Ashley Francese started her riding career at the age of 4, when her dad bought her a cantankerous old mule. In the years since, she’s competed in hunters, jumpers, eventing and dressage. A few years ago, she made the jump to western dressage. When she’s not teaching riding lessons or training off-track horses, she can be found teaching Latin at Dickinson College or writing for Horse Nation. Ashley is a veteran competitor at the Retired Racehorse Project’s Thoroughbred Makeover, and served as the dressage and eventing dressage steward in 2022. She also served as one of the dressage stewards for the 2022 TIP Championships in Kentucky. Ashley competes on her Standardbred, Nardi Jim Jim, 2 time Western Dressage Champion at the National Standardbred show (whom she pulled from the Rotz kill pen), and on her Thoroughbred, Harper Valley, who was her 2019 Thoroughbred Makeover horse, and who is a top 10 finisher at World and International Western Dressage competitions. In 2022, she added a young Standardbred, Manticore, and a young Thoroughbred, Change of Fortune, to her show string. You can currently find Ashley working with a young Mustang, named Koda. Koda came to Ashley from Safe Haven Equine Warriors and he and Ashley will be competing at Rescued to Stardom at the PA Horse World Expo in Harrisburg in early March.