Behind Kent Farrington’s extraordinary 2025 season—marked by nine five-star grand prix victories, seven of them aboard his mare Greya, and nearly $3 million in prize money, all of which has earned him a nomination for USEF International Equestrian of the Year—stands a tightly knit team led by groom Denise Moriarty. Over the years, the Irishwoman has cared for some of the most successful horses of Farrington’s career, including Uceko, Gazelle, Voyeur, Creedance, Austria 2, and now Greya, Toulayna, and their stablemates.

Having previously held the world No. 1 ranking from May 2017 to May 2018, Farrington returned to the top of the Longines Rankings in May 2025. We sat down with Moriarty during last month’s CHI Geneva (Switzerland)—where her boss won the $1.4 million Rolex Grand Prix and finished second in the Rolex IJRC Top 10 Final by the blink of an eye—to talk about her path into the profession, the realities of grooming at the sport’s highest level, and her perspective on an evolving industry.

For the past 16 years, Denise Moriarty—who celebrated her 38th birthday last November—has devoted her life to horses. Born in Ireland, where equestrian culture is deeply rooted, her journey into the profession began without family ties to horses.

“I didn’t grow up around horses. It’s not something my family is involved in at all,” she explained between rounds in Geneva. “I started riding when I was maybe 9 or 10, then I got a job at the local riding school.”

Before leaving Ireland, Moriarty pursued higher education, studying to become a veterinary nurse and earning her master’s degree. “When I finished college, I wanted to travel, but I couldn’t afford it. So I decided I’d go and work in America and travel that way,” she said. “I just enjoy the horses and being outdoors. I prefer a physical job; I find that a lot easier than sitting in an office.

Her first experience in the United States came at Raylyn Stables, where five-star show jumper Marilyn Little was just embarking on a foray into the eventing world that eventually took her to the top levels of that sport as well. It was there that she met Farrington, who rode horses for the operation at the time. In 2012, he offered her a place within his team—a partnership that has endured for more than a decade.

“When I joined Kent, I didn’t think our collaboration would last this long, but it’s been good,” the self-taught groom said. “I learned on the job, from the people I worked with, from my mistakes, and by observing my peers at the shows.”

A Longevity That Commands Respect

In a physically and mentally demanding profession marked by constant travel and long competition days—particularly during the European winter—Moriarty’s longevity stands out.

“This job can be tiring, but we take our downtime and take some time for ourselves, which helps us find balance,” she said, while acknowledging the sacrifices involved. “Horses require our full attention 24 hours a day, seven days a week. At competitions, like here in Geneva, it’s just me with them, so it’s up to me to manage everything.”

Her passion for the job, a cornerstone of this fast-paced life, has remained constant.

“Loving what you do and loving working with horses,” keeps a groom going, she said, before emphasizing the importance of balance. “I think the important thing is to realize when you’re starting to get tired or a little bit annoyed with it and then take a break before you get really annoyed with it. But you have to have a release, like something outside of work that’s for you, or something else that you also enjoy doing, so that your satisfaction doesn’t come just from the job.

“For myself, I like to run; it’s a good release,” she added. “But I always try and make time to go on vacation or just take time for myself. But for the most part, I just enjoy hanging out with my friends and just have a bit of ‘me’ time.”

Traveling Alongside Horses As A Way Of Life

“I miss Ireland,” Moriarty admitted. “It is a beautiful country, and I have friends and family there. But definitely, America’s also become home as well for me.”

Although based primarily in the U.S., Moriarty regularly travels to Europe—often alongside the horses themselves.

“I always like being with horses, no matter what the situation,” she said of flying with them. “It’s a long day, but it’s good to travel with them. Our horses obviously are used to flying, so they’re very good at it. But it’s always nice to be with them, especially when you’re coming to a competition like [Geneva], making sure that everything is done correctly.”

Farrington’s horses also frequently travel by air within North America, although the rules are different.

“If we do Vancouver in British Columbia, we’ll fly from Florida to Vancouver, and then every time we go to California for Santa Anita, Thermal, the horses will fly FedEx,” she said. “We [grooms] can’t go on a FedEx flight. They’re very particular about people. So it’s a little bit of a different way of doing it, but it’s a long trip by land, so the flight is definitely an easier option for the horses.

“In Europe, I don’t drive myself,” she added. “Kent prefers to hire a driver so that we’re not tired when we get to the show. I’m lucky I don’t have to drive.”

It is a privilege that all too few grooms enjoy. In Europe, most grooms spend their weekends traveling to competitions across the continent, without counting their hours, measuring their fatigue, or considering the mental strain involved in transporting animals of such sentimental and financial value.

Having lived and worked extensively on both continents, Moriarty sees strengths and weaknesses in each system.

“I obviously grew up with the European system, that’s what I learned originally. And I feel like there’s maybe a bit more camaraderie in the European system, because it very much is a family a bit more, because the system’s a little bit different,” she said, while noting practical advantages in the United States. “A lot of the times when we travel to shows in America, we stay at that location for maybe three weeks, and so it’s a little bit of a different scenario. But the convenience of America is that [business] hours are long, so at least when you finish work, you can still do something after work; the shops are still open, etc. Whereas in a lot of countries in Europe, by the time you finish work, everything’s closed.

“I think, regardless,” she added, “it is like a family: Everybody travels together, everybody watches out for each other. And I think that goes across the board, America and Europe.”

Having A Say On Grooms’ Working Conditions

Although she experienced Geneva on American time, meaning that the competition schedule didn’t cause her much trouble, Moriarty readily admits that the creation, or rather the enforcement, of stricter rules regarding competition schedules would be welcome.

“It’s too much,” she said. “It’s too many late nights in a row. Maybe once a week at an indoor show is fine, but every night can be a bit too much. They seem to forget that the riders and the public leave, but the grooms have to stay. We have to finish off the horses, which takes a while. And in the morning, we have to get up to feed them. That said, I always tell myself that if you’re going to do this job, do it, but do it right and see it through to the end.”

She also highlighted practical changes that could significantly improve working conditions, while noting that most events have started evolving in the right direction over the years.

“I would like to see an improvement in working hours, as well as in the facilities, which aren’t always ideal,” she said. “It’s always nice to have secure and clean stables, with adequate space to shower the horses. It’s important to have enough wash bays available, so that there aren’t 20 horses waiting their turn after a night class.

“These are small things that organizers can put in easily, and they make a big difference for us,” she continued. “Food is also an important issue. When it is accessible, and we don’t have to cross the entire venue to find it, it makes our lives so much easier.”

It is crucial for grooms to have a voice in the industry, she added.

“Most of the stewards I’ve met and am in contact with, especially in America, are all very open,” she said. “It’s important that the FEI representatives are accessible and willing to help and answer our questions. Otherwise, it becomes too much of a fight.”

Back To The Top

Within Farrington’s operation, Moriarty’s responsibilities extend well beyond daily horse care and ensuring the happiness of her four-legged companions in competition.

“I manage a lot of things around Kent’s sport horses,” she said. “I organize transportation, visits from the vet or farrier, and I’m also involved on a daily basis at home, whether it’s taking them out to turnout, the horse walker, or for riding sessions, etc.”

Watching Farrington reclaim the world No. 1 ranking in May was particularly meaningful for her and the whole Team KPF.

“It’s nice to be back in this position and to hold on to it for a little while,” she said with a smile. “It just shows that the work pays off. So yes, it’s a proud moment to be back on the top again. I think we can even keep this position. We have a good string of young horses coming up. We just took a small group of horses to Europe this year, and when we came back, these horses had a break while the young ones, the 9-year-olds, all got their chance to step up. And they were all amazing this summer.”

‘They Are Superstars‘

With seven and two victories in five-star grand prix events, respectively, and numerous additional placings, it must be said that Greya (Colestus—Contessa 128, Contender) and Toulayna (Toulon—Vuelta, Parco) have set an example for their younger companions.

Unsurprisingly, Farrington’s two top mares hold no secrets for Moriarty.

“They’re ladies. They’re very opinionated and ever so slightly spoiled,” she said with a laugh. “They have a lot of attitude, but it’s good. We like horses with big personalities. We really encourage that. They have a lot of fight in them, and it shows in the ring.

“Toulayna can act very grumpy, but she’s not nasty at all,” she added. “Yet if you go into the stall with her, you would think that she is mean. Greya just puts her ears back, but I think it’s just her thing. They’re very sweet horses, they’re just very much mares. When they’re tired, or they’re cranky, you just kind of got to leave them alone for a second. They’re both superstars.”

One Star Replaces Another, But The Spirit Lives On

In addition to Greya and Toulayna, Orafina (For Fashion—Corofina, Canturo) also played her part last season on the sporting scene, winning four international 1.50-meter events—and the heart of her groom.

“We have a lot of mares, a lot of girls!” Moriarty said with a laugh. “They’re all great. Orafina is 13 years old and has been super for us. We pick and choose the events she shows at, but she’s been a superstar mare for us as well. We have a lot of young horses coming up. We’ve got some very nice 8-year-old horses; they’re starting to grow their personalities a little bit more. It’ll be exciting to see them grow.”

Last year, Moriarty also looked after Myla, who was recently sold to Stella Wasserman. Landon de Nyze, with whom Farrington won team gold and individual silver at the 2023 Pan American Games (Chile) had left before her, moving on to Daniel Bluman and Over The Top Stables LLC.

In nearly 15 years, as horses move on through retirement or sale, Moriarty has learned to embrace change. Reflecting on former partners such as Uceko, Gazelle and Voyeur, she emphasized Farrington’s commitment to his horses’ long-term well-being.

“We’re lucky with Kent. He’s always very fair to the horses,” she said. “When he starts to feel that they’re struggling to jump, or they just don’t have the same horse that they used to, he’s very good at calling it and retiring them so that they are healthy and happy when they go to the field. And those horses that have done a lot for us and been great for us, we always make sure that they’re very well taken care of in their retirement.

