North Florida Dressage

KYB Dressage

Deep into the acreage of Bell, Florida you can find the home of  north Florida dressage barn, KYB Dressage. The farm is situated on rolling fields of tall grass, canopy oaks, and 126 acres of pure Old Florida beauty! Yvonne Barteau is the owner and head trainer of the top-notch dressage facility. Yvonne works alongside her two daughters, Kassie and Kayla (Hudi) who are both grand prix dressage riders. Like most young girls, Yvonne’s passion for horses started as a child. She would read books about horses. Little did she know how her passion would grow! After high school she started working at the race track and years later she has grown her own, successful, dressage barn. As a whole KYB has more achievements than I’ll be able to list, but I’ll try to touch on a few here!

KYB Dressage originated in Illinois where they had a farm for 18 years. After spending many winters in Wellington, Florida, they decided to relocate to warmer weather to their new home in Bell, Florida. Being in Florida has opened new windows for them because they now can run KYB Dressage and their rescue, Horses Without Humans (you can find their barn feature here), together on the same property. KYB regularly competes through out the United States. Yvonne has trained the most winning young rider in US history as well as the most winning horse (GP Raymeister), trained two horses for the young rider world cup in Germany, has won several National Young Horse Championships and National Dressage Championships, has won Devon a few times, trained 19 horses to grand prix level, and over 100 horses to FEI. You can see that the list of accolades just keeps going! However, it doesn’t stop there. Yvonne originally started with Arabian Nights in Ocala, Florida. She has written two books, “Ride the Right Horse” (named equine book of the year in 2007) and “Dressage Horse Manifesto”, as well as produced five equine films—one of which was named the best at the Equus International Film Festival.

The north Florida dressage facility in Bell is very accommodating. On the 126 acres there are 23 training stalls, 25 rescue stalls, grass jumping field, trails, covered regulation sized dressage arena, two round pens, and they’re working on a horsemanship and equitation course. They offer a number of services including boarding (stall and pasture), lessons (beginner-grand prix), training, marketing/selling horses, host clinics, show team, young rider program, working student program, and apprentice trainer program.

Though the barn stays busy with competing, Yvonne still makes time to help at the rescue as much as possible. They will be putting on a Holiday show at Canterbury this December to raise funds for the rescue. The show, Spirit of the Horse, is a story of two orphans looking for a family at Christmas time. This will be the first time that the show has been performed in Florida, so you don’t want to miss it! If you’d like to purchase tickets, you can follow their page here.

If you have a barn that you would like featured on the Barn Tour, contact shellywilliamsphotography@gmail.com