Employee Biographies
Autumn Rae
Autumn rode her first horse before she was a year old in a front-pack that her mother wore, and hasn’t stopped riding since. When she was six years old, Autumn began taking riding lessons with natural horsemanship guru Durlene Meck. As she progressed in skill levels, she was given the challenge of training an “unmanageable” pony that Durlene had bought from a slaughterhouse. If she could tame it, the horse would become hers. This is when Autumn fell in love with training horses and found that communicating with them came naturally to her.
Autumn has continued her equine education and in 2003 became the founder and president of Scattered Acres Sport Horses, LLC. She has international riding experience and continues to train, compete and coach avidly throughout the year.
Autumn has trained with many excellent coaches and riders including Kim Severson, Craig Thompson, Wendy Shaffer, Eric Horgan, Phyllis Dawson, Sharon White, Allison Springer, Bob Orton, and Linda Zang. She is currently training with Jimmy Wofford (stadium), Jan Byyny (XC & stadium), and Britta Johnston(dressage).
Autumn also holds a dual degree in Experiential Education and Conservation Biology from George Mason University. She has a rich background leading outdoor education trips and coaching people to push themselves towards reaching their goals, empowerment, service, and working as a team. She has facilitated the personal growth of many students through adventure activities such as backpacking, rock-climbing, kayaking, and wilderness survival all over the U.S. and abroad. Since she started Scattered Acres Sport Horses, she has been applying her training in experiential education to riding instruction and coaching.
Autumn has trained hundreds of horses from in-hand work and saddle breaking through FEI levels in eventing and dressage. Likewise, she has coached hundreds of students from beginning riders through Preliminary eventing and Intermediate I in dressage.
Autumn is highly educated, skilled, focused on, and excited about helping students to reach their personal goals and about training horses to become athletes and willing partners. Her experience and education includes, but is not limited to:
- Founder and President of Scattered Acres Sport Horses LLC.
- Vice President and co-founder of HorsePower Equine Assisted Learning foundation
- Apprenticeship in Germany with Falk Shubert studying dressage
- Multiple USEA Year End High-Point Awards for her students, her horses and herself
- Successful competition through FEI levels on self-trained horses
- International equine import experience
Autumn is an active, competing member of the USEA, USEF and USDF.
Lisa Hannan
Lisa has been riding since she was 12 and started competing soon afterwards. She has been with Autumn and Scattered Acres since 2005 when she answered an ad Autumn posted on Virginia Equestrian. She serves as the Barn Manager responsible for all aspects of farm maintenance and equine care. Lisa not only manages the barn and all horse care, but she also competes. Lisa won the 2012 USEA Adult Rider of the Year and Adult Amateur Rider of the Year.
As Barn Manager, Lisa is charged with the health and safety of each horse. The care and attention that she places into the upkeep of each horse is meticulous. No scrape, bruise or injury no matter how mild goes unnoticed. She is the perfect match to Autumn’s training capabilities as well as being an integral part of the business management team.
Lisa own 8 horses, 5 of which are stabled at Scattered Acres.
Holly Dunnaway
Holly’s first word spoken was a friendly “hi” to one of the family horses. She grew up trail riding in the Rockies and avidly participating in Pony Club. She has worked in many facets of the horse world with a main focus in all three disciplines of eventing. She also excels at carriage driving, ranch work, training stallions, and breeding. With a background in Natural Horsemanship, Holly focuses on building a partnership between the human and the horse based on patient trust and understanding, both on the ground and in the saddle.
Holly came to her fellowship position at Scattered Acres after a two year internship in South Sudan as a translation advisor. She has proven to be an indispensable part of the team who studies, trains, and works closely with Autumn on a daily basis . Because of this she teaches in close alignment with Scattered Acres philosophies.
Holly is a detailed and clear communicator whose calm and supportive disposition, depth of knowledge in horsemanship, great understanding of riding theory, and study of best teaching practices makes her an excellent instructor, coach, and trainer.
Gillian Giba
Gill’s love of horses and riding started at the age of 4. She began riding and driving ponies at that young age, and then moved onto hunter/jumper training and competition. When Gill was 13 she became actively involved in United States Pony Club, where she learned an incredible amount about horsemanship, safety, and riding. She quickly rose through USPC standards of proficiency to gain her C-3/H-B rating. During this time she also trained her own horse from a 4 year old to becoming a successful Training Level Eventer. In 2011 she competed in USPC National Championships in Eventing at the Kentucky Horse Park with her team. Since that time Gill has worked with horses extensively and came to her fellowship position at Scattered Acres from working as a wrangler at a ranch in Colorado.
Gill has great natural feel for horses, and is honing in her technical riding skills at the upper levels in her daily training with Autumn. She is an integral part of the care, instruction, and training team here at Scattered Acres (as well as keeping our social media presence on track!).
Gill loves to share her passion for riding with students and emphasizes the importance of safety and kindness to the horse. She takes the methodology learned through her experience in USPC to create organized and easily learnable lessons for her students and horses in training, whether it be on the ground or mounted.