“Some are sold; it’s part of the business as well,” she added. “It is sad to see them go, but it’s always nice to see them do good. For example, Landon, whom we sold at the beginning of the year, has just won a big class in California. You want them to do well in their new home.”

Looking ahead, Moriarty sees herself remaining in the sport. In 10 years’ time, “I won’t be traveling to every show, but for sure I’ll still be connected with the horses.”

The post The Woman Behind The World No. 1: Inside Denise Moriarty’s Life appeared first on The Chronicle of the Horse.

“Pepe just walked right up, and I’d never met him before,” Branscomb recalled. “He goes right underneath the horse’s belly, puts the [horse’s] arms on his shoulders and stands up, and backs up and then moves and puts the legs down on the ground. And the horse was just perfectly fine with it.”

Porfirio “Pepe” Rodriguez handed the lead back to a dumbfounded but grateful Branscomb. She was amazed by Rodriguez’s level head in a crisis that had frozen every other onlooker. Even more, she was impressed at how the horse, Russian Frost, had instantly settled into accepting Rodriguez’s help. Branscomb hired Rodriguez shortly after their first fated meeting, and he would go on to care for that gelding until his death at 32. By the time Russian Frost would be buried in a pasture at Branscomb Farm decades later, the farm had grown in size and reputation, in large part due to Branscomb and Rodriguez’s 30-year partnership. 

As Branscomb got to know Rodriguez in those early days, she learned that he had a talent for riding and training as well as grooming and handling. This skill was invaluable to a breeding farm, where he often put first touches on foals and the first rides on young horses. He was unflappable. 

“He makes a compassionate connection with the animal’s mind almost instantly,” Branscomb said of Rodriguez’s skill. “He’s able to just step up to them somehow, and in his level of energy and his body language and the way he looks into their eyes, they just instantly know that this human is there to help them, to give them support, to give them courage in that moment, to calm them.”

Rodriguez, who speaks Spanish and talked to us through his daughter, Alondra Rodriguez, says he has always felt calm in high-adrenaline moments. There was never a time that he didn’t ride, growing up on his family’s ranch in Jalisco, Mexico. Even at 7 years old, when Pepe’s father introduced him to bull riding, it quickly became the fearless boy’s “first passion—after the horses,” he said. 

Pepe said he’s always felt a connection and love for the animals, from early days riding his first pony, “El Bayo,” through fields of his family’s chili crops, to bronc and bull riding at rodeos in the surrounding towns. His father and grandfather were his first teachers, passing along a tradition of horsemanship that he still calls on in his work today. 

Pepe still remembers the feeling of his first win at a bull riding competition, when—at age 10—he beat out the adults and won $50, a huge sum of money at the time. He became a regular on the local bull and bronc circuit, often taking the first-place prizes that could range from pesos to bottles of tequila. His wife, Luz Elena, told their daughters stories of their father’s brazenness at those competitions back in Mexico. 

“My mom would often say that they would get into events for free, because they would know he would ride [anything]” Alondra said. “Often other riders would be afraid, but he would just want to ride, so they would let him in.”

Branscomb remembers that he would sometimes take the day off when the rodeo came to their California town. Even with so many years away from regular rodeo riding, his skills were as sharp as ever. He would casually arrive and enter the competition looking unassuming compared to the cowboys who were staples of the circuit. 

“Pepe would just show up in his blue jeans and his funny hat and tennis shoes—maybe not even boots—and he would win multiple years,” Branscomb recalled, laughing. “He just has that uncanny ability to balance in the middle of whatever animals he’s sitting on.”

‘He’s Happy When The Horses Are Happy’

When Pepe moved to the U.S. in 1994, he knew that he wanted to continue his work with the horses while starting his young family with Luz Elena. When he began working as a groom and rider at English-style barns, he adapted his riding to the new discipline and immediately loved it, he said. The skills he had learned from his father on the ranch were universal: He led with gentleness and balance.

“The more softly you treat them, the more they’ll learn than if you mistreat them, or treat them harsher,” he said. 

At Branscomb Farm, Pepe poured his decades of experience into the young horses. Colt starting gave him time to foster the “bigger bond,” he said. And as the foals grew into competition horses, they trusted him under saddle, as well.

Even without a formal hunter/jumper background, Pepe was more skilled than many professional riders, Branscomb said. She remembers making a friendly wager with grand prix jumper Hap Hansen that Pepe could, “go out and jump that course on that horse better than either you or I can,” she said. The horse wasn’t easy, but Pepe gamely mounted. 

“He floated the reins and galloped at the first fence, and damn if he didn’t hit every distance,” she said.

Over the years, Pepe has started colts like Valentino BF, a young stallion who recently had a winning week with John French in Las Vegas at the Marshall & Sterling/USHJA National Championships. Branscomb has noticed a common thread in the way he starts every horse, whatever their talents are or futures hold: “He’s happy when the horses are happy,” she said. 

“I think he likes doing what the horses like to do,” she said. “He takes them out on trail. He will get out of the round pen and go out in nature with them. 

“Very early on [he’ll take] the late 3-year-olds or early 4-year-olds, just letting go of their face,” she continued. “Maybe they don’t always go in a straight line, but he just lets them go forward and go experience nature and grass. He’ll stop and let him eat, and then he’ll trot him along.” 

And even with that easygoing start, the horses will also rise to the occasion for him. She recalls bringing “Valentino” to compete in a 4-year-old test where Branscomb was short a rider. Pepe stepped in at the last moment and put in a round that set up the stallion to win his division.  

“Had he been born in a different time and place, he would be John [French],” Branscomb said of Pepe’s riding. 

Branscomb says that his skill also gives him the ability to diffuse impossible situations, like the trailering crisis that first brought them together. Pepe was the groom and handler for Chromatic BF, Branscomb’s gelding who died in 2024 at the Longines FEI Jumping World Cup Final in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 

Pepe had a strong bond with “Chromatic,” and Branscomb remembers that the first time that the gelding was scheduled to travel by air, he refused to load onto the plane with the assigned airline groom. Owners and personal grooms are discouraged from interfering with the plane-loading process, but Pepe wanted to step in to help. 

“Chromatic had never flown before; he’d never been asked to get an airline container. He was a very smart, very big horse, very athletic, and he wasn’t playing. He wasn’t going to do it,” Branscomb said. “Pepe was saying, ‘Look, I can do it. I can do it.’ Pepe walks up, gives him a pat on the shoulder, takes the lead rope, walks right into the container, and a horse followed him right in, perfectly happy.”

Branscomb says that ease and comfort with animals translates to other parts of his life, as well. She jokes that his personality has made him first choice as “everybody’s godfather.”

“He’s that way with kids. He’s that way with other people too,” she said. “When an emergency happens, when everybody else is getting upset or frantic, he’s always calm and caring and focused on just solving the problem in the moment, and I think he lives his life that way.” 

It’s a life that his daughter, Alondra, says that she’s proud to see her father living so passionately. 

“It actually feels like a dream come true, because his job doesn’t only seem like a job, it seems like he’s doing a hobby because he actually enjoys it, and he wants no days off,” she said with a laugh. “I feel like that’s helped him grow a lot… and it’s really nice to see both [him and Branscomb] grow. It’s nice because they’ve both been doing it together, step by step.”

The post Pepe Rodriguez: The Bronc-Riding, Baby-Handling Horseman Behind Branscomb Farm appeared first on The Chronicle of the Horse.

Growing up in suburban Rothesay, New Brunswick, Canada, a community better known for its picturesque waterfront than anything horsey, Madeleine “Maddie” Theriault could never have imagined that she would one day be working for some of the equestrian elite. But thanks to her small-town connections, an open mind, and what she calls a series of “lucky breaks,” Theriault’s passion for horses has taken her around the world, including Australia, Europe and the United States. 

The path which led Theriault, 31, to her current posts—grooming for Canadian Olympian Lindsay Kellock Duckworth —has been far from linear. But Theriault firmly believes that every crossroads she explored along the way was integral to her growth as a horsewoman.

“The thing I love most about grooming is all of the horsemanship,” she said. “I love knowing exactly what the horses are doing; if they are a little bit strange in their stall and that’s not normal, I like to figure things out. I love the organization. I love that the horses know what time it is because the schedule is so organized, and everything is well laid out.”

Humble Roots

When Theriault was a young girl, she used to visit horses owned by the grandparents of her friend Mary Kate Williams. What started as simple curiosity soon turned to a passion, and Theriault began begging her parents, Jacques and Anne Theriault, for riding lessons.

“None of my family are into horses or have been into horses,” Maddie said. “I don’t know what happened, but I wanted to do everything horses. I’d always be at Mary Kate’s house, and we’d groom the horses and do all the chores. Everyone in my family thought it was just a phase, and I’m still not out of it.”

When her parents finally agreed Maddie could take riding lessons, she quickly became an official “barn rat,” spending every available moment at the stable.

“I was the one that was there all the time, wanting to do literally anything I could—helping with stalls, learning how to set up feed, how to turn them out,” Maddie remembered. “I just wanted to be with the horses.”

The barn where Maddie landed stabled as many as 40 horses, and welcomed riders of all backgrounds, exposing her to everything from dressage and jumping to western riding; she described her early instruction as being “general, basic English lessons.” 

“I didn’t realize it at the time,” Maddie said. “But just being around all the horses, around all the people, the different types of disciplines—that’s where I started to learn my grooming.”

When Maddie was about 12, she found herself drawn to a draft-cross gelding named Charlie, who was boarded at the stable. He lived in the corner stall, and most of the staff was scared of him; when approached, he ran at the door with his ears pinned back and his teeth bared. Maddie learned his owner wasn’t able to get out to see Charlie much, and no one else really wanted to ride him either. 

Except Maddie, who recalls repeatedly asking her riding instructor if she could ride Charlie.

