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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“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.

Throughout her childhood and teenage years, Griffin took lessons and competed at local shows. During summertime, she enjoyed even more farm experiences. “I have one part of my family that owns a farm in Tennessee. It’s like 300 acres, and they have ponies, cows, the whole shebang,” she said. “And I would go there every summer and spend all summer just being a farm kid, riding the ponies, helping with the baby goats. I really learned to love that kind of farm life.”

Grooming on the Fédération Equestre Internationale fircuit was unlike anything Griffin had done, but she had come highly recommended, and Barge had been hoping for a female groom. From then-22-year-old Griffin’s perspective, taking the job would be a big change, but she was up for the challenge. “I was like, being from a small town in Georgia, I don’t want to look back on this and regret not moving to Malibu, California. So, I just moved right out.”

After several years with Barge, fate intervened with another job offer. Griffin was offered a position at Pomponio Ranch in Rancho Santa Fe, California, but turned it down because she was worried about high cost of housing in the San Diego area. Griffin was two days away from taking a job in Florida when Pomponio’s barn manager called her again. She had arranged housing, she said, and Griffin couldn’t say no. “My first show with Karl [Cook] and Eric [Navet] was the Las Vegas National in 2019, and I’ve been here ever since.”

Griffin appreciates the opportunity to provide individual care for a handful of horses in the Pomponio Ranch string. On a day-to-day basis, she is responsible for three horses, most famously Kalinka Van’t Zorgvliet, a 13-year-old Belgian Warmblood mare (Thunder VD Zuuthoeve—Goldfee Van’t Zorgvliet, Flipper D’Elle) who recently won the $1 Million Coachella Cup Grand Prix (California) and earned the 2023 USEF Channel I Grand Prix Jumper Horse of the Year title.

Kalinka benefits from Griffin’s knowledge of physiotherapy and commitment to continued learning. Kalinka’s regular routine includes laser therapy, therapeutic ultrasound, specialized massage therapy, and a stretching regimen. Griffin first became interested in physiotherapy after meeting Janus Marquis, the equine physiotherapist for the U.S. show jumping team.

“It’s very educational here,” said Griffin. “We are surrounded by knowledgeable people, which allows us to excel in our own personal growth and care, which I really love.”

Griffin has continued to learn from Pomponio veterinarians Phillippe Benoit and Kate Zukiewicz-Benoit, the latter of whom specializes in equine bodywork. While some Pomponio grooms do a fair amount of exercise riding, Griffin has found her passion in physiotherapy. “I like to do more on the ground,” she said. “I want to know what I can do to help the horses feel 150% in the ring.”

Additionally, Griffin leaves no stone unturned to make every part of the horse’s job as easy as possible. For example, she has a strategy to make FEI boot check painless for everyone involved. “ ‘Kali’ has a reputation for being a little spicy at boot check, so I always practice before I go to the ring, always. And that is so I can be quick for Kali,” she said.

As an added layer of strategy, Griffin gives Kalinka a mint right before boot check. “Usually that’s enough to just stimulate her brain to think about that instead,” she said. 

It’s that level of detail that helps a horse like Kalinka feel her best, and Griffin enjoys that part of the job the most.

“I really like to know my horses, day in and day out,” she said. “I like to know how they feel before they jump. I like to know how they feel after. I like to know how they feel on a bad day. It’s an important thing, especially for someone like Kalinka, when she can actually be pretty stoic. Even if something is bothering her, she can be pretty stoic. So, I think it’s better to know her a little bit more in depth, so I can catch those small things quicker, and make sure that she’s really taken care of.”

That dedication is part of what makes her so vital in Cook’s eyes.

“Everyone talks about the relationship between rider and horse, and also groom and horse, but the relationship between rider and groom is also important,” he said. “Sarah is amazing, and I know I can trust her. Having someone you know really well, who knows you really well, is so important—especially with a horse like Kalinka.

“Sarah is very sensitive in a great way,” he added. “Where some grooms might miss something, like little emotional details about how the horses are feeling, Sarah doesn’t. When the finest margins matter, it’s important to have that.”

Griffin’s committed to Kalinka and Cook’s road to the very highest levels of the sport, and she feels that grooms are vital to that journey. “Grooming isn’t just about knowing the horse’s saddle and bridle,” she said. “It’s about knowing their brain, their whole body, plus their soul and spirit.”

