Cindy and Eliza Sydnor: A Family Dressage Venture
By Amber Heintzberger

At Braeburn Farm in Snow Camp, NC mother and daughter Cindy and Eliza Sydnor work side by side day after day sharing their business and their passion for horses. To some this may sound like a dream come true, for others it may sound like a recipe for disaster, but this mother-daughter duo is definitely making a success of their shared interest.

Cindy and her husband, Charles Sydnor, own a 400-acre farm in central North Carolina. He raises grass-fed Red Devon beef, and Cindy and Eliza train dressage horses and teach riding lessons. Mother and daughter have each formed LLC’s: Eliza Sydnor Dressage LLC and Cindy Sydnor Dressage LLC. They work side by side and keep their own horses and training horses in Cindy’s barn. They use the entire facility together, often teach in the arena together and ride together daily. Their only constraint is that the barn has only nine stalls, which limits the number of horses they can take in for training.

When horses come in for training with Eliza, the client pays her for the training and Cindy for the boarding and all other bills - shoeing, worming, vet, etc. This way Eliza is basically a private contractor working out of Braeburn Farm.

Cindy’s business consists also of judging dressage with her USEF “R” license, giving clinics away from home, and being an examiner for the USDF Instructor Certification program.

Eliza, 24 in November 2006, is a USDF Certified Instructor through second level and will probably test for the third and fourth level certification in 2007. She has already gathered a good group of students locally and in several locations around the state of North Carolina. She has taught on Maui, Hawaii, also.