“Eventually, she agreed to let me take him out of his stall to do some groundwork with him,” Maddie recalled. “That was my first introduction to groundwork and unmounted horsemanship. Now, I know that [his behavior] meant he was unhappy. But at the time, I thought ‘This is weird—but we are going to be best friends.’ ”

Eventually, Charlie’s owner agreed to let Maddie take lessons on him, which led to a lease and later a sale. The gelding was young, powerful, and a bit headstrong—not the perfect match for a teenager with a big heart and limited means. But Maddie stuck with him, and by the time she graduated from high school, she could hack him on the buckle and take him to the beach. To pay for everything, she practically lived at the barn, doing stalls and other chores before school, in the evenings, and on weekends.

“He was such a challenge, and I just loved figuring out the pieces of it,” Maddie said. “I knew nothing—nothing—about feeding horses, first aid, and so on. I learned so much from him, so much trial and error, because he wasn’t just a straightforward ‘get on and ride’ horse. And that lit my passion for the other horses, too.”

‘I’m Still On My Year Off‘

Maddie applied to the animal science program at the University of Guelph in Ontario. She got as far as paying for her dorm and half of her tuition before deciding that she would rather take a year off “to do something with horses,” though she wasn’t sure exactly what. But instead, she ended up traveling in Australia for several months—and Williams decided to join her.

“At the time, you could get working holiday visas in Australia, and Mary Kate found us this job guiding trail rides,” Maddie said. “It was amazing, and we met so many cool people. But there were too many brush fires the year we were there, and we often got stuck in the cabin, so we wanted to find something else.”

Through a mutual friend, the young women found an opportunity working for Jane and Peter Bartram, owners of Hollands Bends Warmbloods. The Bartrams specialized in importing and breeding warmbloods for elite dressage.

“They took us in and showed us a whole new world: high-performance horses,” Maddie said. “That’s where my love for dressage really grew, and I knew that it was what I wanted to do.”

The Bartrams helped the women connect with several other facilities in the area, where they spent three to four weeks working in each program. It was through these short-term positions that Maddie had her first opportunity to work as a show groom, even attending several CDIs.

“It was my first real grooming job, preparing horses for competition, seeing what they get before and after exercise,” Maddie said. “It was more high performance than I’d ever seen in New Brunswick. It opened my eyes completely; at home, I’d never experienced anything like that.”

After eight months abroad, Maddie returned to Canada and, as promised, enrolled at Guelph that fall. 

“I loved Guelph, and I loved the experience,” Maddie said. “There were cows and horses on campus. It was great—but I needed more. I said to my parents, ‘I’m going to do a year on, then a year off….’ I’m still on my year off.”

Still entranced by dressage, Maddie found a position as a working student for New Brunswick-based Erin MacQuarrie. MacQuarrie’s program was small but included everything from young horses to those schooling Grand Prix; it proved to be the perfect next step.

“She gave me the opportunity to sit on some young horses, and help her back them,” Maddie said. “We’ve become amazing friends.”

When an opportunity to work with Hanoverian breeder Ann Kitchel and trainer Deb Dean-Smith at Huntington Farm in Strafford, Vermont, presented itself, it was MacQuarrie who proved integral in making it possible for Maddie to say yes.

“She thought it would be a great opportunity, but the problem is, to train, you need a horse, and my draft-cross wasn’t going to cut it,” Maddie said with a laugh. “One of Erin’s clients offered me their horse, Whitney, who was schooling the small tour. She said, ‘If you really want to go and train, take her, learn as much as you can, come back, and then you can show her here.’ That was an offer I could not believe.”

Maddie stayed at Huntington for just under a year, absorbing everything she could learn about dressage and sport horse breeding. 

“Being at Huntington, and riding Whitney there, was my first glimpse into having a horse that could do more than first level,” Maddie said. “Getting to go there, and the chance to learn from Ann in the breeding and foaling, and to ride with Deb, was amazing. It was an opportunity that I just walked into.”

The next summer, she returned to Canada, where she competed Whitney at third and fourth levels. But when Whitney’s owner returned to the saddle at the end of the season, Maddie once again found herself standing at a crossroads.

“It was my year off, and I’m supposed to be going back to Guelph,” Maddie remembered. “But I’m not quite ready … so I decided to take another year off.”

One of Maddie’s other passions is travel, so when a friend invited her to join what would prove to be a several months-long tour of South America and Asia, she readily agreed. To earn money to fund her trip, Maddie turned to the horses, completing chores at several barns every day.

“It was great, because I got to go to so many places, and work with so many different horses, and learn more on the ground,” she said. “People would offer for me to work with or ride some of the horses, so I got to play around with the horses that weren’t so easy on the ground, or who were not so great to ride.”

Eventually, Maddie saved enough money for her trip. But after six months of horse-free traveling, Maddie found herself being called back.

“Every time I’d step away from the horses or take a break, I would always go back to them,” Maddie said. “So I went back home and did the same sort of thing.”

Soon, she was working for Canadian Olympic eventer Dr. Rob Stevenson, a New Brunswick native who was balancing high performance goals alongside his career as a cardiologist, and then she spent a year working at Susan Thompson’s Crescent Stables, a hunter/jumper/dressage facility in Vancouver, British Columbia. Later, she traveled to Europe, where she accepted several freelance positions in Germany and the United Kingdom.

“I came home, and decided I might need one more year off,” Maddie said with a laugh. “But I knew I needed something to do, and grooming, especially in New Brunswick, there’s not a lot of opportunities.”

So Maddie accepted a position managing a new therapeutic riding center, and she purchased a young mare to develop from MacQuarrie.  

“Through the years, I always volunteered for therapeutic riding, and I was really familiar with it,” Maddie said. “When they asked if I would be interested in running and managing the barn, it would be a normal 9-to-5 job, with weekends off. I thought it would be the best of both worlds; I could bring my horse there, do all the therapy rides, but also be responsible for the oversight of the care, management and training of the horses.”

Although Maddie enjoyed the work, it wasn’t long before she began to question if she was in the right place. 

“I really did like the therapeutic riding,” Maddie said. “I just got to the point of, ‘What am I doing in New Brunswick?’ I was getting discouraged, and thought maybe I should sell my mare and call it a day. I was ready to be done, and I thought, ‘my year off is over.’ ”

But MacQuarrie suggested that Maddie spend one season in Wellington, Florida, before throwing in the towel.

“She said, ‘Go try it, and if you don’t like it, you be done,’ ” Maddie said. “I said I’d only go if I could find the perfect, ideal situation. And I did.”

Finding Her Place

Through MacQuarrie, Maddie found a position assisting fellow Canadian Alexandra Reid, who was working for Eliane Cordia van Reesema’s Jewel Court Stud in Wellington, Florida. Conveniently, Jewel Court also had a horse available to lease for the season, and Maddie soon found herself once again immersed in the world of high-performance sport.

“In Wellington, you see the opportunities, Friday Night Lights—there is so much motivation around, that it inspires you to work a little bit harder,” Maddie said. “Every day, you are going to learn something.

“I went for a few months, and I loved it,” she continued. “I never wanted to leave—and they ended up offering me a job. I’ve been here ever since.”

For several years, Maddie has groomed for Jewel Court, moving with its team between Wellington and their summer base in Wilton, Connecticut. During that time, Maddie had to retire her mare due to health issues, and thought she might be done with horse ownership. But recently, she purchased one of Jewel Court’s horses—a 6-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding named Fire—and balances her day between riding and management duties.

“Riding is still a bit of my drive, and I love to do it, but I do a lot behind the scenes as well,” Maddie said. “I love Fire so much—he is such an amazing horse. Never did I think I would be able to own a horse again, and one I already knew.”

From the moment Maddie arrived at Jewel Court, she felt like a valued member of the team—something which hasn’t always been the case. 

“Working at all these different barns, it can be so hard if you are in a place where maybe everyone is not so nice, or doesn’t have a great attitude, or isn’t excited about being there,” Maddie said. “[At Jewel Court], it was my first time really grooming full time. The girls here were so welcoming and taught me everything—and not in a way that makes you think ‘I don’t know what I’m doing.’

“They are so collaborative and enthusiastic, and have passion for the horses,” she continued. “That’s what I saw when I came here; they genuinely cared so much. Even when looking after horses that were not their own, they cared for them like they were their own horses—which is what I would do. The owner, Eliane, always said ‘put the horses first.’ I was like—finally. This is great.”

After several years with Jewel Court, Maddie formally transitioned into working under Lindsay Kellock Duckworth, who is based at Jewel Court in the summer and at Enterprise Farm South in Wellington during the winter. Now, as Duckworth keeps the possibility of riding in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics on her agenda, Maddie sometimes cannot believe where her passion for horses has brought her.

“I know there are people like me, who come from a place like New Brunswick, and they are so curious about horses and the horse industry, but it can seem so daunting to go into it,” Maddie said. “You think you need so much money to be involved. But working your way through, you catch these lucky breaks. Everyone and every thing is sort of connected.” 

The post FEI Groom And Rider Followed A Winding Road To Her Equine Career appeared first on The Chronicle of the Horse.

Hunter/jumper rider Mallory Sensenig wasn’t looking to switch disciplines after graduating high school; she just wanted a job in the horse industry. So when she heard professional dressage rider Emily Donaldson was looking for a groom, she didn’t rush to Donaldson’s Parkesburg, Pennsylvania, facility for an interview. 

“I was like, ‘A dressage barn? That’s boring; they just ride in glorified circles. I guess I’ll go over even though it probably won’t be a good fit,’ ” she recalled. 

The fresh-out-of-school job candidate wasn’t any more of a home run for her potential employer. With 19 horses at her farm, Donaldson knew grooming for her would be a tough first job for someone looking to break into the industry.

She decided to take a chance on Sensenig anyway, and Sensenig decided to give the dressage barn a try. That was more than three years ago, and the two have been unstoppable ever since.  

“When Mallory came, she didn’t have experience,” Donaldson said. “I thought, ‘Well, let’s give it a shot and see how it goes.’ She’s learned as she’s been with me, and it’s really neat to see how her confidence has evolved, and how she now feels empowered to stand up for herself and the horses.”

