My older daughter, Claire, has loved horses and riding ever since her maternal grandfather gave her a Shetland Pony when she was very young. She has progressed from bouncing on her pony (“Coco”), to competing at Hunter/Jumper shows on “Silver Lining”, “Royalty B”, “Motor City”, and “Cortina’s Allessandro”, to competing at the college level in hunter/jumper, dressage, and now western disciplines. Not to mention that she spends her summers working at Children’s Theraplay, a hippotherapy facility for children with disabilities, as well as being a groom at the Hickory Hall Polo Club near our home in Zionsville.
Horses have been a big part of Claire’s life for a long time.
This is Claire’s first year riding western and she succeeded in making it all the way to the 2024 IHSA Western Semi-Finals held at Albion College in Albion, MI. This is literally “just down the road” from Marshall, MI where her grandfather grew up on a farm with horses and cattle along with competing in 4-H. Claire’s journey had come full circle!
Her grandfather is surely proud of her earning 6th place out of the 16 competitors in the Individual Level I Horsemanship division. Mount Holyoke also went on to earn Champion honors in the team competition the next day and will travel to the 2024 IHSA Western Finals in Mill Spring, NC in May.