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 Groom Spotlight: Sarah Griffin’s Attention To Detail Brings Out The Best In Her Charges appeared first on The Chronicle of the Horse.

In his almost four decades in the horse business, Antonio Bustamante has worked for people in all parts of the hunter/jumper world, from horse enthusiasts at their home farms to Olympians and, for the past 13 years, for Val Renihan’s Findlay’s Ridge LLC. Everywhere he works, he leads by example as a horseman whose calm, comforting demeanor soothes his charges.

“I think Antonio’s temperament is why he’s been with me so long,” Renihan said. “He’s easy-going with the horses and that’s really important to me. I can trust him with a nervous horse, and he has a lot of common sense.”  

Findlay’s Ridge barn manager Chris Strucker, who has worked with Bustamante since 2018, agrees with Renihan’s assessment of Bustamante, who now is the farm’s head groom. He and others note that Bustamante’s calm energy doesn’t just help the horses in his care, it helps the people around him.

“He has this calm demeanor—he moves slowly and relaxed around the horses,” Strucker said. “I’m a bit of an uptight person, so seeing how horses respond to his calm energy versus my panicked energy has opened my eyes and really resonates with me. It’s helped me learn to relax with the horses more.”

Bustamante, 51, grew up in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and came to America in 1985 with no horse experience. At the time, one of his friends was working with show horses, so Bustamante decided to give it a try. His first grooming job was working for a private client from England who was based near Memphis, Tennessee. 

“I learned a lot about caring for show horses from her,” Bustamante said. “I believe you can learn new things every single day.” 

Over the years, Bustamante has cared for hundreds of horses for many different riders and trainers, including trainer Dave Pellegrini (Tennessee), the late amateur hunter rider Patty Raynes (New York), Canadian Olympic rider Mario Deslauriers, and top equitation trainer Renihan, with whom he’s worked for since 2010 at her business, which is based in Wellington, Florida, in the winters and North Salem, New York, in the summers. 

“Val teaches a lot of junior riders, and I like to work with the kids,” Bustamante said. “I see a lot of the kids that grew up riding with Val at horse shows now, and they either work for or ride with someone else. It’s like coming home a bit for me to every horse show; my family follows me around. It’s always nice to see everyone again and say hi.”

Amateur rider Ellie Ferrigno is one of those “kids.” Now in her senior year of college at Auburn University, Ferrigno has known Bustamante since she first started taking lessons with Renihan at 8 years old. 

“I remember seeing all of Val’s extremely fancy horses when I was little, and Antonio took care of them, so I thought he was the best of the best,” Ferrigno said. “As I got older, I learned that that was true when he took care of the horses I rode. Antonio has taught me to be very gentle and quiet around the horses; you get so much more out of them when you go slow with them.”

When Ferrigno won the 2019 Platinum Performance/USEF Show Jumping Talent Search Finals—East (New Jersey), Bustamante was there caring for her mount, Discovery O. 

“That year, we only had a couple of horses competing in USET Finals, so we all worked together in the barn,” Ferrigno said. “It was so relaxing doing it with Antonio because I have known him for so long—it felt like we were just having fun.”

Although his job title is head groom, Bustamante’s role has evolved to the point he only has two horses—Sophia Masnikoff’s 3’3” junior hunter Heartdancer H and Brooke Hagerty’s children’s jumper Zeno Z—in his full-time charge. He focuses much of his time managing other aspects of the operation, from overseeing the junior grooms to trailering horses and packing or setting up at horse shows.

“Antonio is very reliable; I can send him to the horse show by himself with a guy or two and he’ll set up everything for us,” Strucker said. He and Bustamante have been working together since September 2018. “It’s a relief to me knowing I can send Antonio early to the shows to take care of it.” 

One of the things Strucker admires the most about Bustamante is his horsemanship skills. “Antonio has more of an old school approach to grooming; he doesn’t give a lot of baths,” Strucker said. “He always hoses off the horses, but he doesn’t soap them a lot. Instead he will brush them for 45 minutes after. I personally like that—it makes a huge difference in their coats. His horses’ stalls are pristinely clean, bedded up to their eyebrows, and I never worry about hock rubs. Antonio can manage himself and his daily schedule, and he follows along on the horse show apps to see when he needs to have his horses at the rings.”

