MEGAN MCKNIGHT 

Growing up, although I prayed to God when I was about six years old for a horse after getting to touch the neighbor’s horses, my family wasn’t into horses. I lived with a single parent and three other siblings knowing the horse world wasn’t financially doable. God heard me though. When I was nine years old my Mom started dating a man who traded horses for a living. He bought the cheapest, sorriest broke rips that he’d let me crawl up on and gentle down a bit to flip as ‘kid safe’ horses because I didn’t die. I never had a good ol’ broke horse to build my confidence. I had to build my own confidence by being too stubborn to quit with one because that was the only way I was going to get to ride. I was around and on different horses every week. These miserable horses were all I knew. I remember watching my Mom’s boyfriend work with these horses ultimately putting quick fixes on them to sell. In reality, it wasn’t if someone got hurt, it was just when and how bad. Me, as the kid that knew what it was like to be on the other end of the horse buying deal stuck with a nag of a horse, I became passionate about handling a horse right and making a horse truly safe for someone. I continued to cut my teeth on horses that no kid should of been around, but I learned how to make them better. I craved to learn the horsemanship side of everything having to do with a horse. While other kids were just concerned about competing on their horse at gymkhanas and youth rodeos, I was concerned with how to get a horse nice to compete on, and just be around in general. So I would study every seemingly good horseman I could and spend hours applying what I’d learn. Since I knew getting a well trained horse was never going to be an option, I mowed lawns and did every job no one else wanted to do for three summers to save up enough for a colt-and you know, that was the best thing that could have ever happened, because I don’t have to have a nice horse to be able to ride, I know how to make a horse nice to ride now.