Stephen Rogers is currently based at the Equine Sports Breeding & Training Centre in Goornong, Central Victoria. He discovered the ESB program after reading an article written in the Eventing USA magazine and decided to fly over to see the ESB horses and experience a bit of Australia in between his studies.
Stephen started his riding career when he was 8 years old at an innercity riding school called Rocking M Stables. His first instructor was Becky Brown, BHSAI certified instructor and a level 2 ICP certified instructor. She introduced him to riding with a strong focus on dressage as a foundation. When he was 12, Stephen started eventing on his pony, Shasta.
Stephen purchased his first horse at the age of 14 from a town in southern Texas. Peter Pan was 14 year old black thoroughbred
that Stephen competed successfully to Pre Novice with numerous awards won along the way, including Prelim rider and horse of the year for the state of Texas and 3rd best in the country. At the age of 16, Stephen packed up his horse, float and belongings and moved to Virgina.
He and his mother made the 20 hour drive together to arrive at Fox Covert Farm in Upperville,VA. There he began to work for Rainey Andrews and Jimmie Wofford for the summer. Rainey is a successful three star rider with numerous advanced horses and had been Jimmie's Barn manager for over 10 years. Jimmie is best know for his multiple world championships, Olympic silver medal and numerous Pan-American Wins.
Jimmie is also know for his wealth of knowledge and as a Trainer for some of the top riders in the world including David and Karen O'Connor as well as Gina Miles. Over the next summer, Stephen received intensive coaching both on his horse and the horses on the property. By the end of that summer, Stephen and his coaches decided that it was time to part ways with Peter Pan and they began to search for his next horse. They found that horse in Queensland, AUS and a month later, Stephen bought Kelecyn Applause "Yogi" off a video and brought him to America. Together, Stephen and Yogi built a partnership quickly and reached the one star level by 2004. In October 2004, they entered into their first CCI* and by the end of the weekend, they had finished in First Place. They were awarded the Harry T Peters trophey for being the junior national champion at the CCI* level.
By 2005, Stephen and Yogi were chosen to represent his area at the North American Young Riders Championships. Following their best dressage test to date in the rain, Stephen was unfortunately eliminated for carrying a whip into the dressage arena. Following this competition, Stephen and Yogi moved up to the two star level where they successully competed with numerous placings including a 6th place finish in a CIC**.
In September 2006, two weeks before his CCI**, Yogi sustained an injury while on course and was forced to be retired from the higest levels of competition. In Dec. 2006, Stephen bought a young horse off the race track, Rugby Road ("Peeps") and began to retrain him for eventing. Stephen's has high hopes for Peeps and plans to build a team of international quality eventers with some from the ESB stud on his return.
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