Downeast Performance Horses

by Kara Noble Westerly

Downeast Performance Horses is an equestrian center based at Misty Meadows, a former golf course turned horse farm in Westerly, Rhode Island. Downeast Performance Horses is all about exploring the possibilities for working with horses — from English and western riding to driving, starting, and training horses to riding lessons, and boarding. Lyndsey Etter, founder and that’s why I named my business Downeast Performance Horses. It’s a way of bringing Maine with me.

CH: How did you make the transi- tion from horse-loving farm kid to equine professional?

Lyndsey: I got Addy when I was 12 and she was a barely broke five-year-old. She was awful, and I had no guidance to help manager, recently spoke with Community Horse about Downeast Performance Horses and its diverse programs.

CH: Why did you choose to use Downeast — a term that usually refers to Maine — in the name of an equestrian center in Rhode Island?

Lyndsey: I grew up on a farm in Maine, in the Wiscasset area, about 45 minutes from Portland. We weren’t a rich family, but we always had ponies and horses. I couldn’t afford saddles or bridles, and I was mostly self-taught at first. I had a lot of fun riding — I still have one of my childhood horses, a Quarter Horse/Paint/Arabian mare named Addy. Her full name is Little Miss Attitude — and she still has plenty of attitude at 24! My childhood shaped me, and her. So, I just figured out what I could do to get her to go. Then I started taking lessons in barrel racing and pole bending at AndWeMet Farm in Brunswick. I became interested in western disciplines and natural horsemanship, competing in barrels until I was about 18. The farm owner, Sharon Kenney, taught me the ropes. I received a lot of good instruction there. I also trained with and learned a lot from Cathy Lewis at Kicks & Giggles Farm in Wiscasset.

When I was in high school, I started working at local farms and moved to English riding. My first English trainer, Caitlyn Donahue, at Sprintpoint Farm, was big into eventing and Pony Club. She helped me retrain my horse as a hunter jumper, and I got started in dressage and eventing. The farm owner, Gena McGrath, taught me a lot of natural horsemanship.

I wanted to stay with horses, so I went through the four-year Equine Business Management program at Johnson & Wales University in Providence. While there, I started teaching beginner riders at a farm in Exeter, and got involved in restarting ponies. After college, I worked as the farm manager at Twin Peaks, a big Angus and Hereford-mix cattle operation run by Bruce Thunberg in Matunuck. The trainer there, Justin Bouchard, taught me a lot about cutting, and starting and training two-year-olds. Bruce also sent me to Ohio to train with Zoe Woodland, who specializes in cutting. I’d drive out there and stay with Zoe so we could start working horses at 4 a.m.

When I was in my twenties, I worked for a while as an assistant trainer at a Saddlebred and Arabian saddle seat farm. They did a lot of driving, and that’s where I learned to drive and how to train horses to drive.

Martin Black in Idaho also influenced a big part of my natural horsemanship and colt starting after I opened my business. In 2018, I actually got to stay out on his ranch for a few weeks and ride young horses with him.

CH: What gave you the confidence to start your own business?

Lyndsey: When I was 19, Bruce asked me to make a sale video for an eight-year-old chestnut Quarter Horse mare named Peaches that I’d been working with for about a year. In the video, I rode her bridleless and bareback, and that’s what sold the horse. To this day, when [that video] comes up as a memory on Facebook, the person who bought her will tag me and say, “You really portrayed what that horse could do.” It was cool to know people believed in what I could do, and that I made difference in what that horse could do.

After that video, I got more opportunities to train. I worked with a mare named Lena, a cutting horse with a lot of anxieties. Now she’s an all-around western riding horse. We bred her and she had a black colt, Nugget, that I own now. Nugget is one hundred percent trained by me, and he’s a fantastic animal. That is a very proud moment of mine!

CH: When and how did Downeast Performance Horses get started?

Lyndsey: It started in August 2017. At first, I would travel to train horses at other farms. People would contact me about a horse that had been sitting, and asked me to get on it and figure it out. And maybe give some lessons afterward Bob and Carol Crandall have a pair of Haflingers, and they had me out to train at their farm. It turned into more, working the Haflingers and managing the farm. They own Misty Meadows, which is the property I now lease for Downeast Performance Horses. It’s a beautiful farm. Bob is 74 now and we call him Bob the Builder; he built everything here by hand. He’s like a father to me, and I owe a lot to him. Carol is like a mother to me and I love her too.

CH: What kind of facilities do you have available on the farm?

Lyndsey: The farm has about 30 acres, all open with very few trees. There are 12 paddocks with run-in sheds, about an acre or an acre-and-a-half each. We keep three to five horses per paddock, mares with mares and geldings with geldings to avoid any issues. We have 10 Thoroughbreds, some Quarter Horses and Quarter Horse crosses, warmbloods, a Lipizzaner mare, the Haflingers, two Mustangs, two Miniature Horses, and some ponies.

The barn itself is a big, tall, green and white Morton building and it’s beautiful. Everything here is green and white, down to the white vinyl fence and green gates. Everything matches!

We just added another thirteen-stall barn, so we now have 27 stalls, all attached so you don’t have to go outside to get to the 72' × 164' indoor arena. We’ve got a lounge and office upstairs, bathrooms, hot and cold running water in the barn, plus tack and feed rooms.

We currently board twenty horses, plus six school horses. We have a great community of boarders, and a waiting list of boarders.