Partner Spotlight: Q&A with Ashva Equestrian

Get My Horse launched a barn partnership program that is designed as a way to work together with barns and show stables to help market their horses and create more exposure for both the horses for sale and barn itself. Get My Horse recently welcomed Ashva Equestrian – Shawdee Rocha to the barn partnership program. In honor of the partnership, we spoke with Shawdee to learn more about Ashva Equestrian, their goals for the future and what made them want to partner with Get My Horse.

Read the full Q&A below:

1. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and Ashva Equestrian and what you do?

My name is Shawdee Rocha and I am originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, where I spent most of my professional career working for top A circuit hunter/jumper trainers. Currently I am based out of Knoxville, Tennessee and partnered with Grand Prix rider, Randii Goble, at Icon Sporthorses. Together we manage a 60-stall facility built on two base programs, our Riding Academy and Show Program.

Shawdee Rocha and Decadence OMD

Ashva Equestrian opened it’s doors in October of 2018 at a small boutique 9 stall facility set on 12 acres. Ashva was built on the vision of creating a program based on curriculum that guides our clients to develop a strong understanding of the foundations of traditional hunter/jumper riding. I want my students to be able to take what they learn at Ashva and be able to ride competitively or groom professionally, if desired, from coast to coast. Our partnership with Icon Sporthorses began just a few days ago, on October 1st. 2019.

2. Could you tell us more about your partnership with Icon Sporthorses?

Our partnership was created seamlessly because Randii and I envision a similar future for the partnership of Ashva and Icon. We want to establish a supportive community built on high standards, compassion, and traditionally correct system.

Both Randii Goble and I specialize and emphasize proper horse care, horsemanship, and traditional hunter/jumper riding. Although we do not require showing, all of our riders, students, and clients are expected to maintain their horses and help maintain our facility according to A circuit standards. Most importantly, our horses always come first.

Aside from building our two main programs together, we host monthly horsemanship lessons and clinics. We hope to add schooling shows to the mix in the future. It is very important for us to be able to give our students and local equestrian community the opportunity to ride with trainers from all over the US and overseas.

Between Randii and I, we have a wide network allowing us to organize these events with renowned trainers. Our inaugural clinic will be near the end of November, with John Charlebois as the clinician. We are very excited for this opportunity for our community because John holds a long history of success of taking riders to the final rounds of the USHJA derby championships, the Maclays, and GPs at Spruce. We feel it’s the perfect clinic to kick off what we hope will be the first of many exceptional clinics to be held at Icon.

Between Randii’s expertise in horse care and riding, and my experience in management and teaching, our partnership only seemed natural. Aside from that, we both hold similar values. We are so looking forward to the future of Ashva and Icon.

3. What horse shows do you attend?

We attend horse shows throughout the US from Charleston to WEF to Ocala to Brownland to Lexington! We mostly schedule shows based on the goals of our clients. We also attend local shows for schooling experience for our young riders and horses, and to support our local hunter jumper association (shoutout to ETHJA!).

4. What attracted you to first list Decadence OMD on Get My Horse?

As a small business owner, I love to support other up and coming small businesses as well. Just like how I feel trainers should support each other, I feel the same about business owners. I first saw Get My Horse on Instagram and was first impressed with their marketing and consistency with the marketing. After seeing their website, I appreciated the simple and straight forward layout, the variety of types of horses listed (high end to pasture pets – I think this is wonderful because to be a website that only support one niche of horses makes it difficult to find ones with hidden potential, or the ones that would be perfect for lesson programs, etc).

I posted Decadence OMD on Get My Horse for all these reasons and because I thought that the right potential buyers would be attracted to the website, and I also think GMH has worked out a very good system in place for ad pricing!

Connecting us to Decadence OMD’s buyers was easy and simple- they messaged me, and we responded, the rest is history and now Decadence OMD is in the best hands we could have ever hoped for.

5. How does Get My Horse compare to the other horse sales sites that you’ve used?

I think GMH is a fantastic website. I have used ProEquest and Warmblood Sales and considered using BigEq, but didn’t due to lack of ads. None of those websites produced as much interest in my horses as GMH. I have to add that I do believe these website are more popular depending on what part of the country you are at – ProEquest is very popular with imports and on the West Coast, for example. However, I do believe the other sites in general they have given me less traffic because their client pool is more specifically high-end. Which isn’t a problem at all, who doesn’t love to look at a long list of gorgeous horses! The main issue that lies in this model though is that it is closing the door on thousands of other horses with potential and thousands of other potential buyers, thus offering less traffic through the website to sellers. I appreciate that GMH is welcoming to both high end and lower end horses and think that having a popular website that consolidating sales options without singling our any quality of horse is brilliant and better for buyers.

6. What are your favorite things or features about Get My Horse?

I love the layout of each ad, and the consistency with uploading horses to Instagram. In this day and age, having a marketing team that is up to date on social media and is consistently communicating with their followers is so incredibly important!

7. What made you want to partner with Get My Horse?

I love that GMH is a family run business and I can attest to how hard they work for the success of GMH. After my great experience with selling Decadence OMD through GMH, I was nothing less than ecstatic to be able to partner with and support such a great team!

8. What big plans do you have for Ashva Equestrian in the future?

Our goal is to create a program and facility known for giving riders a very solid and correct foundation, as well as confidence, drive, and knowledge. Along with hosting consistent high quality clinics and events, we’d love to get back on the road consistent showing.

My personal goals are to go compete in international hunter derbies with my up and coming hunter, and Randii’s goals are to get back in the GP show ring.

View Ashva Equestrian’s beautiful hunter jumper horses for sale – see all their horses under “Seller’s others”. 

Interested in joining our barn partnership program? Email us here

 

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