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The story about EEC

Ellenwood Equestrian Center – Established in 1999

Ellenwood Equestrian Center was established in 1999, on 4 acres of land in Ellenwood GA, a nice community just outside of 285. Our humble beginnings included only a few horses, some fencing, and a tack room.

Over the years we have grown into a full scale riding school, camp facility, and dressage training barn. We now sit on 20 acres, have 27 stalls, a lighted arena, turnout paddocks, lots of seating areas, a swimming pool, tack room, and the best students and helpers around.

Our dedicated crew of barn girls ensures that the day to day runs smoothly so the owners Lynn and Leah Marks can use their talents accordingly – Lynn running the overall show and Leah doing the teaching of lessons and managing the barn.

We offer lessons to all levels of riders, host onsite birthday parties, run our summer and school break camps, and board horses. Through all our growth we have maintained our basic philosophy, and that is to bring the joy of horses and riding to all. By keeping costs down we can get more people in the saddle, enjoying the outdoors, and learning about barn life.

Lynn Marks

Lynn was born just outside of Chicago in 1961. She was a horse crazy kid without the opportunity to indulge in her passion. She rode on the occasional trail ride when her Dad would take her, and attended an overnight riding camp from the ages of 12 – 17.

She attended Antioch college for four years, graduating in 1983 with a degree in Social Work. It was there that she first rode in an English saddle, during lessons that were offered for gym credits at the local riding stable. The love affair began, and she continues to ride, train, and compete in the sport of dressage, while running the operational side of the business.

Lynn has two children, Leah and Alex, and many, many animals.

Leah Marks

Ellenwood Equestrian Center’s pride and joy, Leah is a rare talent – a natural rider and trainer who also has a gift for teaching. Her dressage accomplishments are too numerous to mention, but the highlights are having earned her USDF bronze medal at age 15 and her USDF silver medal at age 19 (non-dressage people, these are important milestones!), both on a rescue horse she trained herself.

She competes at the FEI levels of the sport and shares her knowledge with dozens of students weekly. She is responsible for the overall barn management, horse care, and camper happiness. Leah is the primary lesson instructor, teaching riders of all ages. She also takes horses in for training, from young horses needing to be started to dressage horses moving up the levels.

In addition to Leah’s local and regional competition achievements she has competed twice in the Maccabiah games. Known as the Jewish Olympics, Leah represented the USA in Israel in 2017 and again rode with team USA in Budapest in 2019.

Pictures of training and competition