Kim Scheid contributes a lot to equestrian sports in California.
Pan Am Games contender, sport horse breeder, Horse Trials host and early talent spotter of Tamie Smith and Heather Morris are resume highlights. The volunteer realm, however, may be where the Spring Creek Training Center owner has her biggest and most enduring impact.
In profiles of Galway Downs volunteers over the Gazette’s first 18 monthly issues, a remarkable number of them cite Kim as their inspiration for giving back to the sport.
These include Volunteer Coordinator Team members Bernie Low, Laura Jaeger and Thamar Draper. Lorraine Heath, Yoko Black, Donna Espinosa, Hollee Romero, Lynn Dordahl and Kim and Ron Low are among the many Galway Downs regular volunteers connected to Kim’s program
Kim’s students from any era consider volunteering and riding to go hand-in-hand. “Our crew is pretty cool,” Kim acknowledges. “Even the ones who have retired from riding are still interested in the sport and in supporting it. I appreciate my gang.”
“The whole time anybody was riding with me, we are always talking about do you have time to volunteer around your competition schedule?” That is easier during a full three-day competition, when exhibitors typically had more time in their show day. But even with compressed schedules, Kim’s clients find ways to help along with riding and caring for their own horse. “I think it becomes a case where we’re all just in the habit of it,” Kim reflects.
“We all look at the volunteers when we’re showing and know that we pay them back by volunteering ourselves. That’s a key point of it.”
Lending Time To Learn
It’s not all about giving back to the sport, Kim clarifies.
Volunteering offers awesome learning opportunities – especially dressage scribing.
“We’re all so wrapped up in our own riding, we don’t know what it looks like to someone on the outside.” Scribing rectifies that.
“I’ve always believed that when you teach the eye you teach the rider. Learning what the judge wants you to do and seeing a test from their perspective when the pair comes down center line is a great opportunity to see how things look from the outside.
“You’ll see riders make the same mistakes that you do,” Kim continues. “You hear the judge go, ‘Good. Tense. Crooked, etc.’” The coach especially likes scribing for reinforcing a message she “hammers” her students on — the importance of accuracy.
“There are horses and riders out there who are bigger, better movers, or who have more experience and can do a more refined job than you. But if you’re accurate, they can’t take those points away from you. Don’t lose to yourself because you’re not accurate.”
Freshly drug arena dirt is an ideal surface for examining accuracy, Kim shares. “I make my riders stop and look at their horse’s hoofprints on a circle and ask if it’s round.” Seeing a judge deduct points for lopsided circles has an equally lasting effect.
Hard-Wired to Help
Convincing clients to volunteer over the years has not been a hard sell, Kim asserts. In general, people drawn to eventing are hard-wired to help. Plus, “most of my clients are professionals in their own world, so they’re better at organizing their time, at being aware of what they can offer themselves, versus filling up their extra time doing nothing.”
Former students who no longer ride love staying connected to horses and eventing through volunteering, Kim notes. “They get their fix!”
Volunteering helps parents, too. “It can help when parents don’t know anything about the sport and wonder why their daughter didn’t win,” she notes. “Volunteering can train the parents to be supportive of the sport and learn from watching other people. They notice that volunteers are out there in the heat or other conditions to make it possible for their kid to compete.
“We’re not a sport where you can drop off your kids and come pick them up later without getting involved.”
She’s also seen parental volunteering blossom into bigger commitments – like the many venues initially inspired by a child’s passion for the sport.
USEA Cornerstone Instructor
In 2017, Kim received a US Eventing Association Cornerstone Instructor Award. The distinction honors lower-level instructors who inspire eventers with encouragement and long-term dedication to teaching basic horsemanship skills.
Kim started Spring Creek Training Center in 1980, based then in Southern Riverside County’s Winchester/French Valley. She and the Hanoverian, Haan, were at the top of their game, earning Horse of the Year honors in 1985 and 1986, when he topped Training Level with Area VI, US Eventing, USEF and the Hanoverian Breed Award.
While campaigning Haan with sights set on making the 1989 Pan American Games team, Kim also staged four one-day Horse Trials annually at her 15-acre facility. She operated a growing training program, too.
When residential development pushed Kim out of the French Valley area, she relocated to Hemet in 2006. Building out the new Spring Creek’s 40 acres took two years and was worth the wait. The 20-acre cross-country course has Elementary through Preliminary obstacles for Spring Creek students and those who book time with their trainer for schooling visits.
Breeding event horses was part of Kim’s program for 20 years. She imported the Oldenburg stallion, Goldwelt, from Germany and a maintained a herd of Thoroughbred broodmares. When knee problems prevented her from handling the babies anymore, she shut the program down. A great granddaughter to Goldwelt sold two years ago, marking the end of three generations Kim produced.
Competing on the Open Jumpers arena is another component of Kim’s history. “I was showing courses of 5’6” high fences and 6’ spreads.” She loved it, but her knees did not. “I was bone-on-bone and walking with braces on both knees until I finally was able to get knee replacements in 2015.” Even after the replacements, maintaining a two-point position in the saddle causes knee pain.
Fortunately, classical dressage was always the foundation of Kim’s eventing and show jumping work, so she turned to that full time. She pursued it on a lovely new horse from Spain, Dahli, but sadly lost the mare last summer.
Kim and friend and student Lorraine Heath recently traveled back to Spain and found “really nice Lusitano gelding,” Jordy, who is due in the States in March. Kim plans to pursue her US Dressage Federation Silver Medal with this new horse.
Kim continues to coach riders on their own horses. She no longer takes on horses to train herself and limits clientele to about 15. That gives her time to focus on her own riding and managing the Spring Creek facility.
Meanwhile, her legacy of fostering volunteerism thrives.
