Andrea Taylor Appointed ParaEquestrian Canada Team Coach

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Andrea Taylor Appointed ParaEquestrian Canada Team Coach

Ottawa , Ontario --- Para-Equestrian Canada is pleased to announce Andrea Taylor, 36, from Langley , BC has accepted the position of ParaEquestrian Canada National Coach.

Taylor is a certified Level 3 Coach, who has competed for Canada up to the Grand Prix level. In 1989 she was a member of the gold medal team at the North American Young Riders’ Championships, finishing fifth individually.

Taylor has trained with Canadian Dressage Olympian Leslie Reid since 1988, and spent four years training in Germany with fellow Dressage Olympian Christilot Boylen. While in Germany , Taylor competed in Young Horse, Small Tour, and Grand Prix classes with her mount Dior .

Taylor has been a Short and Long listed rider with the Canadian Dressage Team, and in 2000 represented Canada at the International Derby in Australia , where she won the Team Bronze Medal riding a borrowed horse and was named Leading Foreign Rider. In 2001 Taylor and Dior competed at the Canadian League Final of the FEI World Cup in Toronto , ON , placing third.

In 2004 Taylor generously allowed Lauren Barwick, also from BC, to ride Dior at the Paralympic Games in Athens . Barwick enjoyed great success with Dior until his retirement from international competition in 2006.

Taylor is also a coach of many successful riders in BC, including Alexandra Duncan who won the FEI Junior Championship at the Canadian National Championships in 2005, was part of the Gold Medal Team at the 2006 North American Junior/Young Riders’ Championships, and earned fourth place at the prestigious FEI Young Rider Dressage World Cup Final in Germany .

In the past two seasons, Taylor has been showing Pfalstaff at the Grand Prix level, and was the 2006 BC Grand Champion. She also won the 2006 Canadian Performance Futurity with the four-year-old Freelance DSF, and was First Level Open Champion on her five-year-old, Ulysses. She currently has a number of young horses in training, and is looking forward to competing with them in 2007.

The ParaEquestrian Canada Team will be competing at the ParaEquestrian World Championships this July in Hartpury , England . Andrea is looking forward to working with the Team, as well as individual members during the competition.

For more information check the ParaEquestrian Canada website at www.paraequestrian.ca

About the ParaEquestrian Discipline
In Para-Equestrian, each rider is classified according to his or her functional ability. They are assessed by trained physiotherapists and doctors who evaluate either muscle strength, coordination, or a combination thereof throughout the athlete’s body. The rider is then given a functional profile that indicates the grade in which they would compete. There are four Grades of competitions, with Grade I representing the more severely impaired riders, and Grade IV representing the least severely impaired riders. The competition within each Grade is judged on the functional skill of the rider, and not the level of disability.

About ParaEquestrian Canada
Para-Equestrian Canada is the discipline committee of Equine Canada which is responsible for developing and implementing programs on behalf of the Para-Equestrian community, and administrating the high performance program for dressage riders with a disability.

To contact us: donna@AtlanticRider.com