Riding Far, LLC was founded over 20 years ago with a simple idea that riders could benefit from a better understanding of themselves, their horses, and how to create change. We help riders move through these challenges. This is more than your typical sport psychology or horse training. We have dedicated ourselves to create transformative experiences for equestrians and horses through compassionate and expert education, mentorship and guidance. We meet every rider and horse where they are and create deeply personal and meaningful experiences. Our work inspires change where traditional approaches have often failed. We ground ourselves in an innovative integration of modern human psychology and horsemanship, drawing inspiration from a wide range of human psychological disciplines and the best of classical and modern horsemanship including equine ethology and biomechanics. We are passionate about our own personal and professional growth in order to bring our clients current, comprehensive, informed, and inspired guidance. PhD
Dr. Haefner is a licensed clinical and sport psychologist in private practice in Northern Virginia with more than 30 years of professional experience. In addition to his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, Dr. Haefner is a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist and a Certified Master Practitioner of Neuro-linguistic Programming. He also holds a B.S. In his practice, he provides personal/professional development, sport psychology consultation, and a broad range of other therapeutic services to adults, adolescents and children. An avid equestrian since his childhood, Dr. Haefner has combined his love for horses and lifelong equestrian experience with his knowledge of human psychology in order to help people transform themselves and their relationships with their horses. He enjoys working with riders of all levels and disciplines tackling the many and varied challenges that arise along the way. He helps riders transform self-doubt into confidence, fear into courage, distractibility into focused concentration, and pressure and anxiety into effective performance. In addition to helping people with their riding goals, Dr. Haefner uses the unique relationship between people and their equine partners to help people attain their own personal growth goals such as increased self-confidence, assertiveness, trust, intimacy and balance in relationships. Dr. Haefner is passionate about learning. He is committed to integrating newly acquired knowledge and skills into his work with riders. His most recent learning venture into interpersonal neurobiology has led to Riding Far to partner with Neurofficient to offer their clients neurofeedback brain training. Dr. Haefner is also a steadfast advocate for research in the field of human-horse interaction. He assisted in founding the Research Committee for the Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association. He served on the Board of Directors of the Horses and Humans Research Foundation (HHRF), having been honored to serve as President of the Board for three of those years. He continues his advocacy for research through his role as Scientific Advisor for HHRF. Dr. Haefner is passionate about teaching. He has taught every age and level from kindergarten to graduate school. He has served on the staff/faculties of The Hill School, Catholic Memorial High School, The Fielding Institute, The Lab School of Washington, and The Catholic University of America. He dedicated to educating riding instructors and trainers, as well as riders, about the psychology of teaching and learning. His goal is to help instructors and trainers become more effective teachers and riders become more effective learners. Justin Haefner
Justin Haefner is a professional trainer who specializes in the training and handling of young performance jumpers. He is the full time Trainer of Young and Developing Horses at St. Bride’s Farm where he focuses on giving international caliber jumping horses the best foundation possible for their later life on the international show circuit. Justin believes it is essential to understand how horses’ bodies move and function in order to effectively train horses. In his continuous pursuit of deeper knowledge of equine physiology and biomechanics, Justin is a student at the Vluggen Institute of Equine Osteopathy and Education. Justin is also committed to transforming the experiences of horses and their riders through his work with Dr. Haefner in Riding Far, LLC. He contributes his knowledge of the horse’s psychology and physiology to create a well-rounded and unique perspective on the relationship between horse and rider. The synergistic, collaborative combination of Justin’s training and horsemanship experience with Dr. Haefner’s experience helping people change creates powerful opportunities for riders to transform their relationships with themselves and their horse in large and small ways. Justin comes from a background in vaquero style natural horsemanship, spending his childhood highly interested in creating and understanding deep connections with horses. Time spent starting young horses, foxhunting, and dabbling in many different disciplines gave him a base to understand key elements of a horse’s solid foundation. His focus on bodywork and anatomy/biomechanics goes hand in hand with his deep interest in classical dressage. His focus with every horse, no matter their discipline, is to gift them with strength of mind, body and emotion. Much of his work is based on the teaching and philosophy passed down by masters such as Nuno Oliveira. While patiently and steadfastly working to positively influence the equestrian world, Justin is deeply committed to continue his personal education. He hopes to return to Portugal where he spent time riding at the Centro Equestre Leziria Grande with the Valença’s, and continued lessons with Patrick King. His interests are in improving his own biomechanics and posture as a rider, as well as knowledge of horse and human physiology, training through classical philosophy, and further understanding and ability in equine bodywork.
