Vital Statistics

Date of Birth: February 25, 1948
Place of Birth: Cincinnati, Ohio
Parents: Emil M. Ulanowicz
Retired US Army Colonel
Edith D. Ulanowicz
Marital Status: Divorced
Address: P.O. Box 101
Milford Square, PA 19835

Experience

1981 - Present — Horseback Riding Instructor, Clinician, Coach
Specializing in:

● body awareness and balance
● safety techniques
● competitive strategy
● conditioning and nutrition for horse and rider
● two-way communication with the horse using body language
● the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of riding, and how they apply to Life.

1976 - 1989 — Competed successfully in all levels of Three-Day Eventing

1980 - 1986 — Member of the United States Equestrian Three Day Event Team, representing the US in international competition.

1976 - 1989 Windstone, Radford, VA, and Woodbury, CT|

Co-owner, manager, trainer, and instructor of equestrian facility:
● trained young stock, clientele horses, and resale horses
● imported several horses from Ireland for resale and breeding
● instructed all levels of riders in various disciplines
● Developed a national reputation for my expertise in alternative as well as traditional methods of managing, caring for, and training horses and riders

1973-1976 — Lived in Co. Clare, Ireland, where I trained young horses
being prepared for sale, and hunted with the Co Clare Hunt Accomplishments

1965 — Winner of the first 4-H State Demonstration Contest

1976 — Won first event, Novice level, Ireland

1979 — Second in first national running of the Rolex Three Day Event, Lexington, KY, and only competitor to make the time.

1980 — Competed in Luhmuhlen, Germany, International Three Day Event. Eighteenth individually, member of winning team.

1981 — Competed again in Luhmuhlen. Tenth individually. No team competition.

1982 — National Champion
● Winner of two out of three selection trials for the World Championships
● Individual and Team Bronze Medals at the World Three Day Event Championship, Luhmuhlen, Germany
● Ranked third in the world by The Chronicle of the Horse
● Featured in the 16mm film and video, "Riding For America" , produced by Insilco, Corp.
● Featured in the video, "Kentucky, the Ultimate Trial", produced by KY Educational TV.
● Honored at the Women's Sports Foundation's 1982 Salute to Women in Sports in New York City.

1983 — Competed in England

1984 — Second Alternate to the USET Three Day Olympic Team
● Doubled for Melissa Gilbert in the Kentucky scenes of the 1985 movie, Sylvester .
● Primary consultant to A.C. Crispin in writing her book, Sylvester
● Member, US Active Riders Committee, which helped formulate national policy and sport rules.

1985 — Second, Boekelo International Three Day Event
●Member, US Active Riders Committee

1986 — Competed in World Three Day Event Championship, Gawler, Australia
● Featured in Sally Swift's second video, "Centered Riding II"

1988 — Official National Retirement Ceremony at the Rolex International Three Day Event for my legendary horse, The Gray Goose

1994 — Honored in the Masters Ceremony at USET Headquarters in Gladstone, NJ

1998 — Technical Advisor to Monty Roberts in his "Follow Up" videos

1999 — The Gray Goose selected as one of the 50 Most Influencial Horses of the Century.

2000 — Competed successfully in lower level dressage and combined
training competitions with my stallion, Gideon Goodheart.

Education

1970 — Graduated from Radford College with a BA in Sociology

1979 - 1987 — Trained under the best instructors and coaches in the US

1981 - 1986 — Centered Riding clinics, culminating in becoming a Centered Riding Instructor (certification no longer active, as I choose not to affiliate with any one technique)

1984 — Silva Mind Control

1985 — Linda Tellington-Jones Tteam Workshop

1989 — T he Warrior's Wisdom Workshop by Stuart Wilde (techniques to further self-esteem and self-confidence)
● Warriors in the Mist by Stuart Wilde (advanced training)
● Reiki Healing Technique (Master level)
● Trip to Peru to study Native healing techniques

1990 - 2001 — Clinics in Dressage, Clicker Training, and Natural Horsemanship
● Workshops and studies in the healing fields of Feldenkreis, Somatics, Homeopathy, Massage, Herbs, Myotherapy, Bowen Technique, Learning Patterns, and Counseling.

