I started riding when I was 10 years old. I did not come from a horse family, so I learned about horses and horse ownership as I went. I got out of the horse world when I went to college but returned to it almost 15 years later!

I competed in dressage for about three years on schooling horses and felt that showing was a very empty pursuit for me.I wanted to find a “project” horse I could learn to train up through the dressage levels with the help of a knowledgeable trainer. I loved the idea of rescuing a horse to turn into my dressage partner, so I ran a search on MyRightHorse.org on a whim while I was on a family vacation in Missouri. Chessrate showed up in the search results and seemed like the perfect match.

I returned home from my trip but could not stop thinking about her, so I reached out to the rescue. She was at Longmeadow Rescue Ranch in Union, Missouri. I went to visit her a month later, and a month after that she made the trek to her forever home in Colorado.