Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashleen Lee.
Ashleen, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
As a young child, I would take weekly lessons at the barn nearby my family’s home. When I was 8, the barn went up for sale, and my father ended up purchasing it for my family. Quickly, my life transformed from lessoning once a week to spending every spare moment at the barn, riding and caring for the horses. I began competing often and growing up in the horse world.
Once I graduated high school, I turned pro and began teaching lessons and buying and selling horses for clients. During that same time, I attended DePaul University and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in business.
After graduation, I continued to work at my family’s stable. Up until the summer or 2015, I was strictly a trainer. We had a manager at the stable who had worked for us almost the entire time, and other trainers who would teach lessons. I would develop riders of all ages and take them to competition all over the country.
The Summer of 2015 was when everything changed for me. Our manager had decided to take a larger role at home with her family, and it was now my turn to take over. Around the same two-week period, I had suffered an accident on one of the horses, that left me with a concussion. There was a brief period, where I really had to push myself to figure out exactly what I wanted.
While I have grown up in the horse world, I also come from a family that is not. It has taken me a great deal of time to develop a network and really make my name for myself in the horse community. By the time I began managing, I had a solid client base and was doing well, but I was working crazy hours and felt that I was in a place that without change there would be little growth.
Most stables have a few trainers who run their own programs or a main trainer with trainers and riders who work beneath them. I wanted to build a community of trainers who work together. Who support and challenge each other to grow both individually and for the team. Essentially, I wanted to be part of something greater. I wanted to empower people who were passionate and shared a similar vision.
Within the last two years, I have hand-picked trainers and team members who individually are passionate, driven, and talented. We are all a bit different and have different strengths which encourages the growth of our team. It’s about hiring the right people.
The stable has always had a large lesson program, where our students work their way up to competing and purchasing their own horses. In the last year, we have really expanded the business by importing and investing in horses. We hired Stephen Foran as our resident professional rider who competes at a higher level with quality young jumpers through Grand Prix level. This allowed us to take the quality of the horses and the training to a whole new level. In addition, it gave me more time to focus on the business and developing more long-term plans.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
My two main struggles have been not coming from a family with a strong background in horses and my crash in the summer or 2015.
1.) Not coming from a horse family – While our stable is a family owned business. I didn’t have the luxury of ‘learning the ropes’ from my parents. My parents are both professionals in the medical field and when we purchased the barn, were not part of the horse community. When I decided to turn pro, I had to build a name for myself. Essentially, I had to figure it out on my own. While I had good trainers throughout my life, I then had to find my way from being a student to being the trainer. Riding through my junior years, gave me a solid start, but then I needed to be respected as a professional. I had to take the knowledge I had, continue to learn, and develop a system that worked for me. That system has changed over time as I continue to grow and adapt.
2.) My Crash and beginning my career as a manager in the same month – In June of 2015, I suffered my first big accident on a horse, I had fallen off and upon getting up, I was kicked in the head and knocked out. This hindered me from riding for 4 weeks, but the struggles for me were getting my confidence back and finding my drive again. When I wasn’t confident in my riding, and what has really driven me all my life, I became a bit depressed and lost ‘the fire’ I have had all my life. Looking back on it now, while at the time it felt like a huge setback, I believe this had a large impact on my growth as a person and for the barn.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Freedom Woods – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
We operate a large riding facility just outside the city of Chicago. We offer lessons, boarding, training, sales, therapeutic riding, and a summer camp program.
We specialize in developing riders through classical training from beginners to competing at a National level. We also specialize in developing, training, and competing horses and buying and selling select horses.
I am proud of our team and community at the barn. We have great team members who work hard every day to help take us to a higher level. We are always coming up with new ways to improve our techniques, our efficiency, etc.
What sets us apart from others? We are a team, through and through. When you ride at Freedom Woods, you don’t have one trainer, you have a team of trainers and riders who are personally invested in taking you to the next level. We are focused on continued education and training of ourselves, to always continue to grow ourselves and our clients. Our focus is always on becoming better. We have a continued notion to move forward, staying the same is moving backwards. We never loose site of why we want to do this.
I have always tried to be upright, stand by my decisions, and do right by people. The word I hear most from our clients, is “We trust you”. I believe my values show through in my business. Trust and integrity is of the utmost importance to us. We stand by our training, our horses and our sales. We take pride in what we do.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
In the near future we plan on continuing to expand our team and update our facility to continue to strive to do the best by our clients and our horses.
Within the next few years we plan to open up a second facility. We own property in Pleasant Prairie, WI. Last year we built two barns on the property and are continuing to build. We plan for our second facility to serve as a retirement/rehab facility for our horses and client horses. The facility will also have a derby field and arenas for practice and weekend training sessions, etc.
On a daily basis, we continue to strive to further our knowledge, enhance our practices, and do everything we can to do right by the horses and our clients.
Contact Info:
- Address: 9501 Austin Ave.
Morton Grove, IL 60053 - Website: www.freedomwoods.net
- Phone: (847) 967-9800
- Email: freedomwoodsinc@freedomwoods.net
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freedomwoods_/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Freedom-Woods-158116237540225/
Image Credit:
Lisa Neild Photography
Third Shutter from the Sun Photography
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