United States Eventing Association

This is the 21st entry in the USEA’s Member Story Series. Help us reach our goal of over 300 stories – email your story to Leslie.

My name is Erin Riley. I am 17-years-old and a senior at Warhill High School. I have always been obsessed with horses and riding, as a young child I used to sit on my black lab’s back and cluck to get him to go (I learned young how to fall off the right way). I would every year without fail ask for a pony for my birthday. I played soccer and softball as a kid and being in a military family meant we moved, a lot. But in sixth grade we moved to Maryland and instead of soccer I started taking riding lessons.

My first trainer took me to an Seneca Horse Trials to watch and I was star struck. Watching the horses leave from the start box and in such rhythm soar over cross-country fences like they were nothing, I was in love. I got my first horse in seventh grade and she carted me around at my first Beginner Novice event in eighth grade. I was also an avid Pony Clubber and seeing as my mare was in her twenties we decided it would be a good idea to buy a younger Pony Club "prospect." That was when I found my current mount as a extremely green four-year-old Quarter Horse, formerly known as Our Mr.Jones or "Ash." We quickly renamed him and he goes by Riley or Goober. Not only was he extremely green but so was I since I had not been riding for more then two years at the time but hey a four-year-old with 30 days training is a GREAT idea, right?!

After many months of hard work we had to pack up and move yet again. Well we ended up in Williamsburg, Virginia in the middle of hunter/jumper country. Luckily the hunter barn where we were stabling had a well educated and very successful Intermediate level eventer there, and we began lessons. It was a grueling process getting Riley ready for his first Beginner Novice event and no surprise when his little Quarter Horse brain got completely overwhelmed and we had a very nervous and inconsistent dressage test, a few refusals on cross-country, and a fall in show jumping. Nowhere to go but up from that point on. Riley had some confidence issues, and if he didn't want to jump a jump, oh boy was he going let you know! But we got over it and after about a year at Beginner Novice we moved up to Novice, and with the move up came the confidence issues again. We worked through his issues with a LOT of lessons and cross-country schooling. We also got the opportunity to spend a weekend with Lainey Ashker and that weekend Riley really grew up and showed me what he could do, not to mention a lot of the confidence Lainey gave us. Now its just about time for the 2011 season and Riley has already completed four Training level events without confidence issues and his dressage is LEAGUES above what I ever thought he was capable of. I have a great feeling about this spring and summer season and I am really hoping to go out with a bang before I am off to college in the fall.