2002 — Clinics and training in Classical Dressage with Bettina Drummond

Publications

Articles which I have authored: Inside A USET Training Session, USCTA News, June, 1980

The Gray Goose — Another Adventure, USCTA News, October, 1981

Getting It Right: Acting as Stunt Double for Melissa Gilbert in the Movie, Sylvester, Horse Play, May 1985

Dealing With The Fear, The Salute, 1988

Forward for the British Book, Riding School by Lionel Dunning, 1988

The Power and Influence of YOUR Imagination, The Salute, 1989

Quoted several times by Jane Savoie in her book, That Winning Feeling, 1992

A Legend, The Gray Goose, Passes On, Natural Horse Magazine, Vol 2, Issue 5, 2000

The One Rein Stop, Natural Horse Magazine, Vol 2, Issue 8, 2001

Articles in which I have been featured:

Kim and The Gray Goose — A True Fairy Tale by Fifi Coles, USCTA News, April 1980

Jumping For Gold by Deborah Orin, Women's World Magazine, April 20, 1982

Kim Takes The Gray Goose to World Championships by P. J. Conway, Waterbury American Newspaper, July 29, 1982

Bronze Medal Winners, Kim and The Gray Goose by Fifi Coles, USCTA News, October, 1982

Quest For the Olympics, by David Bilmes, The Litchfield Co. Times Newspaper, November 26, 1982

Walnes and "Gray" Train for Olympics by Judy Christie, Voices Newspaper, February 16, 1983

Kim Walnes, Eventer: A Study in Preparedness by Cooky McClung, Horseplay Magazine, June, 1983

Bronze Medallist Kim Walnes Talks About the Making of a "Gray Goose", by Beth A. Baumert, Equi Sport Magazine, June, 1983

Positive Imaging Can Help Rider and Horse, by Ann Jamieson, The Litchfield Co. Times Newspaper, February 25, 1984

Jumping For Joy, by Ginny Apple, The Hartford Courant Newspaper, March 29, 1984

Hometown Riding Group Backs Olympic Hopeful, by Nancy Davis, The Waterbury Republican-American Newspaper, May 28, 1984

Quite the Lady, Quite the Team, by Heather Hewitt, Darkstar Magazine, 1985

Pair Leading an Event-ful Existence by Paul J. Raupp, The Lexington Herald-Leader Newspaper, May 30, 1985

Poetry in Motion by Helen Barrett, The Horse Magazine, August 1986 (Australian)

Kim and The Gray Goose Have Done It All Together, by John Strassburger, The Chronicle of the Horse, 1986

The Gray Goose, One of the 50 Most Influential Horses of the 20th Century, (staff), The Chronicle of the Horse, December 24, 1999

A Trio of Teachers — Gideon Goodheart, Kim Walnes, and The Gray Goose, by Susan Ajamian, Natural Horse Magazine, Vol 2, Issue 7, 2001

I have been featured on the covers of the
following magazines:

USCTA News, April 1980, and August 1982

The Chronicle of the Horse, May 21, 1982

Dressage and CT, November 1982

Horse Play, June 1983

Practical Horseman, July 1984

Natural Horse, Vol 2, Issue 5, 2000

The Official Poster of the Rolex International Three Day Event, 1982

The Program of the Rolex Kentucky International Three Day Event, 1983

Also Featured in:

National advertisement for Merck Horse Products, 1966

National Ralston-Purina advertisement, 1985

Appeared in a national ad for Crysler Le Baron, 1985

Two calendars: Gamecock Horse Calendar, 1982, and Dressage and CT Calendar, 1982

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PROFESSIONAL BIOGRAPHY

KIM WALNES

INTERNATIONAL EVENTER

Kim competed on her legendary The Gray Goose in Europe and the United States as a member of the US Equestrian Team from 1980 through 1986. Highlights of their illustrious career include ranking third in the world, winning Team and Individual Bronze Medals at the World Three Day Event Championships in Luhmuhlan , Germany , and winning the United States National Championships at Rolex in Lexington , KY. They also came in second at the CCI*** in Boekelo, Holland , competed at the World Championships in Australia , and were alternates at the 1984 Olympics. During this time, Kim worked with the top instructors in eventing, dressage, and show jumping on the East Coast, as well as Sally Swift and Linda Tellington-Jones. Kim was the first mother of young children to be an active competitor on the USET three day squad.

Kim and Gray can be viewed in the videos Riding for America , Kentucky : The Ultimate Trial 1982 and 1984, and in Sally Swift's Centered Riding II . In addition to Kim and Gray being doubles in the movie, Sylvester , Kim was Technical Advisor for the film, and collaborator for the corresponding book, Sylvester . She has written and been the subject of numerous articles.

Recently, Kim has been traveling the United States as an instructor, consultant, and coach. Many people call her lessons “life changing”, since she works on far more than physical skills. Whenever she can find the time, she competes her stallion, Gideon Goodheart. She continues her education by working with Bettina Drummond in Classical Dressage, and with James Shaw in applying Tai Chi principles to riding. Kim is also polishing her human support skills in a three year Spiritual Life Coaching certification program, as well as studying the healing of trauma on all levels. She applies these principles in her Equine Assisted Life Skills sessions.

