By Helen Townes
Portraits by Lauren Ann Wagner
When she was 7, Heather Beachem Bell attended the 1996 Summer Olympics equestrian events in Atlanta, Georgia, with her family and insisted on wearing her paddock boots and stirrup earrings. “I wanted everyone there to know that I was an equestrian!” she laughed. Heather was riveted by the Olympic dressage competition, particularly seeing the Americans win the team bronze medal. This pivotal moment eventually helped shape Heather’s trajectory as a rider.
Now a Grand Prix dressage rider 29 years later, Heather firmly believes in manifesting her own destiny. A large Olympic flag hangs prominently in her home and an “L.A. 2028” emblem is displayed on her desk. “I’m big on visualization, and I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen but I’m just going to put that goal out there!” she said.
Of course, even manifested dreams can be altered by speed bumps along the way, especially in the equestrian world. Luckily for Heather, these interruptions have been wonderful and life-transforming. In the past 15 years of her career as a trainer, she has built Beachem Dressage LLC, a successful training and sales business, starting in her hometown of Atlanta, Georgia, before moving to Colorado in 2019, and most recently to Sacramento, California. She met and got engaged to her now husband Matt Bell, an Air Force pilot, during the Colorado stint; they were married after the move to California. In February of this year, she and Matt had a baby boy. She has an extended group of devoted clients and has developed a very successful virtual program that enabled her to continue teaching during her pregnancy.
There have also been less-than-positive obstacles: the unexpected and tragic death of her main horse, Flex Your Faith, followed by the loss of three of her clients’ horses; reestablishing her business and her client base during so many moves; and a difficult pregnancy with a slow recovery from a challenging childbirth. After years of developing Flex to FEI but then losing him, she started over with a new horse, a gelding named Cheerio, but her pregnancy just weeks after buying him stalled things. Somehow, Heather has retained her optimistic outlook and sense of humor. “I feel like we all get so sucked into ‘what’s the next big thing that I’m doing?’ but sometimes life just is unpredictable, you know, and that’s all right!” she said.
Discovering Dressage
Heather was born in Atlanta and has been riding horses for over 30 years. “My dad, my aunt and all my cousins rode, and there are lots of photos of me in diapers on their horses,” she said. Her parents, Laura and Doug Beachem, started her in riding lessons when she was 4, and Heather remembers being very intense and focused about riding, even as a child. “My coaches would say, ‘Heather, it’s supposed to be fun!’ and I’d snap, ‘I am having fun, darn it!’”
During her childhood years Heather focused on hunter-jumpers and equitation. While in high school in Atlanta, she competed in those disciplines with the Intercollegiate Equestrian Association (IEA) while also juggling academics and cheerleading. It wasn’t until her freshman year at Auburn University that Heather took her first dressage lesson.
“I remember feeling immediately that I could really do this—if someone could just show me the test, I could do it. And I went from my first dressage lesson to the Grand Prix in just a few years,” Heather said. Heather credits her rapid ascension to the training expertise of Karen Lipp, five-star dressage rider and USDF Bronze, Silver and Gold medalist with Distinction. “I transferred to Kennesaw State University so that I could ride and work with Karen. She was super great, and I think at latest count she’s helped 20 different riders get their Gold Medals. She’s an incredible coach—she would believe in you before you believed in yourself.”
Under Karen’s training, Heather came up through the Young Rider ranks, finishing in the top 10 in the U.S. and top 15 in North America. She competed in the U25 program and competed in USEF’s Brentina Cup, placing third in the nation one year and second the next. Heather was just 21 when she earned her USDF Gold Medal, only two years after she started pursuing dressage.
Opportunities and Challenges
It was a hectic time in the young rider’s life. “I was a working student for Karen for five years. I would wake up at four in the morning, go work for Karen, hack some horses, go to my college classes, then go back to Karen’s barn and hack some more horses,” Heather remembered. “I started getting my own clients, and I was grooming for people and basically working until 11 p.m. every night.”
