“It’s not about how much pressure you put on, it’s about how good you are at taking it off.”

— Buck Brannaman

Meet the Author

Katie started riding at a young age, but even before she was in the saddle, she was in-tow with her parents at the race track. Her family bred and raced TBs, and she grew up spending early mornings and summer breaks at the track with her dad. Once old enough, she started in the Hunter world, and in college was riding sale horses and teaching lessons at a few barns in the area. A huge gear shift happened in college/law school, when she landed at a barn in Mississippi that introduced her to natural horsemanship, and her whole perspective changed. The trainer there had a reputation for taking horses that others had given up on, and she was one of the most impressive horsemen Katie has had the privilege to work with. It was inspiring, and her methods challenged everything Katie had known to that point of training horses.

Katie ended up in Illinois for a job, and was just down the road from a very low-grade auction (a dangerously easy drive for her bleeding heart). She pulled 3 horses that Fall, one of which had never been broke/started among other issues of abuse and neglect. This mare presented a very sharp and turbulent learning curve, but determined to turn her life around, Katie leaned into mentors and learned as much as she could of natural horsemanship techniques. While she was far from an easy project, this mare ended up teaching Katie more than any horse she’d ever known. Now, Katie enjoys helping people with young or difficult horses, and continues to train in natural horsemanship.

Katie has a small farm in Maryland, with mostly rescue horses and pretty-but-useless OTTBs.  She also restarts thoroughbreds and hopes to advance the levels of eventing. The most successful “performance” horse at the farm is a mini named Dollar, who was a Covid New Holland rescue, and is now a local celebrity at the local show series.