For many riding students in the Claremont, ON area, the Pickering Horse Centre feels like a home away from home. Its familial air comes as no surprise, as the equestrian facility is run by the Yaghdjians, comprised of Danielle, Gary, and their daughter, Emily.
A knack for coaching runs deep in the Yaghdjian family veins. Danielle is an Equestrian Canada (EC) Certified Competition Coach and National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP) Master Coach Developer, and won the title of EC Coach Developer of the Year in 2017. Gary, an EC Certified Competition Coach Specialist for both English and Western, was named the Ontario Equestrian 2018 Coach of the Year and is an FEI Level 2 Reining Steward, and Emily has followed in her parents’ footsteps as an EC Certified Competition Coach.
The Pickering Horse Centre in Claremont, ON, is run by a talented family of EC Certified Coaches: Gary (left) and Danielle (right), along with their daughter, Emily (middle).
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Danielle Yaghdjian
Read on to learn about Danielle and Gary’s coaching practices and get an inside look at how they run the family business!
EC: How did you become involved with horseback riding and coaching?
GY: I sort of backed into it. When I graduated high school, I was good at arts and theatre but neither one looked like it was going to be a career move. My dad was a schoolteacher, and had a horse that he used to board. He was about to acquire a second one and thought to do it as a commercial enterprise, so we started that in 1978. A year later, he thought it was the worst business in the whole world and went back to school teaching, but I loved it and continued on. When I started, I didn’t know which side to put the food in and which side to clean up after, but with all the resources available and the coaching certification program, I started to build my knowledge.
DY: I’ve been riding since I was very young and always knew that I wanted to do something with horses. I started off as a western rider and did horse camps and basic lessons. In high school I met my husband at a local barn in Scarborough, and that’s when I really got involved and developed a passion for it. The biggest thing I wanted to work towards was my coaching – to make coaching better, to make equestrian into a sport and not so much a recreation. So that’s basically what I’ve been trying to do for the last 10 years, and also help everyone else in our barn become better at coaching. Our students become coaches, so facilitating them through the coaching system and getting them to be really good at what they do and become certified is also important.
EC: Who were your coaching mentors?
GY: I started off with Bruce and Sandra Brown. Sandra was among the first group to test for western coaching, and so I started taking riding lessons at their facility and then she mentored me to get my coaching levels.
DY: My biggest role model is Barbara Mitchell. I took lessons with her for a while and always saw her at horse shows and thought of her as so professional and good at what she did. That’s when I realized Barbara was what I aspired to be when I grew up. I also had Penny Murray as one of my mentors, and of course my husband, Gary.
EC: What do you love about coaching?
DY: What inspires me is my students – especially the younger ones, because they come in as sponges and absorb everything that you are telling them. It inspires me to see the difference in their riding from the beginning to the end, and to see them grow in the show circuits that we do, as well as in the riding school.
Danielle is inspired by watching her students grow their abilities in the saddle. She is pictured coaching Shana Roopchan of Pickering, ON.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Danielle Yaghdjian
GY: When I got introduced to reining and saw horses spinning and sliding for the first time, I thought it was literally magic. I was thinking, ‘How do you make horses do that?’ If somebody could give you the information to teach you how to do that, I thought it was so inspiring. That’s what I would say captivated me; to become a better communicator, to fill in the content, and to get really solid with all the concepts.
EC: What is your personal coaching philosophy?
DY: I see a lot of coaches come into competition and instruct students on what to do, but there’s no information given on how to do it or what skills they need to work on to get where they want them to go. So, that’s what I’m about – teaching them to become thinking riders that can problem-solve on their own. I’m giving them the tools that they can take home or use when they’re doing a practice ride to do it on their own.
GY: My personal coaching philosophy probably stems from some bad coaches I had – things were mystified. People seemed to know things that were a secret, so my drive is to articulate in words all those gaps – what can I do to become a better communicator, to get somebody to really understand a fundamental, be able to apply it, and understand why they did it, not just because the coach said so?
The Yaghdjians aim to enable their students to be independent, problem-solving riders with a comprehensive knowledge of the theory behind the skill.
Photo Credit: ©EC/Caroline Soble
EC: With three coaches running the Pickering Horse Centre, how are roles and responsibilities divided?
GY: We run a 50-horse facility that caters predominately to hunter/jumper. We host a gamut of horse shows, all different disciplines, everything from reining to hunter/jumper schooling shows, breed shows, and even some dog agility shows. And then we run a full riding school and a summer day camp, so we’re sort of a full-service, all-in equine facility.
I look after the infrastructure and the running of the horses. Along with Emily, I look after the show team. Emily has become the head coach of the show team, and training and riding horses. Danielle looks after our riding school, summer day camp, and administration.
DY: Emily just started full-time with our business in the last two years and has really taken on the role as the mentor in the barn as a young, female adult, which the majority of our students are. She’s the role model and really has developed the great coaching skills that both of us have. That’s why we’re getting so much success, as well.
The Yaghdjians divide responsibilities at the Pickering Horse Centre; Emily and Gary, pictured, run the show team.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Danielle Yaghdjian
EC: What is it like to operate a family business?
GY: It is probably the most challenging and rewarding thing we do. We compartmentalize the business so each of us has their core function that they’re on top of, but we cooperate on everything else to make it a success. We understand that business has to feed all of us and look after all of our needs, and we somehow do it. We fight like cats and dogs, but we love and support each other immensely.
Did You Know?
As the sponsor of the EC Coaching Certification program, Henry Equestrian Insurance Brokers Ltd. offers a 10% discount on all coaching policies and additional reduced rates for EC Certified Coaches!