But what Sensenig lacked in experience, she has more than made up for in initiative and endurance, according to Donaldson. 

“There are times when, at home, the days are so long, I’ll say, ‘I won’t do that again,’ ” Donaldson said. “I’ve had the farrier, the massage therapist, and the dentist all out in the same day for all the horses, because I can’t say no. And I’ll apologize to Mallory at the end of the day and say, ‘I’m really sorry I did that,’ but she puts up with it always and takes it in stride.”

Sensenig, 21, has also demonstrated—sometimes hilariously—that she is more than able to complete the “other duties as assigned” of being Donaldson’s righthand woman. This fall’s U.S. Dressage Finals were no exception, when Donaldson’s rebellious foxhound Eleven forgot her manners after a long day at the World Equestrian Center–Ohio. 

“One of the first nights, we decided to have dinner at the restaurant on the grounds. And I said, ‘Oh, they allow dogs, awesome,’ ” Donaldson recalled. “After getting there, [Eleven] promptly peed in the restaurant and then slipped her collar. Mallory was the one that immediately jumped up to take off after her—and I said, ‘I think this is outside your job description.’ We were laughing about it afterward until we were red in the face.” 

Taking care of Donaldson’s string of horses means that Sensenig’s days at the barn are often over 12 hours long, but she said the time flies because she and Donaldson get along like wildfire. With similar personalities and a shared sense of humor, they attribute their program’s success to their close working relationship. 

“With a job like this, you spend a lot of time with each other,” Sensenig said. “So it’s very helpful when you work for someone you like to be around. Laughing is sometimes the only way to get through the day.” 

“I think it’s hard to meet people that you can spend that amount of time together, and actually not annoy each other by the end. We’ve become quite the power team, and we somehow know what each other needs without being married,” added Donaldson, whose veterinarian husband Mark Donaldson held many of Sensenig’s grooming responsibilities before she came along. “He’s Mallory’s assistant now. He’s been demoted.” 

Growing up on a dairy farm in Kirkwood, Pennsylvania, Sensenig’s introduction to horses came through 4H and Pony Club—experiences she believes prepared her well for the controlled chaos of dressage, where no two days look the same. Still, she learned lots more on the job as she traveled as Emily’s groom to national and international competitions up and down the East Coast.

“My first season in Wellington with Emily was a lot to take in,” she recalled. “I had never done anything like that before, and definitely not in the dressage space. And I had only been working for Emily for less than a year at that point.

“But traveling was—and is—really cool because I’ve been learning so much,” she added. “I went to my first CDI as a groom that winter, and it’s just been so much fun since.” 

Though her primary role is on the ground, Sensenig still gets plenty of time in the stirrup irons. She owns two off-the-track-Thoroughbreds, whom she competes in hunter/jumper classes, so Sensenig’s days begin and end at nearby Flowering Pear Farm. At Emily’s barn, Sensenig got her dressage start on her boss’ tricky FEI horse Audi (Sir Sinclair—Priceless, Idocus). 

“There are some days, especially this time of year before we go to Florida, when it’s really cold, and I’m like, for a split second, ‘I don’t want to do anything right now.’ But then I remember, it’s all so fun,” said Sensenig. 

While she loves to ride, Sensenig says handling and helping educate Emily’s string of up-and-coming young horses has been one of the job’s biggest perks. From helping them off the trailer, to teaching them ground manners, to watching them mature into competitive sport horses, Sensenig has supported their development from the beginning. She wants to see their competitive careers through, and has no plans to leave Emily’s side anytime soon. 

“I don’t have much of a desire to do my own thing like Emily does,” she said. “I don’t have a desire to be a professional with a program. I like where I’m at now, and I like working with someone as I manage the horses, because then I’m not the only one in charge. And with Emily, a lot of the horses are at really exciting places in their careers. So I’m very good right here, because I know they’re going do really cool things. I want to stick around for that.” 

The post Hunter/Jumper Rider Mallory Sensenig Is Thriving As A Dressage Groom appeared first on The Chronicle of the Horse.

Leaving home to follow horses runs in the family: Jeannie moved at 16 to work at a pony breeding farm on the other side of New Zealand. When Jeannie met Cook’s father, they moved to his family’s sheep farm where they raised three daughters and a handful of ponies alongside their wooly flocks.

Nicky was the only one of the children who truly caught the riding bug, though. She grew up showing, participating in Pony Club, and hunting in the winter.

“Real hunting, not American hunting,” Nicky said. “Our ponies did everything.”

After graduating from high school and spending some time in Canada, she completed a teacher education program, hoping for a job in a country school so she could stay on the family farm and continue riding for fun. When she couldn’t find a job locally, and she didn’t want to teach in South Auckland, she said, “I ran away to Ireland.”

“The family was super nice,” she said of working at Ballymacoll Stud in County Meath. “Their kids were our age, and there were a lot of Kiwis, and it was like a big family. We went on holidays and traveled around the country. I think I’ve been to every stud in Ireland.”

But life at a Thoroughbred breeding farm lacked the excitement that young Nicky craved. The job largely entailed turning out the mares and young horses and doing stalls before bringing them in, and it grew boring.

She interviewed for a teaching job at a school in Ireland but wasn’t offered the position. If she wanted to teach, she was told, she should try London, where there were more available jobs.

“I’m not really a city girl,” she said. “That just wasn’t going to happen.”

So she bummed about Ireland for a few more years, milking cows in Tipperary, nannying a bit, and working at a boutique with a friend, until an ad in Horse & Hound for an eventing groom caught her eye.

The ad sparked a memory she hadn’t thought of in years: Seeing Mark Todd and Charisma after the 1988 Seoul Olympics, when his team toured around his home country of New Zealand, celebrating his individual gold medal and team bronze. Nicky remembered talking to Todd’s groom, Helen Gifford, intrigued by her tales of the team’s travels around the globe.

“I’m a Kiwi,” she said, laughing. “We’re on the bottom of the world and so far away from everything. All we want to do is travel!”

She was offered that first grooming job, kicking off an unexpected career. For four seasons she was an eventing groom at various barns in Ireland, learning the trade in real time.

“At one of the first events I went to, I had to put in a fake tail for the dressage. I’d never done that before, and it fell out in the warm-up,” she recalled. “I heard a nearby big-league rider say, ‘Sack the groom.’ ”

But thankfully, she found a veteran groom at her barn who was willing to show her the ropes.

“I had an older, experienced groom who became my mentor,” she said, “and I picked up so much from her, and from watching others at all different barns.”

Sometimes Cook’s only responsibility was to groom. But other times, she hacked horses out and even had opportunities to compete. 

“Looking back, I don’t know how I did it,” she said of the competitions where she was both groom and competitor. “I’d have half a dozen horses to groom, and I was eventing myself. It was a lot.”

Then tragedy struck. Nicky was working for 28-year-old Beijing Olympic hopeful Sherelle Duke of Ireland when Duke suffered a fatal fall on the cross-country course at the 2006 Brockenhurst Park Horse Trials (England). It shook Nicky to the core.

“It took me a long time to watch cross-country again,” she said.

Nicky thought she needed a break from the eventing world. She answered another ad for a show jumping position with Malaysian rider Syed Omar Almohdzar, who was living in Belgium and needed a groom for the Southeast Asian Games. Nicky was up for the adventure and traveled with the team for a month to Thailand.

Shortly after the SEA Games and the team’s return to Belgium, Nicky was hand-walking an injured horse in the indoor. It was Christmas Day, and she was chatting with her mom as she circled the ring. But suddenly the horse bolted, leapt forward then kicked back, breaking Nicky’s arm.

Casting the arm for six weeks was the prescribed treatment, but the bone didn’t heal as hoped. Two months later her arm was still giving her trouble, so she returned to New Zealand where she underwent surgery to put in supportive plate, followed by two months of rehab. 

While recovering, Cook searched for the next interesting position. She was itching to return to Canada, where she’d spent some time between high school and university.

“I applied for every single job in Canada,” she said. “But didn’t hear from anyone.”

That is, until she heard from Millar Brooke Farm, the home facility of Olympian Ian Millar and his daughter Amy Millar, now an Olympian too. Nicky took a position as Amy’s groom. When Ian’s former groom left after the 2008 Olympics, Nicky took over his horses.

“I did two [Florida seasons] with Ian,” Nicky said, “then ended up working for some other riders who needed grooming help at competitions.”

Those riders included Germany-based Irish rider Denis Lynch and his mount All Star 5, whom Nicky called “really special,” and whom she’d known and worked with as a young horse. But the travel and showing was getting to her, and she was starting to feel burnt out.

“So I took a home job at Mark Armstrong’s in England,” she said. “I refused to go to horse shows, but I kept everything fit and going at home.”

Nicky was also struggling with her old arm injury, as the plate was acting up. She returned to New Zealand to have the plate removed, and while she was stir-crazy in recovery from her second surgery, she interviewed to be a jet boat driver in Kawarau Gorge between Queenstown and Cromwell.

“I made it to the last two candidates” she said, “but they gave it to the other guy because he had more mechanical knowledge.”

Once the arm had healed, jet-boat-captain dreams aside, Nicky returned to North America and bounced around for a while, freelancing and grooming for different riders.

While in Wellington in early 2024, Nicky learned that Aaron Vale was looking for a show groom. Vale was excited about the possibility of bringing such an experienced and knowledgeable groom into his program.

“I knew that she had worked for lots of top people,” he said. “She’s been there and done it. From the beginning I just felt like I could trust her completely, and I have never felt like I had to be checking to see if she’d done this or that. I know that when I’m not there, she’s still doing things 100% how we want it, or sometimes even better than you’d actually do it yourself.”

Vale was making a run for the Olympics, so Nicky spent that summer in Europe with his team. Just recently, she returned from another overseas tour with Vale that included Rotterdam (the Netherlands), Aachen (Germany), Dublin and Dinard (France), where he and Carissimo 25 won the $582,280 Rolex Grand Prix Ville de Dinard CSI5*.

