United States Eventing Association

USEA Member Story #3

This is the third entry in the USEA’s Member Story Series. Help us reach our goal of over 300 stories – email your story to [email protected].

My name is Carina Vollmer, and I live in the small town of Graham, Washington. I have been eventing since I was 13- years-old. I had always loved horses, but had never heard of eventing until my first trainer Karen took me to Montana to watch Herron Park Horse Trials. I was hooked after that.

Karen and my amazingly supportive dad helped me to get my horse ready for our first event a couple months later and both were big supporters of getting me into eventing and Pony Club. I am truly still in debt to my dad for all of the horse stuff he took me to. Even now at 28-years-old, married with a child, my dad is still one of my number one fans and loves to come to my shows and clinics.

These days I am an adult amateur rider who works full time as an inventory/purchasing manager for a company that manufactures fall protection for construction workers. I have an extremely supportive husband, who understands my horse obsession. He lived in the city when I first met him, but has settled in nicely to farm life. I am very fortunate to have a flexible work schedule; two days a week I work from home, so that we can save money on day-care for our 20 month old son. When I work from home I load up my son in the stroller and he comes out to the barn with me while I ride. He loves sitting in the stroller snacking while I go round and round in the arena. The other 3 days I get up at 3:30 to head into the office, so that I can get off work early enough to get home and ride before dark. Every week my son, Cinnamon and I load up and make the one hour trip for a lesson with my long time trainer Anne Ryan. She has been a huge help in getting Cinnamon and I to where we are today.

My horse Cinnamon is an eight-year-old pony. We aren’t sure on her breeding because she came from a local feed lot. I bought her as an un-broke, scared three-year-old. My original plan was to put some training on her and sell so that I could purchase something just a little bit bigger. As time went by I enjoyed working with her more and more and decided that I wasn’t going to sell her, but that I was going to turn her into my next event horse. Our first cross-country school was exciting to say the least. . . she wouldn’t even go over a 2’ log! I even have a scar to prove that running into a tree branch seemed more like a plan than actually jumping the log. We let that schooling session set in for a good nine months and tried again the following spring. This time she jumped all of the Beginner Novice questions beautifully. This last year was our first full season of competing at the Beginner Novice level and ending our season at Novice. I have to say this “feed lot” horse is probably the best horse that I have ever owned. I look forward to competing this season at the novice level with goals to end up at training level. I look forward to meeting more of you eventers out there . . . we are a breed of our own.