Since she was six years old, Karen Raber has been riding as much as she could in every discipline—English Pleasure, western, hunter/jumpers, three day eventing, whatever was available. After a hiatus during college, followed by international travel, and the start of grad school, she returned to riding and began to focus on dressage. In California, she rode her Arabian Ali Amir Mihard (and her husband’s jumper from time to time), competing in dressage classes and learning from the many skilled horsemen and women in the area. After moving with her horses to Mississippi to take her position at Ole Miss, she continued to compete, ultimately purchasing Silvester, a 9 year old KWPN, from Todd Flettrich in 2008, and working for many years with trainer Allyson Rogers in the Memphis, TN area.

With her horse Silvester (KWPN), Raber completed her USDF Bronze, Silver and Gold medals in 2016. She and Silvester won the Intermediate 2 Championship in Region 4 in 2013, and was Reserve Champion in Intermediate 1 the same year. The partnership took them to Dressage Finals that year, where they placed in their Intermediate I class. After several years competing at the Grand Prix level, Silvester retired to pasture at the Raber-McPherson farmlet in Oxford Mississippi where he is now joined by the Lusitano Cosmos do Retiro and Raber’s new competition mount, My Favourite. My Favourite, a.k.a. “Squirrel” (because he’s nuts) is a KWPN, offspring of the famous stallion Totilas, and has achieved solid scores at Training and First Level. Currently, Raber trains with Jamie Lawrence of JLDressage and attends clinics as her day job allows.

Over the years, Raber has owned and competed on several other mounts, including the Oldenburg gelding Rendition and the Hungarian Warmblood mare Wish Me Well.