As a groom, his work has been recognized at major shows. 

One of Bustamante’s favorite memories of working for Renihan was when she surprised him with a Groom’s Award at the New England Equitation Championships (Massachusetts) in October 2017.

“Everyone at New England Finals knows Antonio, and Joe Dotoli called me to ask me what I thought of them giving the award to him that year,” Renihan recalled. “I thought it was an awesome idea—by that point, Antonio had been working for me for a while, and he was so loyal. But we didn’t tell him he was getting it!” 

At the end of the long show day, Renihan sent one of the girls back to the barn to find Bustamante so they could present the award. 

“I didn’t know what was happening at the time, and one of the girls came to the barn and said, ‘Antonio, Val wants you to go to the ring,’ and I was like, ‘What does she want; we’re done for the day—why do I need to go back to the ring now?’” Bustamante said, laughing as he recalled the story. “So I went back up to the show ring, and there were people in the middle of the ring and the in-gate person was like, ‘You need to go in there with them.’ So I went and they gave me the Groom’s Award. They also gave me a jacket and a check for $500. I will remember that always—it was such a great memory and I’m grateful to Val for that experience.”

More recently, he earned the Best Turned Out Award on Oct. 27 at the 2023 Washington International Horse Show (Maryland) with Masnikoff’s Heartdancer H. Bustamante has cared for  the 11-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding, known as “Danny” in the barn, since he came to Findlay’s Ridge a year ago. 

“Everyone in the barn knows I really like Danny a lot,” Bustamante said. “Over the years, I’ve had a lot of favorite horses here. I love to spend time with the horses, just grooming and brushing them.”

Between Renihan’s busy show schedule and getting junior riders qualified for all the major equitation finals, Bustamante’s ability to be a “jack-of-all-trades” is invaluable to Renihan.

“His loyalty and his dependability are huge for me,” Renihan said. “And he knows everyone, everywhere. I can always count on Antonio, and I count on him a lot. We have a mutual respect for each other—I try to look out for him, and he does what I need to get done. He’s very methodical.”

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There’s an Alden Corrigan black-and-white photo from the 2023 Platinum Performance USHJA International Hunter Derby Championship (Kentucky) of John French’s mount Paradigm with his groom, Leo Basualto, in the winner’s circle. Basualto is kissing “Mikey’s” nose as his owner, Meredith Lipke, pats Mikey’s neck in appreciation. French said the picture describes Basualto and Mikey’s bond to a T.            

“Leo loves his job and the horses,” French said. “He’s not just a groom; he cares about the whole team. He really cares for all of our horses and how they do, and I think that’s hard to find nowadays.” 

It’s hard to believe that a couple of years ago, Basualto knew almost nothing about showing hunters on the A circuit. Basualto, now 33, had cared for grand prix jumpers in his native Chile, but he had never experienced the United States’ show circuit before. 

“When I started working for John, I didn’t know anything about him,” Basualto said. “I looked John up on the internet and learned as much as I could about him. I never imagined I would be working for someone like John after one year in America—he wins a lot!” 

Basualto had only been in the States for a year when French’s barn manager, Kim Davidson, hired him at the end of 2022. 

“At the time, he was grooming for Andrew Vaziri,” she said. “Last fall, Andrew texted John and I about Leo and told us that Leo was ready to move on to do bigger things. He thought that Leo would be a good fit for us.” 

For the past several years French’s horses have spent downtime at Vaziri’s barn in Davidsonville, Maryland, when they travel to the state for the Capital Challenge and Washington International horse shows. Davidson and French met Basualto there and saw his work ethic in action while caring for Vaziri’s horses. 

“Two days after the text, I had Leo on a plane to Wellington [Florida],” Davidson said. “I picked him up from the airport, went to the grocery store, and he’s never left!”

At the beginning, Basualto’s charges were mostly sales horses to give him more experience. 

“When he started with us, he would come to the show ring with just the horse and no towel or ring bag,” Davidson said. “But as Leo’s skill set improved, we gave him more consistent horses to care for. At that point, I asked him which horses he wanted, and he told me Milagro, Mikey, and Babylon, because they’re the best horses in the barn.” 

