April 21, 2023 
There’s dedication, and then there’s Skylar Wireman.
The now 18-year-old hunter/jumper rider made her pro debut this past January at Desert International Horse Park (DIHP) in Thermal, CA and jumped straight into the winners circle. In the first week of the 2023 Desert Circuit she won three of four open classes, including the Grand Prix. She’s since gone on to claim three of her four career international podium finishes.
But behind every champion in the show ring is a mentor who helped them get there, and for Skylar, that person is her mom, Shayne.
Like mother, like daughter, Shayne realized Skylar was catching the bug for horses at an early age. “Skylar absolutely loves animals—she has since she was a tiny thing—and was always begging to get on the horse,” she said, noting that Skylar made her first lead line appearance at just 14 months old.
“She had little tiny cowboy boots from Target because I couldn’t find boots small enough for her. Everything was giant on her.”
At four, Skylar debuted in her first walk-trot classes and learned to canter. She’s been a staple in the stable and the show ring ever since.
“I just can’t keep her out of the barn. Pretty much she wants to ride every minute of every day,” Shayne continued.
At age 14, it was clear to Shayne that her daughter had the makings to be a contender: “[That] was the big year where she showed she was going to be the winner any time she had the opportunity. That was probably the turnaround year as far as her just being on fire.”
Those first flickerings have steadily grown in the four years since.
As a junior, Skylar accumulated accolades in every ring, winning the Platinum Performance/USET Talent Search Finals – East in 2020 (at age 15!) and taking reserve championship honors in the USEF/Dover Saddlery Hunter Seat Medal and WIHS Medal Finals in 2022. She was named the Junior Equestrian of the Year that same year, after collecting wins in the USHJA Gladstone Cup Equitation Classic — West, the World Equestrian Center Premier Equitation Cup, and four titles at the Capital Challenge Horse Show. (Those included Overall Grand Junior Hunter 3’6” Champion, High Point Junior Hunter 16-17 Champion, Small Junior Hunter 16-17 Champion, and Best Junior 3’6” Rider Award.)
In the first four months of her pro career, the flames have climbed higher still. Since January, she’s earned three international podium finishes, cleared 1.70m to win the inaugural 6-Bar competition at DIHP, and logged an impressively consistent FEI record. According to Jumpr App, Skylar has an 80% top 10 finish average with 17-year-old gelding Citoki up to the 1.50m height, 67% clear round and top 10 averages with D-Laloma up to 1.45m, and a 100% top 10 finish average with Rkm Chirolito Z over two rounds at 1.50m.
While it may appear that Skylar was born in the winner’s circle, the rising star credits her teachers—human and equine—for her ability to produce results in the ring, starting with the work ethic instilled in her by her mother.
“[My mom] taught me just to be such a hard worker,” Skylar said. “[With] hard work, drive and passion, it’ll eventually pay off. Even when it seems like it’s really hard, keep working harder, and always be really grateful for every opportunity. It’s more important than the results.”
Equally influential, she said, are the horses she grew catch riding.
“With each catch ride, I grew as a rider,” Skylar continued. “I rode so many different horses—sometimes 20 different horses in a week—and that was valuable knowledge that I was learning on each horse and from each trainer. Each trainer is different and there’s something to be learned from each one. They might say something a different way or teach a little differently that might really stick, and I love it.”
In the digital age, we all see the highlight reel. But Skylar and Shayne are quick to admit the journey hasn’t been without a few bumps in the road—many of which came from the green ponies she rode growing up.
“She didn’t have made ponies,” said Shayne. “We didn’t really have that option. She rode lesson ponies and then she rode green ponies and a lot of ponies that wanted to spin her off. She started her first four-year old under saddle. It was just barely green broke when she got it, and she took it all the way to Pony Finals. She did all that herself.”
“I spent a lot of time in the dirt,” Skylar laughed.
What Skylar did have early on was a winning mindset. Shayne recalls one particular weekend when her daughter was competing in the pony division.
“The day before, she won both rounds. Then, she fell off in the first class, and she came out and said, ‘I have a feeling that I’m not going to be champion.’ And then she fell off in the second class and she’s like, ‘I’m definitely not going to be champion.’ So even at that young age, she had the mindset of a winner.”
Skylar agrees she is naturally competitive. “Yes, it’s hard for me to do a training round in the jumpers and think, ‘I need to go slow.’ I’m very competitive.”
That too, however, is something her mother cultivated, rarely “letting” Skylar win at board games and other activities as a child.
“People would say, ‘you’re supposed to let your kids win!’ I think they have to earn it, so she’s grown up with that idea that she has to earn it and go for it,” Shayne shared. “Skylar has a good-spirited competitiveness, but definitely she likes to win, and she will think hard about what she can do next if she doesn’t win.”
Today, Skylar and Shayne work together to run their business Chestnut Hills Equestrian in Bonsall, California. Skylar is in the saddle. Shayne is her eyes and ears on the ground. With their shared passion for the sport, both say that they work well together.
“She hasn’t kicked me out of the house yet so that’s good,” Skylar joked.
As Skylar has evolved as a rider, so has Shayne’s approach to training her.
“She’s pretty naturally on plan and motivated on her own,” Shayne shared. “I learned that she was already hard enough on herself, so I needed to just wait and let her go through [her rides] herself and then we could talk about it. That was a strategy I had to learn that’s different from how I teach my other students.”
While the list of proud-mother moments is too long to recount, a few particular recent memories stand out in Shayne’s mind.
“This past year has just been full of amazing first things,” she recalled. “The most proud moment might have been Week I [of Desert Circuit]. Winning three of the four major jumper classes was really amazing. But then the second place she got in Las Vegas in the FEI between Daniel Coyle and Conor Swail was also just a really big international moment and something she’d never done.”
At this launch off stage of her pro career, Shayne is grateful to have had a front-row seat to watch her daughter grow into the rider she is today.
“It’s fun for me that she still wants me to help her and be there,” Shayne said. “It’s been really fun to get to be on this journey and going farther than I ever imagined when she was little.”