She loved the structure and routine so much that after her work with Karen ended, she began to work for Olympic dressage rider Michelle Gibson, whom she had watched win the team bronze medal in the Atlanta Olympics as a child. “Yeah, if money wasn’t important, I’d be a working student forever,” Heather laughed. “The barn is my favorite place to be!”
Fortunately, Heather’s coaching career took off and continued to flourish after a move to Colorado, where she lived and worked for four years. It was during this period that she met her now-husband, Matt. He came to a horse show just days after they first met, although he didn’t have any experience with horses. “Matt doesn’t ride, but he’s a huge animal lover,” she said. “He ran track at the Air Force Academy, so he’s super active, which has been fun for me because there’s no guilt about my spending so much time riding. In fact, he holds me accountable.”
Of course, being in the military doesn’t always come with geographic stability, and sure enough, Matt was relocated not long after they began dating, this time to Sacramento. Luckily, Heather was able to start a virtual lesson program using Pivo Equestrian, and today she continues to coach many of her Colorado clients while building her new business in California. “I do Pivo lessons five days a week! I have clients in Texas, Florida, a woman in Canada, everywhere. It’s really working for people.”
Heather is now based at JB Sport Horses in Lincoln, California, run by top eventing rider and trainer Jordan Ballenger. Heather usually takes about 10 of her clients to the regional dressage championships. Since moving to California, Heather also pursued and received her real estate license; her specialty is equestrian homes and facilities.
Heartbreak and Joy
After hitting her stride in Sacramento, however, Heather faced another speed bump, this one heartbreaking. In September 2023, her personal horse Flex had a catastrophic accident while in turnout and had to be put down; he was just 7 years old. “That loss really affected me,” she said. “I realized that stuff can be taken away from you so brutally. I don’t think I have healed yet from that trauma.”
Fortunately, there was a welcome distraction several months later: She and Matt found out they were having a baby. Heather rode and competed until she was five months into her pregnancy. “Then I just didn’t really feel good, so I decided to see it as a really good opportunity to get better at all my in-hand groundwork with the horses, which is also so important!” she said.
After an arduous childbirth that included a cesarean section, Heather and Matt have been enjoying their baby boy, named Brody Beachem Bell, born February 15, 2025. Heather joked that “learning to breastfeed is like relearning Grand Prix dressage!” The family of three had an adventure together not long after Brody’s birth, traveling to Germany for several weeks and enjoying dramatic vistas including the Rhine River and the Bavarian Alps. “We had a ball! I had been abroad countless times to shop for horses, but I haven’t gotten to explore much because you know—hustle, hustle in the horse world!” Brody was “an amazing little traveler,” Heather said.
Photo courtesy of Heather Beachem
Another speed bump loomed on the horizon, however. Not long after the traumatic loss of Flex and before getting pregnant with Brody, Heather had bought another horse, a promising 4-year-old Westphalian gelding named Cheerio purchased from The Netherlands. It was during her trip to Germany that Heather made the difficult decision to sell Cheerio. “It’s sad, but I think after losing Flex, I bought Cheerio a bit too soon to have the type of relationship that a young horse needs, especially with the timing of having a baby. Cheerio’s so sweet—just like a big dog—but after a C-section I wasn’t in the position to ride a young horse. I also still wasn’t over the death of Flex, and knew with a young baby I might not have enough time to put in with him.”
For now, the 2028 Olympics are on hold, although Heather hasn’t ruled out the idea if she could find the right horse or partner with an owner who needs a rider. Her outlook, as usual, is practical and optimistic. “Here’s the thing: You only have a short time to get pregnant and be a mom,” she said. “When another horse comes into my life, I’ll hopefully be ready. But the good news is that I’ve already ridden the Grand Prix, and that accomplishment will never go away. The universe has just opened up a different path right now, and instead of fighting it, I’ve decided to embrace it!”
Follow Heather on Facebook and Instagram @beachemdressage and visit her website at BeachemDressagellc.com
Photos by Lauren Ann Wagner, laurenannphoto.art, unless noted otherwise
