Riding With Samantha Carter

202

Professional rider and trainer Samantha Carter at the Grand Gait Equestrian Center in Vero Beach. “I try to make sure that my students and the horse are speaking the same language,” she says.

Horses are often depicted in the movies and on television as majestic creatures of beauty and grace running across the plains or working the cattle ranches. But when you stand next to a 1,400-pound brute whose back breaks the 6-foot mark it’s, well, intimidating.

I’m a solid guy, weighing nearly 200 pounds and standing about 6 feet tall. Yet I know that with one swift kick of his hind leg, a horse like “Rockstar” could rearrange my internal organs. So I’m even more embarrassed about my apprehension toward horses as I watch Samantha Carter hop on her steed and clear a 5-foot-high hurdle. 

Samantha is a professional rider and trainer who works several days a week at Grand Gait Estates & Equestrian Center in western Vero Beach off 53rd Street. With a quick glance, she could easily pass for a teenager, even though she’s less than a year away from the legal drinking age. And despite her fresh face, she has nearly 16 years under her riding helmet.

Read the entire article in the Summer 2007 issue

Facebook Comments