Shari Glickman started riding dressage as a 30-something professional woman fulfilling her childhood dream to have her own horse some day. Having done nothing more than YMCA camp trail rides as a child, Shari began “up-down” lessons at a large suburban riding school in 1992. After 6 months of group riding lessons, she purchased an older off-the-track Thoroughbred from the school. It wasn’t long thereafter that Shari was bitten by the dressage bug and over the next several years during the ownership of three horses boarded at a few different local barns, she yearned to have a farm of her own.
It seems like every horse owner has a “heart horse” and Baronessa aka Ness, whom Shari bought as a green-broke 3 year old in 2001, was definitely THE ONE! In 2003, Shari purchased a fixer-upper 7 acre farmette and named the new property GoodNess Ridge Farm in honor of Baronessa. It was a beautiful place up on a hill surrounded by woods and rolling farm land.
Shari bred a few warmblood youngsters while keeping Baronessa in a nearby training barn. Baronessa was a little too spirited for Shari to ride home alone in the grass arena of the original GoodNess Ridge Farm yet she really thrived in the structure and activity of a training barn. Shari loved her little breeding program but now realized she wanted her heart horse at home, too. To fulfill this revised dream, Shari embarked on the search for the perfect barn. Many properties were explored for at least a year before the current GoodNess Ridge Farm came on the market. The rest as they say, “was history.”
Shari suffered a spinal cord injury after a car accident in early 2008. Neurosurgery and physical therapy helped tremendously, but Shari was left with a partially paralyzed left leg. While Shari was out of the saddle rehabbing her injury, Baronessa was in professional training with JJ Tate making incredible progress towards Grand Prix.
In January 2009, Shari resumed riding, went to England, and was classified as a Profile 19b, Grade IV Para-Equestrian rider. A few months later Shari and Baronessa began competing in the Grade IV Para-Equestrian and Open Fourth Level classes. Sadly, Baronessa died unexpectedly in August 2011 during a brief hospitalization.