McDonald served as US Equestrian’s Dressage Development Coach before taking on the Technical Advisor role. She has spent over a decade advancing athlete-and-horse combinations through the U.S. dressage pipeline. Her success has proved contagious as a personal coach having guided three of her athletes and their horses to the Olympics, including 2012 London participants Adrienne Lyle and Wizard and Rio 2016 team bronze medalists Laura Graves and Verdades and Kasey Perry-Glass and Gorklintgaards Dublet. As an athlete, McDonald heavily contributed to U.S. Dressage’s early accomplishments due to her impressive achievements with the chestnut Hanoverian mare Brentina. Their string of accolades included a 1999 Pan American Games team and individual gold medal, an Athens 2004 Olympic team bronze medal, a WEG 2002 team silver and 2006 team bronze medal, and was the first American to win a FEI World Cup Dressage Final in 2003.

Ashley Holzer spent nearly four decades as a staple of the Canadian dressage team, highlighted by four Olympic appearances. At Seoul 1988, she was a part of the bronze winning Canadian team. She also competed in Athens 2004, Beijing 2008, and London 2012. Holzer also made three FEI World Equestrian Games appearances under the Canadian flag at Jerez de la Frontera 2002, Aachen 2006, and Lexington 2010. 

Holzer officially became a U.S. citizen in 2016 and declared as a U.S. athlete in 2017. In 2022, Holzer and Valentine were part of the silver medal winning U.S. Dressage Team at the FEI Dressage Nations Cup the Netherlands in Rotterdam, where they also finished third individually and named to the U.S. Dressage Team for the 2022 FEI Dressage World Championships in Herning, Denmark. 

Holzer opened the 2026 season with a victory on Hawtins San Floriana, a 2012 Hanoverian mare (San Amour I x Florestan I) she co-owns with longtime supporter, Diane Fellows. The pair took home the win in the Grand Prix CDI3* at AGDF, the mare’s first Grand Prix victory in two years. Holzer was selected to The Dutta Corp. U.S. Dressage Team for the opening leg of the 2026 FEI Dressage Nations Cup series in Wellington, where she and Hawtins San Floriana helped anchor the team to a historic win – U.S. Dressage’s first Nations Cup victory on home soil in five years – finishing ahead of Germany and Canada. The pair earned a spot on the short list for the U.S. Dressage Team for the 2026 FEI Dressage World Championship and have continued to achieve top results at home and internationally, most notably a second-place finish in the Hartpury CDI3* with a score of 72.574%.  

She and her husband, Rusty, have two children, Harrison and Emma, who are both film actors.

Danish-born Charlotte Jorst began taking riding lessons at the age of 35, which is highly unusual for a rider of her level. It was not until after selling Skagen, her family-owned watch company, to Fossil that Jorst seriously focused on her riding career.

Jorst quickly cemented herself as one of the leading dressage adult amateurs. In 2013, she picked up numerous prestigious placings, including the Markel/USEF Western Young Horse Selection Trials Championship, the Markel/USEF Six-Year-Old National Championship with Kastel’s Vitalis, and the Markel/USEF Developing Prix St. Georges Championship with Kastel’s Adventure. She and Kastel’s Vitalis were the U.S. representatives at the 2013 FEI World Breeding Dressage Championships for Young Horses. In 2015, Jorst competed in her first Nations Cup at CDIO5* Rotterdam. She and Kastel's Nintendo placed third in the Grand Prix Special, helping the U.S. earn a team bronze medal.

In 2016, Jorst and Kastel’s Nintendo competed at the 2016 FEI Dressage World Cup Finals. Two years later, the pair achieved another milestone by winning the USEF Grand Prix Dressage National Championship at the 2018 U.S. Dressage Festival of Champions.

Jorst was part of the gold-medal winning team at the 2019 FEI Dressage Nations Cup USA with Kastel’s Nintendo. In the fall of 2020, the pair won four CDI-W classes at the Desert International Horse Park. In 2021, Jorst and Kastel’s Nintendo won the CDI3* Grand Prix and Grand Prix Freestyle during week 12 of the Adequan® Global Dressage Festival. 

In the midst of her training, Jorst was diagnosed with skin cancer twice. Not wanting to risk a third diagnosis, Jorst created a UV-protective clothing line, Kastel Denmark. The business is so popular that she conducts business on the road around her competition schedule. Jorst likes to balance her riding time and involvement with Kastel Denmark by spending time with her daughters, Camilla and Christine.