Our Team

Ellen Gates

Owner and Head Trainer

Ellen Gates, with over 25 years of equestrian and show experience, combines her lifelong passion for horses with teaching riders a solid foundation of good horsemanship and developing superior riding skills. Ellen is an accomplished rider listed in the top 10 World Cup Standings and is a highly regarded equestrian professional and coaches highly motivated students. After opening Cold Spring Farm in 1998 she went on to become a respected horse show judge, recognized by the United States Equestrian Federation as a Large (R) Judge in Hunter and Hunter Seat Equitation. Ellen has continued to further her education through clinics with the likes of George Morris, Karen Healy, Dennis Mitchell, Jimmy Wofford, Anne Kursinski, Kathleen Raine and Charlotte Brendal. 

Some of Ellen’s career highlights include: 

  • Winner of the Foxfield Medal Finals, 1986

  • AGA Grand Prix rider

  • Successfully coached numerous students to local and national championships

  • Developed Grand Prix jumper "Maximillian"

  • Listed 10th World cup standings 1996 for the west coast

  • Champion International Jumper Futurity, 4 year olds, 2000

  • Champion International Jumper Futurity, 5 year olds, 2001 

Lauren Pederson

Assistant and Instructor

Lauren is incredibly passionate about horses and educating and developing young riders. As a teenager she rode on her barn’s AIRC team and spent her time as a working student. She showed the A circuit on a pony named Abbey, showing in the hunter and equitation rings. In her early 20’s she went on to learn what she could about eventing, before making her way back to the hunters and jumpers in her late 20’s. In school she studied Early Childhood Development and Education, she takes in to consideration the things she has learned while teaching children how to ride. When she’s not teaching she can be found hanging out with her Thoroughbred, Niko or working towards furthering her education as an instructor.