BEND – Nicole Cobb says that as a young girl, she went through an awkward stage that she thought would never end.

”I swam, played basketball, volleyball, and did gymnastics – and I was bad at all of them,” says Cobb, 36.

”I was scared to kick the soccer ball, worried that someone was going to kick me. I couldn’t swim – practically drowned – and I fell off the balance beam. I was completely uncoordinated.”

Once she climbed on board a horse, however, it all came together. To watch Cobb astride a horse is to see a person who knows what she’s doing – and she’ll be doing lots of it during the next two weeks in the High Desert Classics at J Bar J Ranch in Bend.

Cobb will ride not only her 7-year-old Dutch warmblood stallion, Odysseus, in two weekend Grand Prix classes, but she’ll also ride other horses and train a bevy of students.

Cobb and her husband, Greg, own and operate Mountain View Stables in Bend.

Her turning point, Cobb says, came at age 12 when her parents were going through a divorce. She had a palomino quarter horse named Honey that she hadn’t been riding. Honey ended up stabled at Lake Oswego Hunt Club, and it was there that Carey Evans, a rider and trainer, loaned Cobb an English bridle and saddle. The youngster hopped on Honey and tried her hand at riding.

Before Cobb’s first lesson was over, Evans was on the phone to Cobb’s mother, Mary, telling her to quickly get over to the club and see what a natural her daughter was on horseback.

Cobb honed her riding skills, with Honey’s help, and by the age of 13, Cobb, on another mount, had won the Oregon Medal Finals. The win came despite Cobb having a leg in a cast.

”We had a black sock over the cast and tape on the heel so it looked like my ankle was set,” Cobb remembers. ”It worked pretty good.”

Cobb’s early success in hunters couldn’t dampen the pull that the youngster felt from the jumper arena. Portland trainers Lee Jorgenson and Kevin Freeman, a three-time Olympic equestrian, helped cement her skills, Cobb says.

”Four years as a hunter rider and I thought I’d learned patience,” Cobb says with a smile.

”But I really only learned it a couple of years ago … but what I knew at the time was that I wanted to learn how to do it, and I wanted to be good at it.”

Like many struggling, aspiring riders, Cobb has ridden her share of tough horses, which has only made her stronger as a rider. There was Phyllis, who Cobb says was ”a crazy, psychotic thoroughbred.” Cobb also rode challenging horses for other riders and trainers.

Given her background, it’s no surprise that Cobb calls herself a ”problem solver,” nor is it surprising that her determination and skill as a rider is highly regarded on the hunter/jumper show circuit.

”She has the dedication and the worth ethic. She has put in her time,” says Jeff Campf, a rider and trainer from Canby. Campf, who recently competed in the U.S. Olympic Trials, will vie against Cobb in this Saturday’s $15,000 Eagle Crest Resort Grand Prix.

Cobb prides herself on being a thinking rider as well as a highly motivated teacher and trainer.

”If someone is in a rut, so to speak, or having a hard time learning something, I would hope that within time, I can figure out how to either school them to do it a different way, or figure it out a different way to fix the problem,” Cobb says.

Marta Batha, owner of Tumalo Art Company, has ridden under Cobb’s tutelage for 10 years and couldn’t be happier.

”Nicole is a fabulous trainer,” says Batha, who is competing her 13-year-old Thoroughbred, Diego, at the High Desert Classics. ”She understands how I ride and understands me, sometimes better than I understand myself, and she treats you with respect.”

Cobb says that she feels that to be a successful teacher, one must also be a motivated student.

”I take a lot of lessons and go to as many clinics as I can,” Cobb says. ”I feel that I am a very good student because I want to be a better teacher.”

Cobb has a large following of students, many of whom have competed successfully at the national level. She travels to Idaho several times a year to teach clinics and train students’ horses at shows there, and some of her Idaho students have made the trek to the High Desert Classics to compete on Cobb’s home turf.

Being both a competitor and a trainer has sharpened Cobb’s competitive edge, even though she feels she has not yet reached a plateau in either her riding or coaching. She attributes much of her success to riding ”great horses” for Campf and his wife Shelley, who run Oz Inc., a riding and training program, at their Canby farm.

”Riding good horses for Jeff and Shelley really helped me,” Cobb says. ”I showed some really nice horses for them for a year or two. At the horse shows, I did a lot of catch riding. I was really good at it, and it was really fun.”

The Campfs say they have watched Cobb mature as a rider over the years, and Jeff Campf thinks the best is still to come.

”I’ve always felt from the time that she was a junior that she could be one of the best woman riders inthe world,” Campf says. ”She is very fast and very accurate, and has a natural instinct for balance and pace. I think she is a rider who can ride horses at high speeds in such a nice balance where they’re comfortable to jump over the fences in a rhythm to keep their speed. That’s a serious gift.”

It also helps, Cobb says, to finally have her own special horse on which to compete in the upper echelons of her sport. Odysseus is a breathtaking dark bay that was a surprise gift from Greg Cobb four years ago. Cobb says she’s developed a highly-tuned partnership with ”Odie” and that having such a talented horse has inspired her to continue working harder.

Greg Cobb’s investment has paid off. Earlier this month, Odie’s natural speed and athletism were on display as he and Nicole won the $1,500 Challenge Jumper Speed Derby at the Brawley Farms Summer Classic Horse Show in Jefferson. The duo beat out Campf, who was coming off a Grand Prix victory in June’s $10,000 Hood River Classic horse show (Cobb placed second in that event).

Cobb is passing on her love of horses and talent to daughter Tayler, who already is winning small jumper classes. Tayler is benefitting from the same enthusiasm for riding and training that Cobb imparts to her students.

”She’s awesome,” says Barbara Dudley of Bend, who has trained with Cobb for four years. Dudley and Keeping the Faith, a 13-year-old Dutch warmblood mare, are competing this week at J Bar J.

”I started riding quite awhile ago, but Nicole took all the pieces and put them together,” Dudley says. ”She cares about you as a rider, she cares about your horses.”