Nicky loves the adventure that comes with show grooming and doesn’t plan to stop anytime soon.

She’s learned something new about caring for horses at each of her stops around the globe, and she’s added those methods and tips to her ever-growing tool box to help her equine charges.

“I have seen so many different levels of turnout around the world,” she said. “And I truly believe that it’s best for horses to have as much as possible. When we travel now, I try really hard to make sure that the horses are out every day and look for places with turnout paddocks.”

“And I believe so strongly in getting horses out of the ring for their fitness work,” she continued. “We are close to some woods, and I love to take horses in there and do fitness, trotting around in there. When I ride them for fitness, I avoid the ring.”

Her final, and most important takeaway: “Anything you can do to keep them happy, you should,” she said. “You’re going to get a better performance in the ring from a happier horse.”

The post Nicola Cook Has Traveled The World With Horses appeared first on The Chronicle of the Horse.

Laffin mucked stalls and did chores at local barns to pay for lessons, but she never had her own horse. Her parents were practical, middle-class people who encouraged her to earn a college degree in a more lucrative field so she’d be able to pay for horses down the road.

During middle school, Laffin was scouted by volleyball coaches who thought her 6’ frame gave her a natural talent for the sport. She earned a scholarship to Coastal Carolina University (South Carolina) where she played Division I volleyball, learning teamwork skills that would serve her well when, in 2016, burnout at a job in television in New York City caused her to reevaluate her career path.

Now, nearly 10 years after leaving the corporate world, Laffin is achieving her personal dressage goals on a giant, opinionated mare and working as a groom and barn manager for Olympic dressage rider Kasey Perry-Glass’ small group of horses.

“Before this job, I would have thought that in order to be successful in this world, you need to have eight horses a day that you’re riding, and I would have just thought that you had to work yourself into the ground in that way and have all those horses going and that every successful program was like this big, massive program,” she said. “I think that truly, my favorite part of this job is how much it’s taught me about how much work goes into curating just one elite horse. Kasey is kind of a master at that. If you really give yourself the space to spend time with them and understand them, [it’s amazing] how many things you can actually catch on to and understand and change in order to help your performance.”

Perry-Glass enjoys working one-on-one with Laffin and appreciates her insight into the care of her horses.

“I tell her all the time about how amazing of a person she is,” Perry-Glass said. “I cannot tell you how honest and ethical and down to earth and just genuine that Meghan is, and I think that in our sport, we need more of it. She really does deserve kind of the world [in] the sport, so I keep trying just to push her in the right direction any way I can.”

Finding Her Way

Laffin, 32, studied business management at Coastal Carolina. She didn’t ride during her college years, mostly due to time constraints with volleyball. During her junior year, she visited “The Today Show” in New York City, and she thought it might be fun to work behind the scenes in the fast-paced world of television production. She took classes related to the field, and while networking for internships, met Batt Humphreys, a former executive producer at CBS. He put in a good word for her at CBS, which led to an internship.

Laffin started visiting Humphreys and his wife at their South Carolina farm on weekends and rekindled her love of horses. “It kind of got me back in love with that lifestyle,” she recalled, “and it was a kind of wild, small-world coincidence that it was horses that connected me to that next step.”

Laffin started to feel at home around horses again, but once she got an associate producer job at “CBS This Morning,” she was consumed with work and the fast-paced lifestyle she thought she wanted. She took Amtrak south to Pennsylvania on weekends to visit her aunt and decompress around her horses.

“Despite having a really cool career, I just couldn’t shake it from my heart; I just really was being pulled back in that direction, and living in New York City, I couldn’t be in a more opposite life,” she said. “That began this quest to figure out how to get my lifestyle more back towards horses.”

Though she was climbing the ladder at CBS, she wasn’t making enough to afford horses, especially in a high cost-of-living area. So she started bouncing around ideas to transition into a more-horse friendly lifestyle.

A trip to Dressage At Devon with her aunt was another motivating factor as Laffin decided her future. She was captivated by the elegance and grace of Grand Prix horses to the point of obsession—watching Carl Hester Masterclasses and other clinic videos to absorb as much as she could.

Someone she knew through collegiate volleyball connected her to Iron Rock Dressage in California—the opportunity Laffin needed to leap back into the horse world. But she worried that without being independently wealthy, it would be hard to make a good living.

“I was always afraid, too, because of how much I loved it,” she said. “I was afraid to base my income on it. And I think I felt a little bit protective of it, and I felt a little bit scared to ruin it with that.”

Laffin created a safety net by earning her master’s degree in business at the University of California, Davis, on nights and weekends while working for Iron Rock full time.

At the farm, she learned how to do everything from drive a trailer to give vaccinations, and she was able to ride a lot of horses as she worked on her dressage education. Though she had her dream job, Laffin still believed she’d return to the business world once she’d completed her MBA, but in the summer of 2019, she came across an ad that Perry-Glass had posted. The rider was preparing for possible Tokyo Olympic Games selection with Goerklintgaards Dublet in 2020 and needed a new groom.

“It’s one thing to dream about pursuing something like that, but to really get to see it up close—I just thought that would be so incredible,” said Laffin. “And I could already just tell that Kasey just seemed like such a good person. It really gave me that butterfly feeling when I saw her post.”

Perry-Glass had a good feeling from their first phone call and was thrilled to hire Laffin.

“I think she handles herself very well under pressure, which I find very difficult to find,” she said. “She’s insanely organized, and her educational background really helped me build my business up, because at that point, I was just at the tail end of [‘Dublet’s’ career] and trying to figure out what was next for me and my business. Even though I have a business degree, she had more education than I did. She was able to help me structure a lot of how I run my business.”

In her job after Iron Rock, Laffin wanted riding time, and Perry-Glass gave her the ride on Stina 2W, a homebred Hanoverian (Sezuan—Wellissimia, Weltruhm) when the mare was 5. A “troubled child” according to Laffin, “Stina” grew to 18 hands, and Perry-Glass wasn’t sure what to do after she’d a bad accident with the mare and lost confidence in riding her. Laffin was a good fit, both in height and patience.

“Meghan clicked with her from the beginning, personality-wise, and it just became a building block; Meghan understood her personality really well,” said Perry-Glass. “They’ve been going at it, and [Stina’s] 11 now. She’s been on her and building her up to the small tour, which was not easy.”

“Stina was just such a feisty girl, and so [Kasey’s husband Dana Glass] would just take her out to work cows and just let her burn her energy off,” Laffin added. “We have videos of Stina, just like running through rivers, and she’s just like a wild thing. I’ve gotten to do a little bit of that stuff with her as well, but now we’ve worked up the levels together, and we have gotten along super, super well. I like getting to develop her, and just winning over her trust is the real prize because she’s opinionated and you can’t take it lightly when she gives that to you.”

Perry-Glass appreciates Laffin’s tactful approach to every horse she rides.

“What I love most about Meghan is that she doesn’t bring emotion into her riding,” she said. “She’s always been insanely fair to every horse that she’s been on, and she really hones in on the basics and trying to get a foundation going before she even tries to push for anything. She’s very talented in that way, which is hard to find.”

While the COVID-19 pandemic created economic uncertainty, Laffin’s early years with Perry-Glass solidified her decision to try to make a career in horses.

“I had continuously been telling myself that there was no good career to have in horses, and yet, there I was,” she said. “I just was like, I’m loving this, and I just can’t give it up. And not to mention the business world and the prospects of a business job looked very odd with COVID going on. It really gave me the grace or the room and the space to just stay with it and keep doing the thing that I loved. Then then fast forward six years: I think I’m committed!”

Laffin and Perry-Glass are very hands-on with their group of horses, which ranges from three to six at a time. Their schedule changed a bit when Perry-Glass had her daughter, Tru Lynn Glass, in 2021, but their dynamic hasn’t changed.

“It’s felt like I hit the lotto, because I get to be on this person’s team and learn so much from them. And then also, she’s on my team, and she coaches me, and she believes in me, and she pushes me,” said Laffin.

There are times Laffin fully wears her groom hat, like when Perry-Glass competed her top horse Heartbeat W.P. in Europe this summer, but they also have a mutually beneficial relationship. They bounce ideas off each other in the barn, and Perry-Glass will often groom for Laffin when she competes.

“When I’m showing, and we’re in Wellington [Florida], Kasey’s there with the backpack, taking my boots with a baby on her hip and being the groom for me,” Laffin said. “I mean, who am I? Who am I to have the Olympian helping me? I feel insanely lucky that I get to have that kind of situation, but I think because of that, we’ve all become so close to where we really are kind of like a family.”

Do you know an exceptional groom who deserves to be showcased in our Groom Spotlight section? If so, email kloushin@coth.com to tell us all about that person.

The post After A Corporate Career, Meghan Laffin Is All In On Dressage appeared first on The Chronicle of the Horse.

She’s waiting for a sign—a lick, a chew, a big release of breath—to tell her the horse is relaxed and ready for the work ahead. And if the horse isn’t ready? Well, she’ll wait a little longer.

In her nearly decade-long tenure working for sisters Benita and Lucia Strini, she’s learned that empathy and understanding toward the emotional state of the horses in her care is just as important—if not more so—than their physical well-being. Only when they feel safe and secure are they ready to offer their best selves.

An awareness of the importance of mental health has expanded beyond the horses for Choate; she serves as an ambassador for the International Grooms Association, an organization whose mission is to support international grooms and to speak up on issues that affect grooms’ careers and working conditions.

Supportive Working Environments Lead To Longevity

In a field where many professionals change careers frequently, the fact that Choate has been with the same program since graduating from Otterbein University (Ohio), with degrees in equine business management and equine veterinary technology, is a bit of an anomaly.

But a few things have kept her firmly planted and without the burnout that often comes with the job.

The Strinis usually have between six and 10 competition horses, a number Choate feels comfortable with for the level of care she seeks to provide, plus a handful of young training horses and a herd of retirees.

