Well, it’s been quite a spring. It’s funny how we all can’t wait for spring and racing to begin, but once it begins we find ourselves overwhelmed and busy and then before we know it, the spring season is all over!

This has been the most exciting and memorable spring racing season for me as a rider. As a young fairly inexperienced female jockey in steeplechasing, there are definitely many obstacles that I’ve had to overcome to get opportunities to ride races. I have won over 20 point to point races, but have only ridden a handful of sanctioned jump races. I started this spring with a win over hurdles at Blue Ridge Point to point on Dai Bando (trained by Jimmy Day) and a 3 rd on Orchestra Leader over hurdles at Warrenton Point to Point (also trained by Jimmy Day). I also won a 2-mile training flat race on Lune De Caro for my boss, Jonathan Sheppard. Little did I know at the time that those point to point races would lead to the biggest spring season of my career.

“Where do you go for the winter?”   When I answer that I stay at Jonathan’s farm in PA all winter managing over 60 horses, I get many apologetic grimaces, but what people don’t understand is the winter months at the farm are very important and telling months as we are legging up horses and

It’s going on 5 months since the Steeplechase community said goodbye to the horse that has meant the most to me in my 20 years of dealing with horses. The funny thing is, I didn’t own him, he was not mine in any way shape or form. He was in the barn from the time

Jump racing has been advertised as “the first second career for many flat horses,” but what many owners and trainers in flat racing don’t fully understand is how old steeplechase horses are and can be. Just because they have peaked a year earlier and are ending their flat career at the age of 5 or

The biggest misconception with the sport of steeplechasing is that it varies so much from flat racing, when in reality, this couldn’t be any farther than the truth. I have heard many people who are not familiar with steeplechasing ask what breed the horses are that race over hurdles, and that just shows how much