Pine Trails Ranch Davis, CA

Abby Rubenstein
working student/ assistant

Abby grew up riding and showing horses. She began working for Pine Trails Ranch during graduate school. While Abby now works primarily as an Art Professor, she enjoys teaching riding on the weekends.

Kat Vaughan
Assistant Instructor

Kat has been riding for over 11 years with an emphasis on Jumpers. She competed in the Southern California Jumper Circuit for 3 years with her mare, Reverie, before graduating high school and moving to Davis. She graduated from UC Davis majoring in Animal Science with a Specialization in Equine Lameness. Kat uses her training and education to teach riders how to effectively communicate with horses. She enjoys instructing riders of all ages and strives to make riding fun and safe. Kat just completed her therapeutic riding instructor certification. We are excited to start a great therapy program with her soon!

Megan Lowry
Assistant Instructor

Megan has been riding at Pine Trails for over 15 years. Although Megan is a retired nurse, she spends many of her days helping out at the ranch. Megan teaches several lessons a week and especially enjoys working with adult students, who appreciate her perspective as a fellow adult rider. Megan also enjoys riding her horses, Aurora and Roxie.

Roxanne Staves
Assistant Instructor

Roxanne grew up riding has been riding at Pine Trails Ranch for several years. After finding herself uninspired by an office job, Roxanne decided to turn her passion for riding into a career. Roxanne loves to teach beginner and intermediate students good fundamentals. Our younger and more timid students love Roxanne’s calm and engaging teaching style.

Michelle Haseltine
Owner of Pine Trails Ranch
Head Trainer & Instructor

In 1990 Michelle and her husband Matt started
Pine Trails Ranch. Both had worked in the horse
industry before starting the ranch and wanted a
place where riders could go and enjoy horses
and get a good education without worrying about
what breed of horse they had and if their saddle
was the current fashion. Michelle had been
working with the well respected Morgan horse
trainer Tom Simmons and learned a great deal
from him about working with the horse and
unlocking the horse’s full potential while encouraging the horse to enjoy it’s job. Michelle was impressed with how Tom worked patiently with horses and wanted to also be able to teach riders to also enjoy riding while developing great skills and set out to make Pine Trails Ranch a place where that could happen. Michelle began to study biomechanics and how it can be used to make good riding more attainable for all riders.

In her thirties, Michelle was hospitalized with a serious auto immune condition that attacked the nerves in her extremities. She had 85% damage and was told to forget about riding by the doctors. She chose to ignore this and found a doctor who helped get her treatments designed to allow her to work. Her nerves began to heal and she continued to ride. Michelle was very weak initially and developed a unique perspective that allows her to better understand how hard it is for mature riders to develop their riding muscles and balance. Her strength and riding have improved and with the help of trainer John S. Malbos and Chris Scarlet, Michelle has returned to competitive riding.

Michelle’s Specialties Include:
-Hunters, Jumpers & Classical Dressage
-Injury rehabilitation for horse or rider
-Correcting behavioral issues
-Trained & experienced in saddle fitting
-Breeding & Foaling
-Experienced in developing young horses
for competitive careers

530-756-2042

Kathy Lashkoff
Office assistant

Kathy is our awesome office manager. She helps keep our paperwork from making Michelle crazy.

Cole Roblee
Assistant Trainer & Instructor

Cole’s interest in horses evolved from a lifelong interest in animal training. At the age of 9, he began training dogs, and spent his teenage years raising guide dogs. In 2008, Cole began horseback riding at Pine Trails Ranch and hasn’t looked back since. In 2011, he began as a working student at Pine Trails Ranch, where he began to learn about rehabbing horses and starting young horses from Michelle. Cole worked as an Assistant Riding Instructor at Pine Trails Ranch while studying Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior at UC Davis. Following his graduation in 2015, Colette began working full time at Pine Trails Ranch.

Cole is passionate about the Pine Trails Ranch mission and loves working with students and horses. He enjoys welcoming new people to the world of horses, as well as
watching his longtime students develop as riders. In addition, Cole has been working on developing his own competitive riding.

OUR INSTRUCTORS

Katie Wilson Katie has ridden for many years with Pine Trails Ranch, and after teaching camp for several years and graduation from high school in Davis, is now teaching at Pine Trails Ranch. She is very good with our newer riders, and uses her own experience of dealing with anxiety to help other riders develop confidence in themselves and their horses when riding.

Hannah Whitehouse Hannah has also ridden at Pine Trails from a very young age. She is continuing her schooling at a local Junior college and teaching to help support herself through school. Hannah has a very good eye and enjoys helping student develop their form correctly. Michelle is very proud to have students develop into good riders and great instructors.