“Twenty to 30 competition horses isn’t how I like to go about things,” she said, laughing. “But also, Benita and Lucia are the most lovely people to work for. They have always been super welcoming, and I respect that they always want to do right by their horses.”

And the Strini sisters also want to do right by their staff—another reason that Choate said she’s so satisfied with her work. She receives benefits, plus paid time off and holidays off.

“I’m treated more like a normal person,” she said. “That’s been really huge. Benita and Lucia are really dedicated to their riding goals, but they want to have a life outside the horses as well. I think because they understand that, they also understand that we [staff] need to have a life outside of work.”

Lucia said the sisters try to treat their employees as they would want to be treated themselves.

“We also try to compare what we’re asking of our employees to how we feel ourselves,” Lucia said. “We can’t always be at the barn, and we need intelligent, trustworthy adults helping us with our program. We cannot do this career without help. Too many times in this industry, you hear about great grooms leaving the field because they burn out or can’t pay their bills. We want our staff to stay with us, and so it’s important that they feel like what they’re doing is sustainable.”

A Focus On Equine Mental Health

Choate has learned to incorporate various natural horsemanship techniques into her daily routine to improve the performance of competition horses. This approach fits in naturally at Plain Dealing, where the horses live outside 24/7 and have plenty of down time just to be horses.

But it was Choate’s own horse, an off-track Thoroughbred named Remus, who showed her just how beneficial these practices can be.

“I bought Remus in the hopes that he’d be easy, as he seemed that way when I met him just 10 days off the track,” she said. “But he turned out to be very emotional and sensitive and too clever for his own good.”

So Choate sought out advice from professionals in her circle. Katie Coleman, who was helping Choate with Remus during a winter in Florida, recommended Warwick Schiller’s podcast, and Choate became a regular listener. One guest was horse trainer Lisa Kay, who was in Virginia. Choate reached out, and Kay has been helping with Remus, as well as some Plain Dealing’s horses, ever since.

“It’s been the most magical and transformative journey, working through understanding his emotions and learning to be more empathetic and patient with him,” she said. “He was trying to tell me something, but I didn’t understand.”

She credits Remus for teaching her to slow down and pay more attention to equine emotions. She’s also learned various strategies to help horses manage their own emotions and has incorporated some of these practices into the daily routines of the Strinis’ horses, especially Keynote Dassett and DHI Kevin G, who she described as more anxious and emotional.

“Every day at home we do groundwork before riding; sometimes it’s working on stretching and taking a breath, and sometimes it’s asking for a little lateral flexion. It depends on what they need in the moment,” she said. “They’ve learned now what I’m asking for, and often these exercises get a good release, or a breath or a yawn or some slow blinking. They learn that these exercises give them time and space to relax, and then the ability to self-regulate helps them relax when they’re away from home.

“I can be their anchor in times of stress,” she continued. “It means so much that they look to me for that. At competitions, there’s that extra layer of anxiety and emotion. But [the horses] have a foundation to come back to. They know we’ll give them the time and space to relax.”

The horses aren’t the only ones who have come to count on Choate. Around the barn, her dedication, her willingness to help, and her positivity impacts human as much as horse.

“There’s just such a level of trust with her,” Benita said. “She cares so much about the horses and knows them in a totally different way than I do. She’s been with them for so long, and spends so much time with them, she’ll notice things that I don’t. She’s such a part of the team. I just feel much more comfortable knowing that she’s with them and has eyes on them. I know they’re well taken care of.

“And it’s also really fun, because she doesn’t just know the program, but she knows us really well,” she continued. “It goes beyond the horses. She’s absolutely part of our team.”

Improving The Industry

For the past two years, Choate’s involvement with the International Grooms Association has enabled her to make an impact far beyond her home farm. As an ambassador, other grooms can go to her for advice or support or with concerns that they feel should be brought to horse show organizers or the Fédération Equestre Internationale.

“It’s really important for other grooms to get involved,” she said. “[The organization] speaks at FEI meetings, and they’re able to make some real changes. Recently, at the Olympics, they were able to improve groom accommodations, and they’re advocating for late-night classes moved earlier [to shorten working hours].”

(In its first draft of rule change proposals submitted for 2026, released earlier this month, the FEI rejected a proposal from IGA and the Grooms Consultative Group to end FEI night classes, including prize-givings, by 11 p.m. and ensure horses in those classes don’t compete before 10 a.m. the following day. In its response, the FEI said this was already addressed in scheduling and that it would work on sanctions for non-compliance.)

The organization also conducts surveys about working conditions at shows. For example, Choate said, at certain venues the barns are far from food vendors, trailers or restrooms. During nonstop show days, access to these things is important.

“A lot of shows are trying to do better,” she said. “Stable View [South Carolina], for example, has lovely riders’ lounges with snacks and drinks and bathrooms. We can see show organizers working hard to make conditions better for employees.”

The work-life balance that Plain Dealing provides, as well as the improving working conditions that the IGA continues to push for, will hopefully set Choate up for years of continued success and satisfaction in her career.

“My biggest pet peeve is when people use the excuse, ‘It’s just the industry; that’s just the way it is,’ for excuses for pay, contracts, time off, etc.

“That’s why the turnover is so high,” she said. “People are burned out. They don’t get paid enough. They don’t get time off. I look at other programs and know that I wouldn’t have lasted at other places for this long.”

She looks forward to the years ahead with the Plain Dealing horses, riders and colleagues.

“Not only do you get to know the horses when you’ve been in a program for so long,” she said, “but you get to know what your riders are looking for, and what they want to accomplish. There’s a more natural feel for what needs to get done.

“It’s just become a really rewarding career,” she said. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve cried seeing my horses come out of the ring or off of the cross-country course. I love the relationships I’ve developed with these horses, and our farm has come to feel like family.”

Do you know an exceptional groom who deserves to be showcased in our Groom Spotlight section? If so, email kloushin@coth.com to tell us all about that person.

The post Eventing Groom Sarah Choate Wants A Better Life For Horses And Grooms appeared first on The Chronicle of the Horse.

“I know there’s a lot of really dedicated grooms out there that are amazing, and she belongs right up there,” said Susan. “She’s just one of those extremely dedicated to her job. She loves these horses and has a huge threshold of responsibility to make sure that no stone is unturned. … She’s an incredibly dedicated young woman, and a huge, huge asset to me and my program. I already told her, ‘If you quit, I quit! All the horses are for sale.’ I’ve said that to her many times. ‘I’m not doing this without you.’ ”

Muma, 35, grew up in Michigan with a mother who loved horses and taught her good horsemanship skills. She did 4-H and hunter/jumpers then switched to eventing, but she never had grand showing ambitions. She applied for a job at eventer Buck Davidson’s farm in 2010 and stayed for about two years helping run his 70-horse operation.

Working for Davidson fueled her love of high-performance sport, and she groomed top horses like Ballynoe Castle RM, Copper Beach, Park Trader, Absolute Liberty and The Apprentice.

“My constant work ethic and the will to just keep going and doing whatever the horses need until the bitter end of the day comes from eventing,” she said. “They are some of the hardest-working people I have ever been around, and they do it—I mean, everybody does it—for the love of the horse. If you’re not in this for the love of the horse, then you shouldn’t be in it. But the eventers are cut from no other cloth I’ve ever seen before.”

Muma’s also proud of her Midwestern heritage and considers it to be a core part of her identity as a groom.

“Quite a few of my friends from Michigan are also very good grooms and show managers. I swear, it’s just something about people from the Midwest that just bust their [butt] and work hard,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s just the way we were raised or what, but I think eventing definitely taught me that you work, and there’s like, a hundred million things to do, but you’re doing it, and you’re doing it with a smile on your face. We always had fun; we always were laughing and having a party in the stable.”

When Ballynoe Castle RM was shortlisted for the 2012 London Olympics, Muma met Tim Dutta, founder and owner of The Dutta Corp., which flies horses around the world, during quarantine in Gladstone, New Jersey.

Tim offered her a job if she ever got tired of grooming, and she took him up on it later that year for a chance to try something new. She worked in his New York office, helping coordinate flights, doing paperwork, and being on the ground at the airport to help with horses. She spent a season in Florida doing importing and exporting, including meeting horses like Daniel Deusser’s FEI World Cup Final champion Cornet d’Amour and Kent Farrington’s Gazelle when the mare was first imported.

“You get to meet all these incredible horses that, at the end of the day, they don’t know that they’re that incredible,” she said. “They’re just horses, you know. But it’s just so cool, the different animals you get to meet doing this job.”

But office life wasn’t for her for long, and less than a year later, she took a job as Susan’s full-time groom. She’d filled in for her groom a few times during that season, and while she initially thought a dressage job would be boring compared to working with eventers, she and Susan soon developed a strong working relationship, and she fell in love with Susan’s horses. She also started helping the Duttas’ son Timmy, now 23, as he got into polo.

“Honestly from there, [Susan and I] kind of clicked together, and I love Timmy,” she said. “He’s like my brother, and we just had so much fun in the stable together. And I think that’s a super important part of a team and a dynamic—having fun.

“Honestly, I don’t care what sport it is—when you take care of these animals, it’s just a privilege every day,” she continued. “At the end of the day, good horse care is good horse care; it doesn’t matter if it’s a polo pony, a dressage horse, a jumping horse.”

Susan, a former eventer herself, appreciated that connection with Muma. Watching Muma interact with Timmy as he grew up also was special from a mother’s perspective.

“This is a family operation, and she’s dedicated to my son and his polo ponies, and that’s difficult because it’s in the middle of our season too,” Susan said. Muma sometimes uses her day off from dressage grooming to work on the polo ponies and do therapies for them. “She’s like, I want him to succeed, and I know I can help them,” Susan said.

One of Muma’s favorite parts of the job is watching the many young horses Susan brings along, like Figeac DC, who Susan got as a 4-year-old and is now 16 and competing at Grand Prix.

