When Ashley Rand-Torres and Heimdals Champ stride down centreline, people sit up and take notice. The Canadian dressage rider’s stunning Danish Warmblood with the palomino coat has presence and movement and the pair have recently had their grand prix debut at the Adequan Global Dressage Festival.
Ashley, 31, lives in Hudson, Ohio, and Wellington, Florida with her husband Daniel Torres Samaniego ‒ a world-class competitive swimmer ‒ and their two dogs. “We have a fourteen-stall facility in Hudson and rent a farm in Wellington every winter,” says the rider who was born in Green, Ohio, but became a Canadian citizen in 2009. (Her dad is from Waterloo, Ontario, and most of his family still lives there.)
While her first love was eventing which she took up at age 12, after graduating high school Ashley attended Lake Erie College and gradually saw her riding focus change to starting and training young horses. She worked for a time at Bill Mulholland’s Windswept Farm in Georgetown, ON, and while working for Reese Koffler-Standfield in Kentucky she discovered dressage. Over the years she has ridden with Conrad Schumacher, Jessica Ransehousen, Michael Klimke, and Charles De Kunffy.