Towne-Ayr Farm

Rita Towne

Rita is the owner/operator of equine services at Towne-Ayr Farm and continues to offer premier boarding services to select horses and clients. 

Rita Towne has 40 years' experience as a professional instructor/trainer and Stable Manager with a solid background in Classical horsemanship. Her coaching skills have helped many horse and rider teams reach their competitive show ring goals. Rita especially enjoys working with riders who wish to develop their knowledge of horsemanship for show or pleasure. Rita specializes in the art of bitting and groundwork, which lays a solid foundation for the success under saddle.

Bethany Towne

As of January 2020, Bethany will be located in Reno, Nevada. Bethany continues to develop exceptional equine athletes as she transitions to a career in the legal field. Bethany is set to earn her Juris Doctor degree in May 2020.   

Bethany started her equestrian career 20 years ago. She now has many championship titles and wins in equitation, pleasure, and dressage from local to National and World level competitions. Bethany has participated in lessons and/or clinics with familiar names among the best in equestrian sport, including: Eric Horgan, Larry Poulin, Nancy Later-Lavoie, and Madeleine Austin. 

Her Philosophy:

Bethany believes cross-training is beneficial to equines and their riders.  She understands that sport horses are not expected to simply go through the movements of a dressage test or jump course; they are expected to give a stand-out performance! The stiff and crooked show horse is no beauty to behold when compared to a show ring performance by a soft and supple equine athlete. Bethany believes in a horse that is a high performance athlete. She also recognizes that not all horses reach high performance in the same way. In her philosophy, Classical training provides a strong foundation, supplemented by a knowledge of animal behavior and an open mind able to think “out-of-the-box” for those occasions when creativity in training is needed. No two horses are the same and all horses have the possibility of responding differently to a single tactic. A “cookie-cutter” approach simply won’t cut it when training horses of all breeds, ages, and sizes.