March 11, 2025 
If there’s one certainty in this industry, it’s that riders love to jump for a good cause. In its third year running, the $20,000 MeadowGrove & Friends 1.20m Open Classic benefiting #WeRideTogether drew an impressive crowd of show jumpers—65 entries to be exact.
It’s not just because it’s an inviting fence height in the Grand Prix Arena at Desert International Horse Park. It’s because they’re jumping for something that matters: healthy sport.
It’s fitting then that a role model who embodies exactly those qualities has now twice won the class—in 2023 and 2025. Skylar Wireman knows what it means to influence the next generation, even though at just 21 she’s young enough to still be considered in that category.
She’s also a speed specialist—in her home state of California and beyond. In 2024, Wireman ventured to the Middle East to compete for Team USA for the first time at the FEI World Cup Finals in Riyadh, embodying the phrase “go big or go home.”
But more importantly, she’s a horsewoman to her core. The daughter of trainer Shayne Wireman, Skylar wasn’t handed the “made” horses to jump all the Finals that made up a successful junior career. She had to make them herself and create her own opportunities. And she did.
Now, she channels those skills into coaching students.
“Healthy coaching to me is about finding the positives in each round, especially since I am a trainer,” Wireman shared about her approach to teaching. “It’s about finding the positives and what the really good parts are, then using the mistakes as learning moments rather than as defeat.”
It’s a philosophy and confidence Wireman inspires in her horses, including five-star mount, the small but mighty Tornado, and in her teammates.
“We do this for the love of the horses and the passion, but we all need to bring each other up and cheer everyone else on,” she said. “Even if we all, at the end of the day, are competing against each other, you always want the winner to be the winner.”
Win or lose, Skylar is the poster child for healthy sport. It just so happens that she also wins a lot (and in the case of this class, takes second place, too).
“In my opinion, healthy sport is about the love of the horse,” she concluded after another successful outing with 63 of her closest friends in the MeadowGrove & Friends 1.20m Open Classic. “I think it’s really just about remembering why we do this and we do it to have fun.”
In addition to the $20,000 in prize money, the MeadowGrove & Friends Classic also honored additional the top-placing junior, Denim Schneider, and top-placing amateur, Sofie Sorrenson.
A special thanks to the following donors for contributing to the prize fund and the ongoing mission of #WeRideTogether:
Nick Haness, Leslie Steele, Sandhaven Farm, Ingenium Farm, Elvenstar, Balmoral, Jenn Serek, Morgan Thomas, Erin Duffy Show Stables, Windfall Farm (Gry MCfarlane), Dick Carvin & Francie Steinwedell, Trademark & Lisa Carlson, Mark Kinsella Equestrian, Sunnybrook, Estancia Farms, Corinne Bevis, Imagination Lane, Lewis Circle of Horses LLC, Endicott Family/Pegasus Show Stable, MeadowGrove, Oakwood Farm (Teal Orlin), Sailor Sport Horses (Jamie Sailor), Laura Gerst & Windy Hill, Kaitlin Campbell, Diamond Equestrian & Shayne Wireman.