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DETAILED PERSONAL BIOGRAPHY

I am the daughter of Army parents, and so spent the early part of my life traveling, which certainly gave me many people skills and broadened my horizons! However, it left me very frustrated as well, for I was born with a very dominant horse gene, and equines occupied my waking thoughts as well as my dreams. Not being able to have a horse caused me to cry myself to sleep many night. As soon as my Dad retired, I reminded him that he had promised me that we could get a horse, and God love him, he did just that.

My parents certainly never had to worry about me and where I was during my teenage years in the ‘60’s. I missed out on the whole “scene” of that time since I was always at the barn! I met my husband, Jack, at the boarding facility where we both kept our horses. He, too, is an Army brat, and his riding was based on an education gained in France. My riding was based on books and the seat of my pants. At first it didn’t look like we could ever get along, but we gradually developed respect for each other’s talents, and were married in 1969. We settled in the beautiful mountains of Southwestern Virginia, where our daughter, Andrea, was born in 1972. Three months later, we were sent to Ireland for 3 years, and the rest is history.

We returned to the States in 1976, bringing The Gray Goose and a black half-sister of his, Celtic Quest. She went on to become an excellent Preliminary horse, but developed a heart problem, and we sold her as a dressage horse. By that time, however, we had a wonderful colt out of her by a Hanoverian named Galaxy. We imported another filly and colt from Ireland, both by Gray’s sire, Hill Tarquin (a TB of Nasrullah lines). That filly, and the colt we bred produced Gideon’s dam. While all of this was going on, I was competing both Gray and the mare, raising our daughter, and then our son, Brian.

Just so you know, I am a very ordinary person, who happens to have had a very powerful dream. From the time I first heard about the USET, I wanted to ride for the United States. I didn’t talk about it much, for folks weren’t very encouraging to me, but the desire was strong, and I never gave up the belief that I could do it. I used to say to Jack, “I want so badly to travel to Europe—I’ll just have to get a horse that will take me there.” And then I would think, I want a horse who will become a household name in the horse world. He would laugh at me and shake his head, but several months later he was approached about moving to Ireland, and two years later I started riding Gray.

We returned to our very hilly 17 acre farm in VA, with a runoff pond from the Interstate. Our neighbor had 600 acres that he let me use. Jack built a coop in the fence line, and we had 8 oil drums and 4 locust posts to use as cross country fences. If I wanted an oxer, I could only have 3 jumps. I used to move those oil drums all over the property, setting up balance problems, water, and ditch obstacles. We also had 4 standards and 8 poles that my dad had made me. I lived in the mountains, I had two very small children, dogs, cats, and other horses. There was no instruction other than the local college program, and I couldn’t leave the farm to travel for lessons. I tried a clinic with a dressage instructor, but all Gray learned was how to grind his teeth! A habit he never lost, alas. It wasn’t easy to condition and campaign two horses while raising two small children, but with ingenuity, I managed. With this background, a whole lot of desire, lots of reading, help from Jack, and support from the whole family, we made it to second place at Kentucky in 1979. Where there is a will, there is indeed a way.

When we were the only ones to make the time over that modified World Championship course, under the same grueling heat and humidity conditions that plagued the World Championships in 1978, people sat up and noticed. I was too ignorant to know that the time couldn’t be made, and I had factored in the weather when we had done our conditioning. I always galloped Gray in the most intense heat of the day, and so we knew how to cope with it. I told Jack, though, that now that we had made it to that level, I needed lessons! So, once a year, I would park the children with the grandparents in No. VA, and travel to Mike Plumb’s in MD with Gray and the mare. I would take two lessons a day, and watch everything else that went on there. My learning differences, such a plague in school, once again surfaced. I remember Mike pulling at his hair, and saying in exasperation, “I don’t know how to teach you!” Later, at a USET training session in MA, it took both Jack Le Goff and Bert de Nemethy, standing together in the ring an hour to teach me how to do a crest release!

I’ll never forget my first day at my first USET training session. I was in the indoor arena with Torrance Watkins, Jimmy Wofford, and Ralph Hill. I watched them warming up, and then looked at myself in the mirrors. It was my first time really seeing myself ride. The differences between them and me were very obvious! Before I panicked, though, I reminded myself that I had gotten where I was with all that “seat of the pants”, and listening to the horses. Maybe I wasn’t a pretty rider, but I certainly was effective, and I was here to learn how to get better. Le Goff certainly didn’t need to give me any of the humbling lessons he was famous for!