To this day, Basualto is responsible for the daily care of those three horses. He also helps with the rest of the horses as needed. 

“Leo never stays at home now; he’s always at the shows with us,” Davidson said. “Between here and Florida, I have 13 to 14 guys, and Leo is a part of my A-team for the shows.”

While he once showed up to the ring empty-handed, Basualto is now prepared for anything—so much so that French jokes that he doesn’t know how Basualto carries his overflowing backpack to the show rings.

“He’s got Gatorades and snacks for everyone, and all the in-gates know him now,” French said. “He just loves to be a part of everything.”

Basualto joined the KPF team right around the time Paradigm won his first USHJA International Hunter Derby in December 2022, and has been part of many of Mikey’s firsts since then, from his first derby win during Week 11 of the Winter Equestrian Festival (Florida) right up to his August victory in the Platinum Performance USHJA International Hunter Derby Championship. 

“Leo had two horses in the Derby Finals that were in top 10—Mikey won it, and Milagro was 10^th,” Davidson said. “It was a huge deal for Leo all-around. He also helped with Ocean Road and Ariana Marnell in the Derby Finals consolation class, and Ariana ended up tied for first with [professional rider] Colin [Syquia]. Leo’s horses mostly just do the special classes and derbies. If the class is special for John, then Leo wants to do well.”

And Basualto loves a good photo op: All the horse show photographers know him and take candid pictures of Basualto with his horses. 

“He loves to get in the pictures,” Davidson said with a laugh. “He doesn’t need John in the pictures; he just wants him and the horse. Leo posts selfies and reels with them on his Instagram all the time. The smile on his face in the photos—he’s so proud of the horses, and he always wants them to do well.”

Basualto’s affinity for top horses means he’s found himself center ring many times since derby finals. At Capital Challenge, Babylon was grand junior hunter, 3’6” Junior Challenge winner and won Trip of the Show with Marnell along with winning the WCHR Pro Challenge class with French for the third year in a row. Basualto himself was the recipient of the Groom’s Award for the grand junior champion. 

During the Pennsylvania National Horse Show’s Junior Weekend in Harrisburg, “Crumbles” again won the grand junior title after topping all three jumping classes with scores in the 90s to claim the small junior hunter, 16-17, division championship, and Basualto again won the Groom’s Award for his hard work—twice, one for each of Crumbles’ championships. 

And after Crumbles won the small junior hunter, 16-17, and grand junior hunter titles at the Washington International (Maryland) Basualto was again center ring to accept another Groom’s Award.

Although Basualto does not have any children of his own, he considers his three main horses to be just like his own kids. 

“Each horse that I take care of is special in their own way,” he said. “They have come into my life for a special reason.”          

What Davidson loves the most about Basualto is his investment in the whole KPF team, including Olympic show jumper Kent Farrington’s side of the business. 

“Leo is a team player and our team cheerleader,” Davidson said. “He’s the one that keeps everyone laughing and makes the hard days easier. If someone else has a big class, he’s going to go to the ring to drop off the rails needed for schooling, or he brings up the ring bag, or he comes up to give the other guy a hand. Leo also has his own ClipMyHorse account so he can follow all of the shows, and he will watch Kent, our riders, and the clients’ rounds religiously. Leo has learned so much in his short time with us, and we’re so grateful for his help.”

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“I am a woman of science, but I’m also a woman of religion, and I have a real strong Christian background,” Abbott said of the way in which chance meetings and connections have shaped her life. “It’s more than fate, it’s faith.”

This week, Abbott is working her final stint as groom for Sydney Elliott and QC Diamantaire. The duo are representing the United States as part of the three-day eventing team competing at the 2023 Pan American Games in Quillota, Chile. Abbott and Elliott are best friends, having met initially in 2003 when Abbott was 12 and then becoming reacquainted in 2015. 

“She’s already been struggling with it,” Elliott said about Abbott wrapping up her grooming career. “We’ve had lots of conversations about it. She’s really had to have a lot of self-reflection over the last year. It’s bittersweet for both of us, but we’ll continue to make memories.”

