January 1, 2025 
I love this sport.
Anyone who rides will tell you that equestrian is a lifestyle. It’s your family. It’s your base. It’s your identity.
That’s especially true for youth athletes.
I started #WeRideTogether to raise awareness and education about healthy coaching in an effort to end sexual misconduct in sport. The deeper I got into it, the better I understood how central sports are to our children’s lives, to our young adults’ lives.
Sports shape them not just as athletes, but as humans. When you’re in a healthy and supportive program, that can be amazingly positive. Equestrian teaches commitment, resilience, empathy, growth mindsets, and countless other soft skills that will serve our youth for a lifetime.
But the opposite is also true. Train in a mentally, emotionally, physically or sexually abusive environment and they’ll suffer the ramifications of that experience for a lifetime too.
That’s a stark reality many will face. We know that more than 50% of athletes will experience some form of abuse and that 13 to 15 is the most common age for it to start.
And yet not enough is being done to prevent abuse before it happens.
As equestrians, we go to great lengths to prevent injury in our horses—from boots and fly masks in turnout to bandages on trailers and proper warm up and cool down periods during work. The equally simple ways to prevent abuse for our youth—like training in open and observable places and always including a third party in communications with a minor athlete—are not nearly as commonplace.
We also know that abuse in sports is more recognized than ever before. If you go to the “current events” page on the WeRideTogether.today website, you’ll see another sport making headlines for all the wrong reasons nearly every day—it’s horrifying. We added close to 800 posts this year alone.
That’s a bitter pill to swallow. And an even harder one to accept. As a community, we’re still worried about making our sport “look bad” when we talk about abuse.
And that’s crazy. These are the people and places we entrust with our children and where our children spend the bulk of their time.
The Aspen Institute did a survey a couple years ago that asked kids what was the main reason they played sports. Winning was number 48. For most—nine out of 10—the number one reason was having fun.
I think that’s a great place to try to change sport for the better.
Sport should be fun.
It should be a healthy place to grow and learn, to develop skills and build relationships. And it should be accessible to everyone.
In a world of grey, this is a black and white issue.
What we should be asking is, what do we need to do to create the healthiest environment in our sport?
Let’s work towards making equestrian sport healthier. Let’s work towards transparent training practices and empowered oversight. Let’s work towards safety-informed coaches. Let’s work towards creating the best supports and prevention protocols we can for our kids so they can thrive.
And even if winning is all you care about, mentally, physically, emotionally healthy environments are going to create a better outcome for that too! I mean, that’s a no brainer.
I’m so proud of the work we’re doing at #WeRideTogether and of the enormous progress we’ve made over the past three years. I also know there’s still so much to do to create the cultural shift we need for a safer and stronger tomorrow in equestrian sport.
Together, we can build that future.
Learn more about safeguarding and prevention best practices at weridetogether.today.
