Sunrise Stables is a first-class horse facility with a friendly backyard feeling.

Nestled in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, Sunrise Stables is a family owned and operated professional facility, providing a full range of equine services. Located just 4 miles from the Virginia Horse Center in historic Lexington, we board, breed and teach, as well as provide retirement care for older horses.

Annually, Sunrise Stables hosts two combined training and dressage shows and two hunter paces which are run by Penny and Brian Ross of the Virginia Horse Trials. The shows are part of a Spring and Fall circuit composed of several barns from Lexington, Staunton and Charlottesville where riders compete for end of season awards. Sunrise Stables also hosts several clinics with renowned professionals such as Advanced three day riders and trainers Sharon White, Lynn Symansky, Kim Severson, Molly Hooper - Bull and Grand Prix dressage instructors Gerd and Sarah Reuter. Sunrise is also the home of the Washington & Lee Eventing Team.

Our facility includes 27 stalls, a 100' x 200' outdoor sand riding ring, a beginner novice, novice, training, and prelim cross country schooling course, a mown 1-mile outdoor conditioning track, indoor and outdoor washstalls with hot and cold running water, heated tackrooms and bathroom, all board fencing, sheltered fields, 215 acres of beautiful trails and much more!

 

Click here to learn about Our Horses

Who we are:
Gammon Castellvi - Nuckols Barn Manager and Riding Instructor. Gammon grew up in Venezuela where she spent most of her childhood riding jumpers and was lucky enough to take her fabulous horse "Tex" all the way thru Grand Prix. She was later given the opportunity to live in Europe for a little over a year where she got to study dressage. She moved to Virginia for college and was introduced to the wonderful world of eventing and got hooked! She has successfully ridden several horses to Preliminary level, completing her first CCI* in 2005 since then her wonderful partner "Doug" has retired and she is riding a wonderful string of up and coming young event horses, including "Jessie" who will begin his first season of Preliminary in 2010 with the goal of competing at a CCI* this fall. Gammon currently instructs the Washington & Lee Eventing Team, the Virginia Military Institute eventing team as well as her regular students thru Preliminary level. She is also the Volunteer Coordinator for The Virginia Horse Trials. Most receently Gammon has been accepted in the USEF eventing judges and technical delegates program and will be testing for her Technical Delegates license this fall and her eventing judges's license next year.
	Vicki Nuckols - Kruse Proud owner of Sunrise Stables and lovingly known as "Aunt Vic", she is one of our biggest cheerleaders and great supporters. Vicki has volunteered her property and built us a wonderful equestrian paradise for all our boarders and students to learn and enjoy. Vicki manages the finances and takes care of the office work while Gammon gets to do the fun stuff. ( Gammon is eternally grateful!) Although she does not ride she is always at the barn checking in, feeding treats and taking all the beautiful pictures of the farm that are on this site.
Sarah Berhalter Assistant Barn Manager and trainer Sarah has been with us since she was a freshman at W& L and upon graduation we hired her full time. This is a family owned and operated facility after all so we like to think of her as adopted (the whole family agreed, although we did not consult her parents on this one). Sarah is a very talented rider and has proved to be a wonderful trainer, all our young horses love her and do exceptionally well with her. She is currently aiming our wonderful horse George for a CCI* and her young horse Shadow for the Training 3 day at Waredaca this fall.
	Jeff Nuckols Property Manager and Gammon's wonderful husband. He keeps everything at Sunrise beautiful and jumps in to help with the horses any time we need him. Without all of his long hours and super help there is no telling what things would look like around here! Jeff is a W&L graduate with a degree in Geology. He uses his love for rocks and the outdoors to build all the beautiful rock walls that surround the house and stone jump on our xc course. Even though Jeff did not grow up with horses he learned fast and they sure do seem to like him! Jeff takes care of the barns and horses while we are away at horse shows and clinics. Jeff is a key member of our team and we could not do this without him!
Richie Nuckols There is no title to describe what Richie does for us... everything and anything! Richie is the co - owner of the property we trail ride and turn horses out on and the best father in law one could ever want! He retired after many years of working for the state to farm for us. He takes care of growing, fertilizing and cutting of our hay- yes, we do it ourselves! We can also guarantee that no one knows the inner workings of a piece of farm machinery like Richie does! He specializes in equipment maintainance and helps Jeff with anything that needs to be done. Richie is very special to us and we would not give him up for anything!
	Tori Nuckols The youngest member of the Sunrise Family, Tori is Gammon & Jeff's daughter. She has been growing fast at the ripe old age of 14! Tori and her wonderful mare "Amber" are ready for their debut at training level in the spring of 2010, their goal is to compete at the Training 3day event at Waredaca in the fall. Tori has been spending her time helping out at Sunrise and riding and competing as many horses as she can.