Lily and her colt Westley from the AQHA young horse development program

My name is Lily, I have been riding pretty much my whole life but started showing when I was eight! I have been so blessed to get to learn to ride and care for horses as a youth and get to continue on to college! I ride all around locally and show in versatility ranch horse. I love the strong community Boulder County has given me to grow up in! I’m super excited to start my next chapter at Texas Tech where I will major in Agricultural Business and minor in Agricultural Communications.

I am also very passionate about horse judging and will continue to learn and develop skills for judging in college. I’m furthering my equestrian experience by not only being on Tech’s Judging Team (and hopefully Ranch Horse Team), but I want to work in the equine industry. I would love to be a show manager. I’ve grown up in the industry and have loved showing, being a show manager, and working on getting people to my series as well as working with organizations like AQHA, PTHA, and APHA to get shows sanctioned.

I’ve had horses my whole life. My family moved out on land when I was only a few months old, and horses followed. I rode for the first time when I was three. The horse was three also and he spun and bucked me off right away. There was nowhere to go but up! At eight I joined 4-H and that has been my world. I’ve had the opportunity to ride many horses from my pony Mo to my awesome show horse Tulo! I love 4-H and owe all my success to the connections and people that 4-H has allowed me to work with. I’ve made it up to all the levels and am now level four in English, Western and Showmanship!

During Covid I started showing in AQHA Ranch Horse Versatility which is amazing. It’s a lot like 4-H because you have to do pleasure, trail, reining, conformation, ranch riding, and even work cows all on only one horse! I love working cows because there’s no perfection in it and therefore I’ll never get tired of it. I am aiming to be on my college Ranch Horse Team to continue my horse show career.

I joined the Boulder County 4-H Horse Judging Team when I was eleven. Judging lets you learn so much about the industry as well as helping you in the show pen. Through judging, I have gotten to see all the behind-the-scenes at horse shows as I scribe and ring steward for professional judges to advance my knowledge.

This last year I even did the AQHA young horse development program in which I got to raise a completely untouched baby horse (pictured). This program has made me love the communication and marketing side of the equine industry as it is a training and involvement competition.

Thank you BCHA for awarding me the 2022 Youth Scholarship– I appreciate you all very much. Please let everyone at BCHA know I’m grateful!