All in the family

By: The Pony Post Grad on 10:33 AM

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Hop on it! Here's a completely awesome blog hop topic from SavvyMom at Party Down! (Or Riding Genes, not sure her official blog name)

FAMILY OBSESSION: We all know we are obsessed with horses.  We ride them, buy them, write about them, spend mass amounts of money on them, and dream about spending mass amounts of money on them. So, who else in your life is obsessed about their passion???


I am incredibly blessed that my family is entirely horsie. I don't know if a love for riding is actually genetic, but for me there wasn't really a chance otherwise :).

my favorite family photo, Daddy ALWAYS wears a cowboy hat

Mom did not come from a horse loving family, she was the only one with the bug, however she hand understanding parents who always helped to fuel her habit. She grew up in the Woodside
area which is beautiful and wooded and incredibly horse centric. By 16 she had her own truck, trailer and horse and would head across the Golden Gate to horse shows and rodeos all over (fun fact a trailer in SF is NOT fun) She went off to college at Cal Poly where she rode on the equestrian team, and competed for rodeo queen.

Working the ranch together

My dad grew up on the family's ranch, back in the day it was a couple hundred acres along the river, as times changed and the rest of the family chose not to continue farming and raising cattle the property was sold off. Eventually Dad was the last one, helping great granddad take care of a few horses and farming a small bit.

He went to college where he was a member of the rodeo team, in charge of arena maintenance and operations. During the great Poly Royal Rodeo dinner (which he attended with a date) a rodeo queen contestant caught his eye, and the rest is history!

GNR together many years later.

After they got married mom trained horses and dad worked. Then when I came along mom chose to go back and get a second degree as a physical therapist. At that point the spotlight was on me! I attended my first world show 6 months after my birth where I sat in Mom's lap for the win photo. I won my first world championship at 5 years old in lead line, I was the only rider proudly sporting all hunt seat tack!

Yearly trail ride together!

At that point we were off to the races, they took me everywhere for shows, rodeos and 4-H; hauling for national titles and World Championships. These opportunities allowed me the chance to ride for a Division 1 Equestrian team. After college we are back together as a family, now my parents attend almost all of my major rodeos and shows.


 At least once a year we try to attend a large trail ride as a family, these are hosted by a reserve sheriff deputy organization my dad is a member of. Also we have created a family tradition of showing in the Grand National Rodeo and Horse Show, which was one of their first shows as a couple many years ago!