about tamangur

This is TAMANGUR.

TAMANGUR is one of the biggest full-service Icelandic horse barns in the United States. It is easily accessible & beautifully located in the scenic terrain of bluffs & wide-open spaces between Denver & Colorado Springs. The barn is owned & managed by Coralie Denmeade, one of the few certified Icelandic horse trainers in the country.

TAMANGUR offers training, sales, import, riding instruction, boarding, travel & education with strong ties to Iceland. The trainers – Coralie & her assistant Sami Browneller – have decades of experience & education in several disciplines with focus on Icelandic riding & endurance as well as young horse training & gait training. They possess extensive knowledge in horse welfare & care and compete nationally & internationally.

The spacious facility is situated on 120 acres near the foothills of Colorado. It offers stalls & paddocks, two full-sized indoor arenas, an outdoor arena, track, big pastures as well as access to trails, both on & off property.

TAMANGUR has been operating in Colorado since 2008. In 2018, it moved to its current location & is fortunate to now own this ideal home for all things Icelandic. Its operations & services are closely connected to its partner Hestaland in Iceland.

The Name.

TAMANGUR is named after a forest in a secluded mountain valley in Switzerland, Coralie’s native country. This pure stone-pine forest is the highest & largest in Europe. It has a deep meaning for the local population & is believed to be inhabited by nature spirits similar to the ones of Iceland. These spirits, the Icelandic sounding name & its Swiss origin is why TAMANGUR seemed to be the perfect name for our business.

The Team.

At TAMANGUR, it is our commitment to make your experience & the horses' life the best possible. These are the dedicated people that make it happen.

Owner - Head Trainer & Head Instructor

Coralie Denmeade

Coralie has decades of experience teaching & training Icelandic horses with a special blend of influences from Iceland, Switzerland & the United States. It is with passion that she keeps consistently furthering her education to add to this fusion of methods & styles. Coralie is a FEIF Level I certified trainer for Icelandic horses as well as a USIHC Sports Judge B. Most of her days consist of training, teaching lessons & managing the business, but Coralie also travels frequently to Iceland where she collaborates closely with Hestaland, owned by Guðmar Þór Pétursson. Her time there is spent training, competing & selecting horses for import. In 2021, she qualified to represent the U.S. at the World Championships, but unfortunately had to forgo the trip. Coralie was born in Switzerland & grew up riding Icelandics at Hof Niederfeld, the country’s biggest Icelandic horse barn. During college, she first interned & then worked there before moving to Colorado. In her first years in the States, Coralie travelled frequently to work with Guðmar in his Kentucky barn. She obtained her trainer certification in 2008.

“It is the intricate tweaks & close communication with the horse that intrigue me. I like to focus on the basics that help a horse blossom both mentally & physically. By concentrating on feel & understanding, I then try to take the horses to their full potential. This is reflected in my teaching & training.”

Assistant Trainer & Instructor - Barn Manager

Sami Browneller

Sami is the force that keeps it all going. It is thanks to Sami that the horses’ feeding, behavior & health are closely monitored & the facilities are excellently managed. Above all, Sami is an excellent trainer, with an uncanny ability to understand the uniqueness of each horse. Her ability to foster a human-horse partnership makes her excel at every horse discipline she tries. Sami has been working at TAMANGUR since 2019 where her specialty is the training of young horses & of newly imported horses, who she helps bridge & adapt to U.S. rider/ownership. While Sami has probably tried about every equine activity under the sun, worked the craziest horse-related job in existence & obtained a multitude of equestrian certifications, her expertise is endurance riding. In over 20 years, she has amassed over 3000 competitive miles, 23 best conditions, 45 wins, and the 2017 American Endurance National Champion title. Some of them with Midas, her first Icelandic horse, with whom she finished a one-day 100-mile race. She was also a participant in Survive Iceland, where she represented TAMANGUR & our partner Hestaland.

“I always want to make my horse better, mentally & physically. I ride for the joy of the horse because I want it be confident & offer its personal best while feeling good, competent & useful.”

Barn Hand Extraordinaire

Julie Shimon

Julie joined the team in 2020. It was her daughter, a riding student at TAMANGUR, who drew her into the horse world. Since then, Julie has been an essential, unwavering part of the mucking crew. There is hardly any weather hot, cold or crazy enough to keep her from showing up to take care of the horses & the ever-replenishing amounts of manure. No barn can do without such a dependable, hard-working barn hand.