Erika-West Dressage

03/09/2026

So beyond proud of my longtime friend and student Sammi Jo Stohler for earning the final score for her USDF Gold Medal this weekend!!!🎉❤️🎉 She and Patrick Orlaska’s Friesian Sporthorse Gunner have come all the way from when they got him as a sweet gawky 2yro who she started herself, all the way to a successful Grand Prix horse earning so many milestones and awards in between.

Achieving all of your USDF Medals through Gold is a huge accomplishment for anyone. To do it not only on your own horse who you bought as a baby and brought along yourself, but who’s also the first dressage horse you’ve brought up the levels is next level AWESOME! proud of you my friend and 🥂 to the joy of the journey ❤️

11/16/2025

09/29/2025

NEWS FLASH! this hunka Hanoverian stallion is now fully approved for breeding with AHS 🎉. More pictures and video to follow.

08/26/2025

08/26/2025

Finally paid the fee to make my “With Distinction” medals official. It is a very cool addition to the USDF medal platform.
I’m honored to have shared life space with all the wonderful horses (and their owners) who made this achievement possible.

06/09/2025

One of the greatest gifts of being a coach is seeing the joy in people reaching lifelong dreams. Congratulations Anine Pederson on not only your first show in 20ish years but a beautifully harmonious PSG debut with my heart horse Chancellor WAS. I couldn’t be prouder of both of you ❤️

10/17/2024

Home sweet home ❤️

07/20/2024

It’s a good life 🍀🌞❤️

07/07/2024

So proud of my longtime friend and student Sammi Jo Stohler riding Patrick Orlaska’s Friesian sporthorse Gunner for a super I2 debut with solid scores.
It’s been so gratifying to see SJ develop Gunner all the way from a gangly 2yro to a confirmed I2 horse ❤️.
🥂 to an amazing journey that just keeps getting better every year.

05/08/2024

We are very excited to announce that our new gate is up and fully operational here at EWD 🎉.
The Cody gate is memorial to our first “mature” free roamer and one of the most wonderful horses, who directly influenced the lives of more people then any horse I’ve ever known. Mary Hale so many great memories of and with your special boy ❤️.
If you did not receive our email please text/pm me for the code 😎.

04/01/2024

Baby Essah getting her trail horse on ❤️. She continues to be absolutely wonderful. At almost 4 she does an easy, forward wtc under saddle with no need to lunge even if she has a couple weeks off (trainers horse problems 🤷‍♀️) can hack around the property by herself, walks over logs etc. while always thinking rationally and problem solving even when she has good young horse reasons to be worried about something. Bonus points that even at this stage of development her back has a super soft spring to sit on.
I probably won’t show her much the next few years since she doesn’t really need a lot of those kind of miles to develop mentally and she has everything I want in a future FEI horse 😍.

03/07/2024

29 never looked so good 😍 Buddy would like everyone to know that although he’s technically retired he is still very much the man.