Fueled by Passion Eliane Cordia van Reesema Innovates, Educates and Caffeinates

Like many busy women, Eliane Cordia van Reesema runs on caffeine, passion, guilt and a little sleep. After all, she’s a mother of three, an entrepreneur, a wife, a business owner, and a professional dressage trainer and competitor.

“I think we all understand the difficulties with being a mom and a business woman,” she said. “There’s a lot of guilt – for sure with the mom side. But hey, it’s good for kids to see us work, and to work in what we love and are passionate about.”

Eliane is one of the co-founders of Hylofit, an equestrian fitness device created to monitor horse and rider heart rates to track performance, set fitness goals, and promote well-being. She has three children: 11-year-old Jasper, 8-year-old Fleur and 5-year-old Nicolien. She runs Jewel Court Stud USA where, under her leadership, they train horses her mother, Marijke Cordia-van der Laan, has bred to compete at the highest levels of dressage. She has two barns, one in Connecticut and one in Wellington, Florida, where she hosts clinics with some of the top names in the business. She works hard to improve training practices and techniques while supporting efforts to bring new technology to the sport of dressage. 

And she drinks coffee. Lots of coffee.

“Being active with the horses is a journey and a way of life, just as launching a start-up is an exciting journey,” she said. “It’s something you do because you believe in it. I’m a strong proponent for horses and they could use an extra voice, which is their heart rate. Hylofit can help by telling you when they are stressed, happy, tired and well-trained.”

Hylofit tracks and records equine and human heart rates on an iOS or Android app on the rider’s phone. In fact, it’s the only equine wearable to offer in-ride feedback for both the horse and the rider on a phone or an Apple Watch. You can see if you and your horse are working hard, or hardly working. Or perhaps you learn that you BOTH should go for a hack to de-stress.

The cool thing is that post-ride, the rider (and trainer, if you dare) can check-out breakthrough moments on a phone or the web, with intensity scores, full ride analytics and a graphic display of the horse and rider’s performance. You can even track the data over time, set fitness goals and use color-coded zones to vary training and achieve maximum results.

“The reason Hylofit fits perfectly in our operation and my schedule is because it is innovative and it actually helps my day,” Eliane explained. “Because of the calendar in the app, I can already write the schedule for the horses based on what they did and what they should be training toward. It maximizes well-being and communication.”

Now, if only the kids came with that kind of set-up.