Our Team
Get to Know Us
President - Linda Lamarche
Linda Lamarche is the owner and trainer at Painted Image Farm in East Candia, NH. Linda has successfully shown in Western Dressage for multiple years through a number of levels and has trained and coached riders and their horses at a variety of shows. At the 2017 WDAA World show in Oklahoma, Linda earned a Top 5 in Level 1 Open and placed 8th overall in Level 2 Open.
She holds judges licenses with Pony of the Americas, American Stock Horse Association, North American Western Dressage and USEF Western Dressage.
Linda enjoys training, showing and judging this wonderful sport of western dressage and her knowledge is invaluable to this team.
Treasurer - Cecilia 'Sis' Bergeron Allen
Sis is a Retired CPA who brings her Business Background to Community Boards. She has been a horse owner for most of her life and a lifetime New Hampshire Resident. In addition, Sis has been involved with the AMHA Youth Program as a Youth Leader for Rising Stars as well as a committee member of the NEHC Western/Hunt Seat Medal. Over the past ten years, she has been actively showing on the National Morgan Horse Show Circuit in both Western pleasure and English pleasure disciplines. In 2021, she retired her western pleasure horse “Whispering In The Wind GCH” (Onyx) from the Main Ring. Trainer Chris Cassenti, said one day, “Why Don’t we try Western Dressage” and OUR journey began! The experience has been wonderful with great support from everyone in the Western Dressage discipline and her horse Onyx thoroughly enjoys it! Sis loves learning new things and meeting new people and this new discipline has exceeded all expectations. The thought of “why didn’t I do this before” has come up multiple times.
Onyx loves and continues to excel with World Championship Titles in Intro and Basic Level at the Morgan Grand Nationals and World Championships in Oklahoma. He had victory passes at both New England Morgan and New York Morgan Regionals. In addition, Onyx was named the AMHA Star Award for Overall Western Dressage and Sport Horse of the Year. He was voted 2022 and 2023 People’s Choice Champion in Morgan Western Dressage Overall. Onyx has won multiple Year End Awards from New England Morgan Horse Association, USEF as well as WDAMA (Introductory and Basic Level) as well as the WDAMA Bronze Medal.
Sis loves her partnership with Whispering In the Wind GCH and believes that this discipline has strengthened it. Sis loves learning the discipline and how positive everyone is. She is always a cheerleader and encourages others to try it!
Secretary - Deb Becroft
Deb’s involvement with horses started back in the ‘80’s when she became the owner of Breezy Hill Farm in Wallingford, CT. The opportunity to purchase an amazing, palomino QH named Liongold started her journey into Western riding and competitive trail. Years later Deb moved into the Morgan world with
the purchase of RainTree Treasure - Deb and Treasure competed successfully at many shows in both traditional and Western Dressage. As a member of the Morgan community Deb held the Secretary position for the CT Morgan Club for almost 10 years, she was involved in running the CT Morgan Summer Classic Show and held several positions with the CT Morgan Horse Show. When she can Deb enjoys scribing both Western, Traditional and Carriage Dressage. She is currently the Show Secretary for the Dressage Schooling Show’s at Independence Stable in Belchertown MA where her next Western Dressage prospect, Townshend Sweet n Mighty, is growing up!
Vice President: Social Media - Eric Hebert
Eric Hebert is a career pediatric nurse practitioner who developed a passion for horses in 2019 after moving to a farm and purchasing Joy (She’s Hickory’s Joy). A Quarter Horse mare and Cole, a Friesian/Percheron cross. Joy became critically ill which required a month of intense care including, spending many hours, evenings, nights with Joy in her stall. During this time an intense bond started to develop and over the following months Joy and Eric would prove to be a great trail team. Fast forward, Eric fell in love with the horses, the lifestyle, and continued to develop his horsemanship skills, establish his seat and then turned his focus on developing Cole. The bond with Eric and Cole quickly became very unique and the duo started trying various atypical disciplines such as mounted archery, mounted swordsmanship, and added versatility with using poles in Garrocha stye, some utility work with ropes and pulling, and over the past year spending hours working on bending and agility. Cole will try it all! This is where Eric started to realize the potential for Cole and sought a discipline that was accepting and progressive. Western Dressage is a journey for both horse and rider of all levels with a membership that is accepting, welcoming and honors the horse! Eric and Cole, through their unique style of horsemanship and willingness to try new things, have attracted an increasing social media following; Eric hopes to utilize social media in order to spread news and promote the exciting future of Western Dressage in the New England region. Cole, Joy and Eric our proud to be part of this incredible team while embarking on thier Western Dressage journey.
Vice President: Communication –
Rachelle Beauchesne
From 7-3, Rachelle Beauchesne is a high school science/special education teacher. She especially loves teaching Biology and Astronomy. After the bell rings, though, she is a dedicated adult amateur, riding 4-6 days a week. Despite loving horses from an early age, she didn’t learn to ride until college. Upon graduation, she bought her first horse, Checkers, a leopard Appaloosa. After a moderately successful show career, they spent many years exploring the trails on the local cranberry bogs together. When Checkers passed, she searched for the next chapter of her equestrian life — and found it in a young palomino Paint. This will be their 3rd season together riding Western dressage.
Assistant to the President – Audrey Stamatelos
Board Member - Kristen Whittaker
Kristen Whittaker is the owner and trainer at Whit Acres Farm in Norwell MA. She is a leading Performance Horsemanship clinician and Western Dressage competitor specializing in communication and progressive training. She began her show career at the age of eleven primarily in the Arabian horse world. She won numerous achievements, and top titles at US and Canadian Nationals, in English and western pleasure as a junior and amateur exhibitor. Since 2016, Kristen has been a competitor at the WDAA World Show in Oklahoma, earning many Level and Divisional World Championships and titles in Intro thru Level 4 Open. Furthermore, Kristen has trained and coached Amateur and Junior level riders and their horses to numerous Level and Divisional World Championships
Advisory Board
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Chuck Patti
Chuck Patti has over 40 years of experience in both Western and English disciplines, training and showing from Classical Dressage to Western Trail, Ranch Riding and Western Dressage. He and his clients have shown successfully at a number of levels in Western Dressage.
Cathy Drumm
Cathy Drumm has for over 30 years used Classical Dressage concepts to train her own horses, as well as her students and their mounts. Since 2010 she has focused on teaching Western Dressage—incorporating these very concepts. She has successfully shown her morgan mare, Asia, at Morgan and Open horse shows.