United States Eventing Association

This is the 22nd entry in the USEA’s Member Story Series. Help us reach our goal of over 300 stories – email your story to Leslie.

When I was younger, people would always ask me about what it is was I wanted to be when I grew up; Most kids say a doctor, or maybe a teacher I said a horse.

My name is Mikaela Coston and I was born with that no questions asked, irreplaceable, obsessive horse gene. If you had told my dad that by the time my sister and I would go to college he would have owned a total of six horses, he would have laughed at you. Little did he know, that that is exactly what was going to happen and his weekends that would otherwise have been spent fishing now consisted of photographing and holding our horses while we reviewed our courses and braided their manes.

From the very beginning I wanted everything to do with horses. I crawled or rather cantered around on my hands and knees and perfected my neigh. I even kept a halter and a lead rope in my room just in case a horse wandered into my backyard. ( Hey a girl can dream right?!) I even convinced my parents to let me show Morgans when I was around four, and eventually ride my mom's friend's Paso Finos.

Eventually, on the sole condition that I could take riding lessons if we moved to Connecticut, we made the journey from Tampa, Florida to New Milford, CT and our first stop was you guessed it- a horse farm. By the time I was 13 I had some how convinced my parents, along with several letters to Santa Claus to buy me my first horse. This was just the beginning.I soon devoted every hour outside of school to horses. I mucked stalls, tacked the school ponies, groomed anything with hair, and rode some of the naughtiest ponies there were. Anything that allowed me to spend more time at the barn I did and I embraced every minute of it.Within time, I out grew my first horse and again swindled my parents into getting me another one. This time it was a fancier off the track Thoroughbred named Iggy who had competed on the A circuit. Iggy was the horse that got me involved in Pony Club and gave me my first exposure to the show world. However at this time, the word Eventing was forbidden at the barn I was at. Within time I moved on, and those lesson ponies of questionable character that I rode daily would teach me invaluable lessons that would soon be put to the test as I stepped up to a horse that knew drastically more than I did. Once in Pony Club I couldn't help but become aware of this thing called Eventing and started wondering why everyone did it. With the help of my first real coach, Jeannie Hannen, we took my little hunter Thoroughbred out for his event and was excited, and not too surprised to find out that cross-country was fun. It was addictive and a thrill and I wanted to do it again soon. Iggy took me to my first Training events and we were able to successfully compete in Area I and II. As fate would have it, I out grew Iggy both in terms of skill and in size. And after my mother literally took me to get X-rayed to see how much I would grow, I found a horse that would forever hold a place in my life and my heart.

Shazam(!) or Zammy as he is known in the barn, is the complete opposite of my previous petite sized Thoroughbred. He is a huge paint Irish Sport Horse, with big gates and an even bigger heart. Imported form Ireland due to an abusive relationship I bought him from Virginia and Jack Leary as a sale project knowing that he would be a challenge, but that the risk could potentially lead to an even greater reward of having a horse that I would bring up the levels myself. Years later, and lots of hard work my sale project is now a lifer and the horse of my dreams. Zammy is probably the fanciest horse I will ever own who at the same time, as my dad says, is an oversized dog. ( His favorite treats are Twizzlers and Peeps and yes, he does follow me around.) I have been lucky enough to be very successful at the Training and Preliminary levels with him all over the east coast, and enjoy it when people come up and say what a cool horse he is or even to comment on his name.

I have even been fortunate enough to bring him to college with me and now on to graduate school at the University of Kentucky where I am finishing my Masters in Architecture. I have always known that I wanted to do something in the horse world that would allow me to do what I loved to do without mucking stalls for the rest of my life, and the possibility of designing barns for horses was too good to be true And with that and the comfort of having a horse, although at times going to architecture school while taking full care of a horse is challenging, I hoped to be able to apply my passion and love of horses and the horse world into equestrian design or rather fabricating equine facilities. Although I have had less time to compete while in Kentucky (apparently begging for rides is not too endearing), I have been able to compete a little at the horse park and more than that attend Rolex and WEG. I look forward to graduating and being able to afford a truck and a trailer so that I can go out and event and give Zammy the credit he deserves and with some luck complete at my first one-star. So with that, keep an eye out for us this summer, we are kind of hard to miss.

-Mikaela & Zammy

All photos courtesy of Mikaela Coston