“He’s everybody’s favorite, because he’s just gorgeous,” Muma said. “I mean, he’s on the Purina mash bag! He’s a supermodel. He’s in all the photos with Anna Buffini for LeMieux right now. I think he’ll always be super special to me, just because he has this heart that he would give everything to Susie in the ring.”

While Muma doesn’t ride much these days, she got a chance to play with Figeac DC at home over the winter and made it her goal to do one-tempi changes. “It is not easy!” she said with a laugh.

“She doesn’t like me to watch her ride, so she rode by herself quietly in the afternoon,” Susan said of Muma’s sessions with the gelding. “When she felt comfortable, she would send a video, and she learned everything on him, like the whole Grand Prix, she learned, but quietly by herself.

“That was the person who was supposed to enjoy him, the one that cared for him for the last 12 years,” she added. “So that was really fun. I think that horse, for sure, holds a piece of her heart.”

She also hacks on occasion and has an open invitation to ride a polo pony with Timmy.

“I don’t ride as much as people probably would think, but to be honest, it’s not super important to me. It’s a great added bonus,” she said. “Honestly, just being with them is kind of an everyday adventure.”

Muma considers her job to be the voice of the horses in her care. She and fellow groom Birgit “Bernie” Maier, who worked for show jumper Margie Engle for more than 20 years, take care of Susan’s seven horses.

“I got so lucky; I hit the jackpot,” Muma said of Maier. “She’s incredible. It’s just so nice to have somebody at home that I don’t have to worry about what’s going on at home. She’s just doing the same amount of care as I do, and I think that’s super important to have in any high-performance stable—a good team that you can trust so you can go away to shows. She joined our team this year. I wish I could clone her, so then I could take her everywhere with me!”

Muma is the proudest of her attention to detail, which she feels can get lost in today’s horse world.

“A lot of people skip the part of paying attention to what your horses are just trying to tell you in their everyday life—it just kind of gets lost in the shuffle, and I’m just so fortunate that I can be so hands-on in the stable, and Susie trusts me enough to guide everybody in a way, and we all work together,” she said. “It’s cohesive. I love learning new things every day. Nobody ever knows everything; there’s always something new to be learned and taught and just be observant. And I think that’s why our horses enjoy being with us. We don’t just chuck them in the stall and pull them out to ride. It’s nice when they nicker at you and stuff like that. It makes the job a little bit easier when you know that they appreciate it.”

“We’ve been around the world, back and forth, all around Europe and America,” said Susan. “It’s been quite a journey, and I think long-time grooms like that, they’re gold—to have a good one that you can really rely on. Carly’s more than a groom. She manages me and manages my life and my Instagram and all sorts of things. I mean, you name it, she does it—designs the invitation for a party, makes appointments for me. She’s like a [personal assistant] and a groom and a manager and a friend. When you’re traveling like this away from your family, it’s nice to have somebody that’s a friend, too.

“She’s very knowledgeable and has gotten even more knowledgeable along the way,” she continued. “And I really entrust my horses to her, you know? I have the luxury of just kind of showing up, and everything is organized and done to a T how I like it, and that’s when you feel really lucky.”

Do you know an exceptional groom who deserves to be showcased in our Groom Spotlight section? If so, email kloushin@coth.com to tell us all about that person.

The post Carly Muma Leaves No Stone Unturned For The Dutta Family appeared first on The Chronicle of the Horse.

“We now have this wonderful medium that is social media to share information on,” Shenchever said. “Dinette asked me if I would mind doing some short how-to videos that she could share with the HorseGrooms community. I will never say that my way is the only way or the best way, but it’s the way that works for me. If there’s someone out there struggling with something, I would love to be able to help them find a solution.” 

When she started sharing “how-to” reels on her social media earlier this year, her goal was to help teach viewers how to better care for their horses. Over the past several months, Stenchever has created 16 educational grooming reels and posted them to her social media channels. One video, which demonstrates her trick for putting EquiFit HorseSox on a big-footed horse, has garnered 533,000 views (and counting) on Instagram.

“For years, I’ve been so hungry to learn,” she said. “A lot of people at the top keep their secrets very guarded because they don’t want to give others an advantage over them, but I’m so the opposite of that. I don’t like gatekeeping information. I’m not out here to get famous—I’m just trying to share what I’ve spent so many years learning.”

Stenchever, 28, has been grooming at the FEI level for nearly a decade, working for Olympians Karl Cook (United States) and Cian O’Connor (Ireland), Irish rider Nicky Galligan, Australian rider Paige Jardine, and Swedish rider Hanna Mauritzson. When Stenchever worked for Cook, she spent a lot of time learning from his trainer, French rider Eric Navet.

“He’s a legend; I learned something new every day,” Stenchever said. “Eric had so much attention to detail, and if there was one hair wrong, he would notice. You would never be in trouble—he would never, ever be angry or raise his voice. But he would be very happy to educate you on the way that things could be, and he always had a ‘why.’ ”

Recognizing the “why” resonated with Stenchever. Working for a diverse group of people taught her that each rider does things differently, and while she’s happy to adapt, she wanted to learn why they do something a particular way. Stenchever has tied this theory into her reels, always explaining the horsemanship reason behind how she does something a certain way.

A Unique Upbringing

Growing up in Seattle, Stenchever’s parents had horses in her backyard, but they were not show horses. As Stenchever’s interest in the horses grew, her parents purchased western trail and barrel racing horses for her to practice on. They also owned draft horses, which Stenchever learned how to drive.

“We also had miniature horses and rabbits that we showed to the top level of those circuits too,” Stenchever said. “It was a very different upbringing—I got to learn so many different things. I’ve dabbled in almost every discipline except for polo.”

At age 16, she went to groom at Emerald Downs, the local racetrack her family frequented. Shortly after, the Cavalia equestrian show, developed by the co-founder of Cirque du Soleil, came into town, and Stenchever learned that Lezlie Wolff, who does the media for Emerald Downs, was attending the show.

“I remember seeing Cavalia as a kid, and I loved it so much,” she said. “So I begged Lezlie to let me come with her to the media day at Cavalia. … We got to go backstage and meet all the grooms and artists and see that it’s a real job that people do.” 

Stenchever spent the next two years applying online every month to be a groom or rider for the show. “I didn’t care what they wanted me to do—I would have done anything,” she said. “I just wanted to be a part of this amazing show.”

When she turned 18, Cavalia finally reached out to Stenchever. The show was then located in China, and she was now old enough for the globe-trotting experience. She was the youngest person they’d hired, and she had two weeks to relocate. Stenchever spent just over a year working for Cavalia in Zhangzhou and Hong Kong.

“I loved working for them—I loved the people, the horses, all of it,” she said. “I was there for the last few shows that the original show did, and if Cavalia had not been petering out at that time, I would have stayed with them for the rest of my life. It was an incredible experience.”

Ten years later, Stenchever still uses some of the techniques she learned at Cavalia with the horses in her care. Both at horse shows and at home, she opts to keep her horses busy on handwalks, taking them into the warm-up rings and making them do half-pass, shoulder-in and haunches-in from the ground instead of aimlessly walking the horses in circles around the barns.

“So much of Cavalia was about the relationship you had with the horse,” Stenchever said. “The horse is only on stage for 2-3 minutes at a time, and they do the same act every single night. It was always mental gymnastics to keep the horses entertained the rest of the time. We did so much liberty work and work off of their backs that I learned that this can be fun for them, and you don’t have to constantly be sitting on the horse and working them. We don’t love when our life is work, sleep, work, sleep—you can have a little bit of play in there. I think it makes the horses so much happier, all around.”

Utilizing Her Skills

Currently, Stenchever works for up-and-coming grand prix rider Stella Buckingham at her Queen Of England Farm in Wellington, Florida. Originally, they connected while Stenchever was working for Galligan, who was Buckingham’s in-house trainer at the time. But once Galligan returned home to Ireland, Stenchever shifted to working full-time for Buckingham, who now trains with Carly Anthony. For the past three years, Stenchever has overseen the daily care of Buckingham’s string of six horses alongside fellow grooms Antonio Sandoval and Adan Gayden.

“We joke around the barn that it’s the Shay and Stella show here,” she said. “Stella really wants to be a horsewoman and learn how to do things. When I started working for her, she had just transitioned from riding mostly equitation and hunter horses and had just started jumping some of the medium/high junior jumpers. Now she has done a lot of two-star and three-star grand prix [classes].”

As Stenchever watched her EquiFit video go viral, she suddenly realized the videos could not only be educational but could benefit both her and Buckingham. She recognized the difficulty of finding sponsors as a young professional and thought they could use the organic content to build a partnership with EquiFit and other similar companies.

“That got me thinking in another way: everyone wants to sponsor a rider and a top rider. But how many people sponsor grooms? Nobody,” she said. “And who is using the products? Who is having to know how to use the products? Who is telling their friends about the products? It’s all the network of grooms.”

Stenchever reached out to several companies that she uses in the barn, including Corro and Stable Secretary, and shared her idea with them with great success. “It’s an opportunity for these companies to work with me while I build a social media following,” Stenchever said. “I posed the question, ‘How can we work together to have something mutually beneficial for both parties?’ Then Stella would get some help as a young rider, and I would get the things that I need to take the best care of the horses.”

Stenchever looks forward to continuing to support Buckingham on her FEI journey, especially since Stenchever has always wanted to be at the top of the sport but doing it on her own wasn’t financially feasible. She’s thrilled to do it alongside an up-and-comer.

“If you try to get a job working for a [grand prix] rider who’s already doing [the five-star] level, they already have a groom who’s taking those top horses to those top shows,” she said. “And that groom has been with that rider for years. So it’s not something that you can buy your way in as a groom, unless you get really, really lucky. You have to know going into it that it’s going to take years to build a rapport with a rider, and that’s just part of it. You’ve got to find someone that you believe in and you can trust, and for me, that’s Stella.”

Do you know an exceptional groom who deserves to be showcased in our Groom Spotlight section? If so, email kloushin@coth.com to tell us all about that person.

