On a rainy Thursday afternoon, when most young teens would be inside texting, facebooking, and watching whatever passes for entertainment these days on TV, one young lady was outside.
Kai Brown has been jumping horses since she was 9 years old. Her grandfather was a horse jumper. Her mother was a horse jumper. It’s not unexpected that she would follow in their footsteps.
It’s not the average high school sport, but who wants to be average? Not Brown.
“When I was 8, I met a girl named Taylor Greene. … I saw her jumping and at the time I had an old rope horse, so I decided that’s something that sounded really cool—and my mom did it, so she helped me with it.” she said.
“I’m a single mom. I work for SMHSD, so she would be at the horse-training barn and I would be at work, and she’d call me up and tell me, ‘Mom, I only fell off nine times today!’” Brown’s mom, Carla Hart, said. “And I would be 25 miles away going, ‘Wow, that’s great, Honey!”—having a heart attack.”
Brown began jumping small obstacles with her rope horse, constantly pushing herself and her hoofed teammate further and further. It wasn’t long before she was jumping well enough to need a horse more suited for jumping. Cupid was her next horse, which she jumped until fairly recently.
Her new horse, Rupan, helped Brown to leap to a first-place finish in the .90-.95 jumpers power and speed class, and second in the .85-.95 jumpers power and speed class at the Pebble Beach Equestrian Classic this summer. There, she jumped better than 30- and 40-year-old jumpers.
“I was hoping that my daughter wanted to be a roper, simply because we had a really good rope horse,” Hart admitted.
Over the last five years, Brown has only attended two major events, but has around 30 local jumping events under her belt.
She feels the need for speed, which explained why she competes in the “jumper” category—as opposed to the “hunter” category in horse jumping. The difference? Hunters are judged by a panel on how aesthetically pleasing they are going through the course; jumpers are judged by the clock. The fastest person through the course wins.
On the surface, horse jumping might seem like a simple activity, but there’s a lot more to it for the rider than just staying in the saddle.
“It takes a lot of skill and a lot of practice to get it down right,” Brown said.
It’s her job to know the course and direct Rupan to the best lines. She also has to keep Rupan’s cadence under control and has to make sure her mount keeps his head down.
Hart explained that when a horse gets excited, its head goes up because it’s looking long distance. It won’t even see the jump and would end up running right through it.
Although horse jumping is a worldwide sport and there are schools that offer scholarships for jumpers, Brown doesn’t intend to head for the professional trainer route.
“Trainers are like rock stars,” Hart explained. “So few really make it.”
Brown intends to jump as long as she can, while working toward becoming a large-animal vet. She’s taking part in FFA and 4H, raising animals and becoming more familiar with them.
“[Jumping is] a good thing to do with your time instead of getting into trouble,” Brown said.
This article appears in Oct 13-20, 2011.