As you walk into a horse stable, you’re immediately hit with the sweet smell of sawdust and the foul smell of horse dung. You came to ride horses, so you grab a lead rope and harness to gather your horse from the field. Sometimes if you’re lucky if your horse is already in a stable waiting for you.

This has been senior Ellie Grace Bellamy’s routine at Memory Hills Stables in Waynesboro, Virginia. She picked this stable because of the trainers and their past rider’s successes.

“I picked [Memory Hills Stables] because I really liked the trainer, and I had seen her at other shows. Her riders were really good, and they won and they had really good horses. She was always really nice and kind and just such a great trainer,” Bellamy said.

Bellamy started riding when she was eight years old and enjoys how horseback riding is an independent activity, where she depends solely on herself and her horse

“I like [that] it’s an individual sport. It’s not like a team. I mean you and your horse are a team, but there aren’t other people on your team,” Bellamy said. “You have to make your own decisions, and you have to do everything yourself. If you fall off, mess up or lose, it’s not anyone else’s fault but your own.”

Bellamy now leases a horse, but before that, she owned her own baby horse. It ended up being too inexperienced for Bellamy’s purposes, so she was left with the only option of selling it.

“I have bought my own horse before. I had a baby horse that was five. We bought her and I rode her for a little bit, but she ended up being too inexperienced for what I wanted to do, so we let my trainer ride her and train her. Then I could sell her. We sold her to a nice lady that shows her in the adult stuff,” Bellamy said.

During practice, the trainers at Memory Hills  work on the rider’s strength before critiquing or fixing their jumps.

“We do a lot of flatwork, and we do a lot of strengthening for the riders specifically. During lessons, we have to drop our stirrups, stand up in the saddle for long periods of time, practice lengthening and shortening the horses steps and then we practice jumping too. We don’t jump as much because it’s bad for their legs,” Bellamy said.

Along with the benefits of horseback riding, there are also some downsides due to working with an animal that is bigger in size than a human.

“I fell off [a horse] when I was in eighth grade. I broke my hip and tore three muscles, so I was out for about five months, and then I came back in February [of that year],” Bellamy said.

Next year Bellamy is headed to college at James Madison University, while the school does have an equestrian team, Bellamy has looked into it, but believes she won’t consider riding with the Dukes’ program.

“I thought about [doing equestrian in college], but I don’t ride just any horse. I like to ride my own horse; I don’t like to ride other horses. However it’s such a good experience to do that because you learn to ride a lot of other horses. I don’t like that,” Bellamy said “I’m going to JMU, and the equestrian team is not what I want. There are a few girls that are really good and have done a lot of stuff that I haven’t, but their horses are not what I like to ride.”