Meet Meika and Mark

Meika has been involved with horses for a majority of her life. She inherited the love of horses from her mother, Mary Decher, who also rode from a very young age. Ponies and 4-H programs taught Meika the basics of horsemanship and it wasn’t until the Decher family moved to Germany, that she was introduced to dressage and eventually, eventing.

She has ridden at the Advanced level since 1999 and has had several fantastic horses, such as Blueprint, Goldfinch and Good Deal Lucille. She was selected to ride with the USET’s Developing Rider Team for 2 years with Blueprint. Having completed in her career, to date, 6 CCI***, 4 CCI**** and half of Rolex CCI****, all long format. She is still aiming high with her current horses, Archie McPhee, Verily and Oiselle NW. Her dressage training has been influenced by Linda Zang (MD) and Jen Verharen (WA). Her jump training has been shaped by Amy Tryon, Bobby Costello (NC), Scott Keach (FL) and Dom Schramm (PA).

Meika gives back to our sport in the form of being a USEA event organizer since 2014. She oversees a group of people who all help put on a beginner novice through intermediate level event, twice per year. She is also active in the USEA Area VII Council.

Horses have not been the only focus of Meika’s life. She met her husband, Mark Salser, in graduate school at UC Davis. They both share a love of ecology and science. Mark has his PhD in Entomology and was a past board member of The Nature Conservancy in North Carolina. He is an active board member of the Washington State Bee Keepers Association  and woodworker. Many of the XC jumps Mark builds can be seen on the Polestar and Washington State Horse Park cross country courses. Mark also competes his horse Wally at Novice level at a few shows per year. He mostly enjoys his regular lessons, participating in clinics and trail riding with Wally the most.