The post Show Jumping Groom Shay Stenchever Finds Joy In Sharing Her Knowledge appeared first on The Chronicle of the Horse.

Today, Simpson is the barn manager and head groom for Olympic event rider Boyd Martin, overseeing his top-tier international program with nearly a dozen working students and staff and horses at all levels of training. Throughout the years, Simpson’s hard work and humor—along with her keen attention to detail and genuine love for the horses in her care—set her apart as a fixture in the sport.

But it was an unconventional path led Simpson from the family’s Vermont farm to a stable with horses and riders so famous they’re household names. 

“I didn’t go right from college to here,” she said. “There was a huge learning curve coming from a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere to sport horses.”

With that learning curve came long days and lots of hard work. Simpson credits her family’s lifestyle for her work ethic and grit. “You have to farm because you love it,” she said. “It makes you tough.”

It was her advisor at the University of Vermont, where Simpson earned a degree in animal sciences, who first encouraged her to follow the pull of horses and seek out a working student position to get her feet wet. That led her to Pennsylvania, where she took her first job with eventer Jane Sleeper then moved to the Schramms, ultimately staying with them for four years as a groom and de facto barn manager.

In 2018 she received the phone call that would change her life. She was just finishing up a winter’s worth of work for Liz Halliday, driving Halliday’s rig back to Ocala from Kentucky, when that pivotal call … went to voice mail. 

Boyd Martin knew that Simpson was between jobs, he said, and he needed a groom. Seven years later, Simpson still has the message saved on her phone. 

“I’d always admired how hard she worked,” Martin said. “When she worked for Dom and Jimmie, she’d wake up at three o’clock in the morning to muck stalls for other riders, then babysit after her day was over. I saw that she was invested in her goals, and I was drawn to that.”  

She took the position, and now she’s a regular at five-star events all over the world, having accompanied Martin to two Olympics and two world championships along the way. 

“When she started here, I didn’t realize what an unbelievable impact she’d make on my career,” Martin said. “I knew she was good, but I didn’t realize she was going to be this good.”

At Windurra USA in Cochranville, Pennsylvania, home base for Martin and his wife, international dressage athlete Silva Martin, Simpson now leads a team of almost a dozen of what she calls “well-rounded horse people.”

“No one here is above doing anything,” Simpson said. “No one just shows up, rides horses, and goes home. Everybody mucks out, everybody does turnout. Everyone here learns to be observant about the horses.” 

Simpson’s daily routine at Windurra is generally the same: feeding, changing turn-outs, mucking stalls, then pairing up horses and riders according to Boyd’s training plans. She handles the majority of Boyd’s upper-level horses, often hacking them out to wherever he is on the farm, and ensures each day is running smoothly. Boyd said he’s come to rely on Simpson for her in-depth understanding of the program and its horses. 

“I’m often bouncing ideas off her, or asking her training questions, or getting her opinion on what days we should gallop or what jumps to use,” Boyd said. “Sometimes I think she’s more knowledgeable of our horses than a lot of the vets out there. She’s the one trotting the horses out and evaluating their soundness or checking in with the blacksmiths. She’s always picking up on little things that need attention. She’s basically the manager of this whole production.”

Simpson’s attention to detail is still razor sharp at the end of the day when she’s wrapping legs, administering meds, feeding and shuffling around horses dependent on weather and season. 

“Steph leads by example,” Boyd said. “She outworks everyone. She’s here before them. She leaves after them. She sets a very high standard, and that sort of quality is infectious. Everyone else just tries to keep up with her.”

Simpson’s weekdays at the farm start around 7 a.m. and usually wrap up about 12 hours later. 

“But I was at the barn until 10:30 p.m. last night,” she said, laughing. “And on the weekends [if there’s a show], I’m often rolling into the barn at 2 a.m. So I’m probably the worst person to talk to about balance. I don’t really take time off. But I’ve never felt a day where I didn’t want to go to work or thought, ‘I’d rather work at a bank.’ ”

While days at Windurra may feel somewhat routine, her competition schedule with Boyd has been anything but. Ten years ago, Simpson told the Chronicle that her bucket list included grooming somewhere in Europe. Today, her position has taken her around the world, including trips two Olympic games (Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024) and Italy for the 2022 FEI Eventing World Championship. She’s now a regular at events across Europe, calling Burghley her favorite. 

“Those events weren’t even on my radar 10 years ago,” she said. “But I’m trying to live in the moment. Some days it’s hard to look around and appreciate where you are when you’re so caught up in the things that need done. In Paris last year, I was walking the course and stressing out about getting back to the barn. But then I looked up, and there was the Palace of Versailles. I have to consciously say, ‘Stop being an uptight psychopath and enjoy this moment!’ ”

Boyd remembers walking the cross-country course at the Paris Olympic and says it’s a favorite memory of his with Simpson. 

“The moment was kind of surreal,” he said. “We’ve been to battle together, so many times. We’ve traveled the world with these amazing horses, and we’ve had some incredible results and some devastating, disappointing results. This sport has the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. But then, after thousands and thousands of hours of work you end up in amazing places like Versailles together, walking on the palace lawns.”

Simpson credits the sport and the horses themselves for keeping her humble. 

“One weekend we’ll be at Kentucky five-star prize-giving,” she said, “and then the next we’re at a local horse trial getting screamed at by the parking guy because my trailer’s not at the exact angle that he wants. Horses can be humbling, and you have to have a sense of humor. Win or lose, big event or small, the day after a horse show is still just the day after a horse show, even if that show is in a really fancy place. The world is going to go on, no matter what happens.”

Ten years ago, Simpson said she wasn’t sure how long she’d continue as a groom. 

“Oh, she was naïve!” Simpson said of her younger self. 

“When you get started in this,” she continued, “You’re just fumbling around like an idiot, asking so many questions. Then somewhere, somehow, I became the person answering the questions. Sometimes I think, ‘How did I get here? Is this imposter syndrome?’ But now, when someone calls me, I do have the answer.”

“Back then I probably thought that grooming at the upper levels was so out of reach,” she continued. “But now, I look back at everything I’ve done, and I am the most experienced one. It just happens over time. I think you’re always just changing into new versions of yourself.”

But some things haven’t changed. A decade ago, she called herself “kind of a control freak”—and today says her desire to do things a certain way has “one hundred percent gotten worse” over the years. She’s also come to rely on some superstitions help her through stressful show days.

“I just start silently checking off all my psychotic stuff,” she said, laughing, “I like to put Boyd’s number in his pinny. If I’m doing studs or something, I always start with the left front. Like, it’s crippling if I can’t start with the left front. And at a big event, I like to do the tacking myself, even when we have multiples and I have to sprint from the finish line to the barn.”

“But I think there’s just a lot of pressure [at the big events],” she continued. “At the end of the day, I only have myself to blame if something’s gone awry. So instead of putting that pressure on some unsuspecting soul, I’d rather just keep it myself.”

“The weirdest quirk I find,” Boyd said, “is that Steph refuses to watch the horses go cross-country. I didn’t realize this until about four or five years in.”

Now, that superstition has become a bit of a running joke. 

“It’s so nerve-wracking just before a cross-country round at a five-star,” Boyd said. “But just before I start, I’ll often say to her, ‘You gonna go watch?’ and it’s the only time we’ll crack a smile.” 

“Eleven minutes on a cross-country course feels like two hours,” Simpson said. “I’m not watching that.” 

She just wants horse and human to gallop safely across the finish. Then, she can get back to work. 

“I’m consumed by my job, but it doesn’t consume me, if that makes sense,” she said. “I enjoy it, so it doesn’t seem like work.”

More than anything else, Simpson adores being a part of the growth and success of the horses in her care. 

“I was here when Muss Lulu Herself did her first beginner novice, and now she’s entered in a five-star,” Simpson said. “When the days go by and the years go by, to see what happens in your time, it’s pretty satisfying.”

And she treasures the relationships built with her four-legged teammates.

“I’ve traveled all over with Thomas and Bruno,” she said, referring to Boyd’s five-star partners Tsetserleg TSF and Fedarman B. “They’re like people. They have their things they like and things they don’t like. They have their unique personalities. You learn to understand how they think and how they move. If you’re in tune with them, it’s all just easier. And you can learn a lot about them if you just keep your eyes open.”

Boyd’s own eyes are open to Simpson’s vital role in his program. 

 “So many people come through the business, and the first time you meet them you don’t know if they’re going to stay for three days or three years,” he said. “But you come to recognize the people who are really, really invested and committed.

“There’s definitely, from my side, a huge feeling of respect,” he continued. “And I’m a little bit scared of her, too. There are a lot of people in my life now who just say yes, and she’s definitely not one of them. I respect that.”

“People have really high expectations when they think about working for Boyd Martin,” Simpson said, “like it’s going to be all chandeliers and brick pavers and riding around on five-star horses. That’s not it all. You don’t do it to be on Instagram.”

Perhaps not, but within Boyd’s professionally produced social media, Simpson has become a bit of a fourth-wall counterpoint, popping up to occasionally grouse about being filmed or taking a humorous dig at the social media crew who aren’t working quite the hours she is.

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A post shared by Boyd Martin (@boydmartineventing)

“We’re out here in the snow. We’re out here in the rain. We’re out here in the blazing sun. You have to be physically and mentally tough. I learned that from Boyd,” she said. “Some of my other friends who are grooms in smaller programs say they would never want my job. But I wouldn’t want theirs. I know I couldn’t do a five-horse program; I would go insane.”

“I think you kind of end up where you’re supposed to be,” she continued. “I don’t mind working my ass off because it’s important. It’s my career. It’s Boyd’s career. It’s the horse’s career. And I just love what I do.” 

Do you know an exceptional groom who deserves to be showcased in our Groom Spotlight section? If so, email kloushin@coth.com to tell us all about that person.

The post Eventing Groom Stephanie Simpson Has Gone From Apprentice To Master appeared first on The Chronicle of the Horse.