There you are, on your way to the first jump of the course, setting the pace for every single jump you will head to after this one. You are one with your horse, your partner, your teammate. Once you get to the jump, your horse propels himself and you up and over the obstacle. As you soar over it, you think to yourself, “This is horseback riding.” This is the sensation that several students here at Starr’s Mill get to feel every day when they go out to the barn to ride in the hunter/jumper discipline.

A discipline is a style of riding and the most popular discipline in the Peachtree City area is hunter/jumpers, where horses and their riders go over six to 15 obstacles or jumps in the arena. They are either timed or judged. Several girls here at Starr’s Mill do hunter/jumpers.

One girl who participates in this discipline is sophomore Ashlynn Eislie who has been riding since she could walk. She learned how to ride and train horses, properly care for them, feed them, and muck stalls at her barn. Eislie does this often due to the fact that her mother is a trainer at their farm Iron Gate. Eislie also owns four horses of her own, and each one is used for a different discipline in which her mother is her coach for most of them.

Another student that rides here at the Mill is junior Caitlyn Gloriod. She has been riding since she was seven years old, but has been at her current barn Windy Oaks for about four years. She owns a horse named Bailey, whom she got when she turned thirteen. She and Bailey have continued to advance and make wins at the local show circuit in one of the classes.

A third student that rides is junior Sarah Karol who has been riding for about four years and now owns a horse named Rafael as well as leases another horse from a girl at her barn. In recent years, Karol has gone up from the local show circuit to the “A” show circuit.

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Circuits are different levels of competition and an “A” circuit is recognized nationally while local circuits are only recognized within the state. This movement of circuits is a big step as competition is steeper at “A” shows. In the future, she hopes “to train and sell horses when [she’s] older,” Karol said.

Horseback riding isn’t a part-time hobby for any of them, whether they have one horse or four. “It’s not something that you can go to just once or twice a week. You gotta be there,” Karol said. The girls spend between 15-25 hours per week at the barn. Gloriod has decided to take a break from riding this year because she didn’t want to get behind in school.

In addition to riding at their barns several times a week, all the girls attend competitions about once a month. Competitions take up even more of their time because they “often have to leave school early on Friday to school [their] horse,” Gloriod said. Schooling is taking a horse up to the show on Friday and warming up for the weekend as well as getting used to new surroundings.  

In fact, when the riders are at a show, they don’t have time to even think about schoolwork.  “Your full focus is on [the show], and you don’t really have a lot of time for school work,” Karol said.

Even though it is a huge commitment, the girls continue to ride almost every day and want to continue it in the future. It’s worth it, and the hard work pays off. “It shows when you do well at competitions,” Karol said.