Jen Koval coaches a soft ride to success at Stellar Moon Hunter Jumpers.
Jen Koval is one of the new kids on the Northern California hunter/jumper block who is quickly gaining notice because of her effective training techniques, positive attitude and successful sales business.
Based at the new and still-under-development training and show facility, Gilroy Gaits, Stellar Moon stands out for the forward, light style of riding Jen teaches to her students. Jen grew up competing on the Southern California hunter/jumper circuit and began working as a trainer in Sun Valley and Boise, Idaho. “There is definitely a hunter/jumper scene there,” Jen relays. “But it was tough because everything was so far away. We’d go to Oregon, the Midwest or Los Angeles if we wanted to compete.”
Today, Stellar Moon is based in Hollister, California, at Gilroy Gates, which Jen describes as the “new up-and-coming show facility for Northern California.” At the half-way point in an approximately eight-year development plan, the first class facility is slated to have 850 permanent show stalls, an Equidome-like indoor ring and a Grand Prix field. Barns feature 12’ x 16’ box stalls from which horses face their neighbors in a flood of light and airiness and standing on comfy ProMatt stall flooring. Gilroy Gaits has 45 turn-out corrals and 9 riding arenas, including an all-weather jumping ring that has been tested during a few good rainy periods. “We’ve had a lot of rain up here and we’re still able to ride outside,” Jen reports.
Stellar Moon is currently accepting horses in training and looks forward to expanding its clientele of juniors and amateurs in 2010. Whether riding a hunter, jumper or equitation horse, Jen firmly believes that "a really soft, easy, forward ride is better than the sit down and ‘gun it’ ride.” Jen is especially proud of developing a highly effective system geared towards timid and nervous riders known at Stellar Moon as “the magic ride.”
Jen also believes that a riding education must be progressive. “We see too many kids that are jumping too big and have no eye for a distance,” Jen observes. “It’s important to us that our students are really progressing, not just jumping higher.” That means doing hunters before equitation and then equitation before jumpers, and it sometimes means taking a new client backwards a little in their riding, before moving forward.
Stellar Moon Hunter Jumpers
7777 Frazier Lake Rd
Hollister, CA 95023
ph: 408-834-7705
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