Dressage Lessons and Instruction

Every Monday at QHS
Instruction by Laura Wagner

Laura Wagner Dressage, LLC. which is a full service training business based out of Hopeland Farms in Aiken, SC. Lessons and training is offered to anyone with an interest in dressage.

Participation in local SCDCTA and USDF competitions is encouraged. Lessons and training is provided by Laura Wagner a USDF Bronze Medalist and FEI competitor.

Creating safe riders and happy horses though dressage basics is my goal. I teach at Nicole's on Mondays. Happier horses through better riding is my philosophy as an instructor, any horse and rider combination can benefit from basic dressage work in any discipline.

As riders we need to become more aware of how we are influencing the horses we are riding, and learn to be as effective as possible out of fairness to the horse. Dressage is simple, its just not easy, riding will teach you endless patience and horses will give you a partnership compared to none other in your life. One of my students once said it beautifully when she said "anger takes the art out of riding"

I started riding when I was 10 and spent the next 7 years competing American Paint Horses in local fairs and Paint shows. I still have my first horse, Ima Sheriff, she is a 28 year old paint mare that is still in work today as a therapeutic riding horse for the STAR therapeutic riding program at Hopeland Farms.

As a young rider I traveled all over the Midwest including Tulsa, Ok for the Pinto World Championships, bringing home a World Championship in first level dressage in 2002. I spent a few years eventing and competing in hunters with my pinto horses while I was going to school. I graduated from Lake Erie College in 2003 with a bachelors in equine facility management.

After school I spent 3 years working under Nancy Lewis Stanton, www.sendonway.com, where I purchased, Phoenix, my first upper level dressage horse, and worked to qualify and compete in the USDF regional championships at the end of each summer.

In 2006 Phoenix and I moved to Aiken, SC where after rehabilitation from a tendon injury he came back to compete at Intermediare 1. And I started Laura Wagner Dressage, LLC. In April 2008 I purchased Rebus who is my current horse. We are currently competing at USDF 4th level and are working to move up to PSG and Intermediare 1 for the 2010 season.

Laura Wagner can be reached by
phone at  (440) 796-9253 or by email

Mondays lessons at QHS
Tuesdays through Saturdays are at
Hopeland Farms 
1389A Banks Mill Rd
Aiken, SC 29803