Our Team

We are honored to cultivate a welcoming and inclusive barn environment that fosters authentic support for riders and our horses. Our trainers implement coaching techniques by understanding and accepting each rider where they are in their journey and creating a plan to achieve their individualized goals. We utilize consistent groundwork as the foundation for producing responsive and thoughtful horses. In doing so, we nurture our horses' natural desire for safe guidance and a developing partnership. We take pride in training horses to be independently confident, reliable, and well-rounded performance horses.

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Caring For Your Safety, Like It's Our Own.

We believe that having well educated horses is paramount to your success. At AJA Equine we offer a wide variety of training tools to reach your goals, from mounted to unmounted lessons on well schooled lesson horses to tuning up your show horse. We are proud to offer a team of instructors as each one has a different set of skills to offer each client.

About our team

Annelise Appleseth

Meet Annelise, Owner and Trainer at AJA Equine. With a passion for horses from a young age, she has built a successful career in the Equestrian community. She has a BS in Animal Science from Iowa State University and she established AJA Equestrian in 2013 when she lived in Iowa. Now settled in Reno, Nevada with her husband and their three lively dogs, Annelise still loves teaching riders and horses of all ages. Annelise also has a string of Warmblood broodmares who continue to produce top-notch foals. Stay tuned for more updates on these future competitive performance horses! Annelise's caring and nurturing approach makes her the perfect coach for riders of all levels. Join our fun and friendly equestrian community today

Greg Gilbert

Born and raised in the Reno area, Greg has created connections in the horseman community that impacted his passion for starting quality versatile horses. His background in moving and working cattle on the BLM in Nevada is the foundation of his desire to start horses that are reliable and responsive under saddle. Greg utilizes groundwork practices that engages the horse's mind in order to build the horse's understanding of respect, expectations, and patience. As a part of our team Greg works with young horses, horses in training, and teaching our riders practical horsemanship ground skills. In his spare time Greg raises a small herd of Angus cattle on his property. He is always accompanied by his side-kicks Roxy, Hailey and Harley, who are his long time trusted border collies!

Sequoia Denton

Meet Sequoia, our compassionate and driven instructor at AJA Equine. With a background in Hunters and a love for animals, Sequoia is a great teacher who aims to share her knowledge and passion with riders of all levels. Whether she's reading with her cat or exploring new trails with her dog, Sequoia's dedication to horses shines through in everything she does.

Nikki Hill

Born and raised in the Reno area, Greg has created connections in the horseman community that impacted his passion for starting quality versatile horses. His background in moving and working cattle on the BLM in Nevada is the foundation of his desire to start horses that are reliable and responsive under saddle. Greg utilizes groundwork practices that engages the horse's mind in order to build the

Jenna Rowan

Jenna has had a passion for horses from a young age and started her riding journey at 10 years old. Horses play a huge role in Jenna’s life and she finds their therapeutic qualities are unmatched. When not riding, Jenna works as an R&D Mechanical Engineer and enjoys playing rugby, tutoring math, and singing in her free time. Join us to experience the incredible bond between humans and these amazing animals!