The two women have developed a close friendship as Abbott groomed for Elliott while the latter has risen into the elite eventing ranks. And they don’t just work together, they play together, too. They schedule museum trips, dinners and other outings wherever competitions or life take them. 

“We’re the best of friends,” Elliott said. “I always love to get a little bit of culture when we’re in these wonderful destinations, and we try to cram it all in. If there are seconds where we can fit stuff in, she’s always down with it.”

Once the eventing competition is over in Chile, they plan to stay in the country a couple extra days to visit a winery and do some hiking. 

“We’re going to make the most of it regardless of what happens,” said Elliott, who’s based in Hoffman, North Carolina. 

However, Abbott said she thinks they’ll be celebrating a successful U.S. team outing and podium visit for Elliott. She’s hazarding a guess that Elliott and “Q,” a 13-year-old Oldenburg gelding (Diarado—Lantana, Sandro Hit) owned by Carol Stephens, will be strong finishers.

“He’s very capable in dressage but we have a little trouble getting him to be consistent,” said Abbott, 32. “He’s capable of a 26 or better. If he can pull off a good test, he could be a medal contender.”

The Pan American Games eventing competition begins Friday at the Chilean Army Riding School, located in San Isidro de Quillota, about 80 miles northwest of Santiago. Competitors will complete a CCI4*-level dressage test and stadium round, and then a CCI3*-level cross-country course. 

For Abbott, the Pan Ams will be her “first proper team competition,” she said as she prepared to travel from Oklahoma, where she lives with her husband, to Miami, where she was meeting Q to escort him to Chile. 

“I know there will be long days, early morning, late nights,” Abbott said of her final grooming assignment.

After the Pan Ams she’ll hang up her groom’s bag to focus on work—she’s a pharmacist for Walmart Corporation in Tulsa—and starting a family with Brice Abbott, her husband of four years. The couple train and compete retriever dogs together, and she competes in hunter derbies with her 9-year-old Zweibrucker gelding Flitwick GSF. (Between “Flit” not loving eventing to the distances needed to travel from Tulsa to get to events, Abbott opted to switch equestrian disciplines.)

The couple met on a blind date in 2016, just after she’d graduated from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences with a doctorate in pharmacy. She moved back to the farm owned by her parents, Cathy and Craig Crowder, southwest of Tulsa, and was perfectly content, she said.

“But I think my parents were getting concerned that I was never going to meet anybody because I was just living at their house, riding my horse and working, so my mom started talking to people,” Elizabeth said with a chuckle. One of those people was her mom’s nail technician, who knew Brice. 

“I was, like, ‘Oh gosh, I don’t want to go on a blind date,’ ” Elizabeth recalled. But a first date led to a second, and eventually they wed on February 29, 2020—Leap Day. 

They enjoyed an early celebration of their “first real” anniversary this past summer, first flying to Boston, where Elizabeth’s longtime friend, event rider Jacob Fletcher, was getting married to Cornelia Dorr, also an eventer. The Abbotts then flew to Iceland, where they traveled for four days, before heading to Germany and Austria, and then meeting up with Elliott, who competed with Q at the Luhmühlen CCI5*-L (Germany). 

“I’m a really big planner. I’ll look at a calendar a year in advance and know where I want to go and where I want to be,” said Elizabeth about combining travel and grooming while also working full-time. “And I just work really hard.”

Born in Texas, Elizabeth fell in love with horses as a child. She was 8 when her family moved to Oklahoma, and she soon began taking weekly riding lessons. At the age of 12, she started feeding horses and cleaning stalls at local trainer Kim Hatley’s to pay for lessons, and then eventually, she found herself working for, and training with, Meighan Ferguson. 

“She was my first real taste of eventing,” Elizabeth said. “She apprenticed with Jimmy Wofford in the ’90s. He had a very specific style and structure. All the grooming, turn out and experience in the barn came from Meighan, which came from Jimmy.”

Elizabeth evented throughout high school, spending portions of the winter with Ferguson in Aiken, South Carolina. She’d send her homework to her high-school teachers via fax and email.

“I learned the juggling skills that continue to this point,” she said with a laugh. In 2009, she groomed at a young riders’ competition, where she met Jacob Fletcher.

“I remember the first time I ever laid eyes on her,” said Lisa Fletcher, Jacob’s mom. “We walked cross-country with her by happenstance, and she and Jacob became fast friends. 

