heart and talents leaned toward dressage. “It was Guenter who convinced me to go with dressage,” she recalls. After training with Guenter for several years, Tina became his assistant in 1993 and continued in that capacity through 2002. When Guenter left the Rancho Riding Club to move to nearby Albert Court, Tina started Caldwell Dressage, which as been humming along ever since.
In that business, she concentrates mostly on those with serious competitive goals, mostly adult amateurs that own their own horses. She had not had much chance to work with kids or with adult beginners. Not even a year into running Caldwell Riding School, Tina says, “I couldn’t be happier with the progress of this side of my business and with the progress of our students.”
For information on Caldwell Riding School and Caldwell Dressage, please call 858-759-7076.