My history with horses started when I was probably about four years old. I sat on a horse and I absolutely fell in love. I said to myself, once I become an adult and can afford to ride horses, I will do this for the rest of my life. By the time I turned 18, I had started traveling to Minneapolis and by the time I moved there, I would ride horses over the weekend and just about all summer long and sometimes throughout the winter. That was back around 1994 and I've been riding horses ever since.

 

I started with trail riding by going out once or twice a month, as much as I could. I went from paying to ride to volunteering to ride as part of a training program. We would wake up at five o'clock in the morning, feed the horses, turn them out, and then turn around to eat breakfast. Then we’d do chores, like cleaning stalls, exercising them, line lunging, and more. I'd bring groups of friends out to ride with me. From there, I would start riding with The Hennepin County. 

 

There was a home school, which recently closed. The home school, over in Minnetonka, had about 100 acres of land. For many years, even decades, they had horses out there. They would do horse therapy for kids with Down Syndrome and things of that nature. I don't know how many youth we actually pulled over into the program, but they shared the space.

 

I ended up transitioning over, probably 20 years ago, to a private ranch in Wisconsin that raised Arabian horses. I learned to ride Western to English. It was a really good opportunity for me. I was able to do chores to pay for my lessons, over that period of time. I would come out and stay for two or three days at a time. So, I learned how to become a ranch hand, bale hay, unload and load grain, feed horses, and help with some miscellaneous tasks. I also learned about fencing, preparing lean-tos, cleaning out water tanks, cutting grass, chopping trees and all that other fun stuff. I learned a variety of skills and would bring groups out there as well, to share and to enjoy. So, I created some level of diversity. 

 

I was hoping and thought that there would be an opportunity for us to do a Junior Olympic program to get folks trained up to where they had a skill set to later be able to go and compete if they wanted to. I never quite got to do that at the ranch. It was a working ranch, very modest compared to some of the other ranches in the area, but that was always my vision. And then my next goal was to partner with some Historically Black Colleges and then look at equestrian programs. Some of those colleges, like North Carolina or others in some of the more Southern states outside of major cities, have quite a bit of land through the land grant program. My thought was, it is a great opportunity to look at the equine industry in terms of what they can do to provide us that Junior Olympic experience. You know, horses, it's a multibillion-dollar industry and so one of the things I thought that would have been great was just being able to get folks into it at a cost that was reasonable, but also being able to partner with the University for resources. There’s also the vet program, where they provide care around birthing and more.

 

I most definitely took something that I looked at from a leisurely perspective and brought it into a more formal process. I just recently moved to the Carolina area. It's been pretty humbling, but I really enjoy Minneapolis. I have a lot of connections and spent about 20 to 25 years there. It seems like I've been riding horses for forever now.