I improved, and I continued to learn. In 1981, Jack was transferred to corporate headquarters in CT. It broke my heart, as we’d just the year before bought our ideal property, and now had to sell it. However, we were now much closer to the help I needed so much. I decided to learn the science behind what I was doing by instinct, and so I sought out instructors in pure dressage and show jumping. We took out a loan, bought a video camera, I now had a live-in groom to help, and I took lessons 5 days a week all winter that year. Three in dressage, and two in jumping. I met Sally Swift, which opened a whole new world of communication with Gray. 1982 was our banner year, and we won two selection trials, were National Champions, and came in third individually as well as with the team in the World Championships in Germany.

Andrea was also competing at this time. She started riding at the age of 2, and quickly progressed to jumping. She did her first event at 6, and kept on going. We were a very busy family with all the trailering needed, and I was teaching lessons during the week. Brian, though a gifted rider, decided what many boys do—horses were too much work.

1983 saw another dream of mine realized: we competed at Badminton in England. Alas, it was a very muddy course, and Gray reached too far under himself setting up for a vertical wall at the bottom of a slope. One hind leg stepped on the pastern of his foreleg, and we somersaulted over the wall. He landed on his head, throwing me clear, but then his haunches fell on top of my head. We both suffered concussions, along with other injuries. We recovered, however, and came back to be second alternates for the Olympic Team in 1984. In 1985, we worked with Linda Tellington-Jones, and then enjoyed the journey to Holland for Bokelo***, where we placed second. 1986 was the grand adventure to Australia for the World Championships. The weather took a disastrous turn there, and we were one of the many pairs who were affected. Though we finished cross country with no jumping penalties, we had many time penalties, and Gray had lost two shoes. I withdrew him before the last day due to sore feet. He did his last Advanced Horse Trial in 1987, coming in third at Ship’s Quarters. He was sound and fit, but he was bored with the same old courses, and the joy wasn’t there any more. It was time to retire him. He had a wonderful ceremony in 1988 at Rolex, up to his old antics in front of all his adoring fans.

In the meantime, all our lives were changing. In l989, Jack and I separated, and we were divorced in 1990. The next year was the worst: our beloved Andrea was practicing with her vaulting team at her college in the mountains of VA. They took a break on July 4th to go tubing on the river, and she was kidnapped while briefly separated from her teammates. I was in West Virginia at the time, and had woken that morning with a terrible premonition of disaster, but not knowing the source. The next day the police called with the news that she was missing. Her team went on to NM to the Championships, and gallantly won. It was 4 months before a hunter literally tripped over her leaf-covered bones in the woods, and every day of that 4 months was Hell. At least in being able to put her to rest, I could truly begin the grief process. It took me three years, though, to start coming out of what I call the “Grey Zone”. Although I continued to teach and function, life had no colors. It took me more years before I came fully back to total awareness of my environment and the people around me. Faith, friends, and the unfailing beauty that surrounded me in West VA finally brought me through.

I poured myself into my teaching, and delved into researching learning styles to better understand how to reach everyone who came to me. I was joined for a while by a kineseologist in my teaching, and she helped me understand biomechanics, as well as evolving a method and pattern to the teaching. The horses kept teaching me, of course, and I delved into any area that would broaden my skills in helping people and their horses.

The winter of 1996 was harsh in PA, where I moved in ’94. As a result, I drove out West, and traveled around out there teaching. It was a productive trip till I had a terrible accident. Diagonal tires blew out on my 4runner, rolling it 2 ¾ times at speed. I was in the middle of nowhere, Texas, and only a series of miracles saved me. As it was, I had to be revived, and helicoptered to a trauma center. I suffered some brain trauma, and was in surgery for 2 hours while they picked out all the glass from my head. Recovering from that resulted in a whole new set of lessons for me!

Two years later, I had to have knee surgery, leaving me with very little cartilege in my right knee. Since I severed a ligament in my left knee years ago in a riding accident, that didn’t leave me very stable. After a lot of exercise, though, I was able to bring Gideon back from Maine and start him. Gideon had been farmed out with people in Virginia and Maine until he was 4 1/2 . I didn’t want him growing up in the boggy country where I lived. He and I were both very excited about finally working together. He was unlike any other horse I had started. He was gentle and cooperative, but made it clear that I needed to expand my skills to be able to communicate with him better. As a result, he steered me into whole new fields of learning. Natural Horsemanship and Clicker Training were the beginnings, and now we’re exploring Classical Dressage with Bettina Drummond. In addition, we are both very excited to be doing emotional healing work with the students. We both get frustrated, though, that I have to keep traveling to teach, and that our work is constantly being interrupted. We continue to hope that we will find a Patron who will allow us to be able to live together on a farm we can call home, have a band of mares for Gideon, and the time and resources to be able to compete. If that doesn’t happen in the near future, however, we shall take to the road so that he and I can teach together. Look for us!

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