“They were known as The Geek Squad,” Lisa adds, alluding to how both teens were straight-A students who’d aced their ACT tests. “They were just two little eggheads that were a match made in friendship heaven.”

Elizabeth soon assumed groom duties for Jacob, traveling to many competitions with him while finishing high school and beginning a chemical engineering program at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville. She loved her grooming life, but sensed her school life was not on the right path. 

“I was good at math and chemistry, but I really hated engineering,” she said. A summer job at a pharmacy during college introduced her to what would become her career: “I loved it.”

She switched her major to biochemistry and moved to Little Rock to attend UAMS, going to the Fletchers’ farm on the weekends to ride. That soon morphed into her moving into the Fletcher home, where she rode and finished pharmacy school in exchange for tutoring Jacob’s younger brothers, Sam and Adam, in math and science.

“We call Elizabeth our surrogate daughter,” Lisa said. “She lived with us, and she juggled engineering school and traveling. By that time, Jacob was traveling all the time and going everywhere. Most kids can’t balance all of that, but she did, and she did it well.”

In 2010, Elizabeth was named the U.S. Eventing Association’s Groom of the Year while working for Fletcher for as he began his ascent into the upper levels of eventing.

Elizabeth said much of her success in grooming came down to her love of numbers. She’s an avid learner, listening to podcasts, absorbing internet information and watching videos about ranking systems for international horses and riders.

“She is a wealth of knowledge,” said Stephens, who owns Q as well as other horses that Elliott competes. Elizabeth will watch a dressage test, Stephens said, and then have calculated the score, based on her self-taught knowledge of how judges mark a test, before it’s announced. She’s been quick to advise Elliott about which competitions she should consider, based on online ranking data and information she’s gathered about who is competing and what VIPs will be at any given competition.

“The numbers and statistics that she comes up with, it’s amazing,” Stephens said. “All these things that Elizabeth throws at us, it’s always entertaining, and we’re always much smarter for it.”

In fact, it was Elizabeth who convinced Elliott to compete this spring in the Cosequin Lexington CCI4*-S, held alongside the Land Rover Kentucky CCI5*-L. Elliott and Q finished third, behind Karl Slezak of Canada and Tamie Smith, which helped solidify her selection to the Pan American team. Initially Elliott and Stephens were considering not going to Kentucky.

“We have a group WhatsApp going, and I immediately messaged back, ‘The Pan Am dressage judges will be there, the U.S. team selectors will be there. She has to go.’ I knew that was where we had to go,” Elizabeth said. “I study what judges will be there and where selectors are going. I’m such a nerd for the sport.

“I’ve not been an upper-level rider, but I’ve watched a lot of videos and I have a good eye,” she added. “Where I’m really good is not just the grooming but more as a support staff with the numbers and the times and all that, and not just the care of horses.”

Elizabeth transitioned from working for the Fletchers to Elliott in 2015, as Abbott was winding down her work with Fletcher and entering her final year of pharmacy school.

“At that point, I was still kind of working for Jacob, but it was slowing down because he had a full-time groom dedicated to him,” she said. “I got the opportunity to go to a big event with Sydney and took it.” 

That big event was the Fair Hill International CCI4*-L (Maryland), where Elliott was riding Cisco A, the horse with whom she would go on to make her CCI5*-L debut in 2016 at the Kentucky Three-Day Event and represent the U.S. for the first time at the 2018 FEI Eventing Nations Cup at Great Meadow International (Virginia). 

Fast forward eight years, and Elliott is glad that her best friend will be there for her as she competes in Chile, but it will be a bittersweet final grooming adventure for them. 

“Over the years, because I’m such a solo rider and do a lot myself, it’s been a process to find who works well with me. I’m organized chaos, so to speak, so it takes the right person to work with my issues and disorganization,” Elliott said with a chuckle. 

“The trust between you and your groom, you can’t trade it for anything. It makes such a difference for your mental space as a rider,” Elliott added. “Elizabeth dissects all the lines in show jumping with me and on cross-country, and she’s with me in the warm-up for dressage. She’s right there, holding my hand, all the way through. And she knows me. She knows when I need space and when I need tough words. She’s just so wonderful.”

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.

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