Feature story

For some people hobbies are just that; hobbies. But for Anoka-Ramsey Community College student Caitlyn Peterson, her hobby is a passion and a way of life.

Peterson has been attending Anoka-Ramsey Community College four semesters and will be transferring to the University of Wisconsin River Falls in the fall. She has plans of going on to obtain a degree to become a pharmaceutical representative. When she graduates and finds her first job in her new field she will be peddling medications and making good money. However, her desire to become a pharmaceutical representative has nothing to do with the money; it has more to do with the travel opportunities.

Peterson has a fondness for horses to put it plainly. Her family owns 10 horses and she spends most of her free time with them. She has been riding since she was in the seventh grade and competes in various competitions.

Peterson stated that she didn’t get her first horse until she was in the seventh grade. “My parents had horses when they were just married and then they sold them when me and my sister were just born. They sold them because they just didn’t have time, and ever since I learned to talk I really wanted horses so I begged and begged and they kept saying no until the summer after seventh grade, then they bought me my first horse.”

Her first horse was a quarter horse named Moose. She stated he was interesting to begin with. He bucked her off a few times but eventually she was able to train him and turn him around.

Eventually Peterson began to compete in competitions within the Western Saddle Club Association (WSCA). Among her competition styles Peterson cited Western and English Pleasure, which are types of show competitions, as well as timed racing competitions such as keyhole racing.

After three years of training and competing she was able to take Moose to the state championship held at the Minnesota State Fair in 2008 and take home the state championship title in hunt seat English pleasure. She repeated the feat in 2009 once again in with a victory in keyhole racing. “It was really fun to do back to back years because not a lot of people do all of the kinds of showing so for me to do both, it was really exciting, I was happy,” said Peterson.

Although she is proud of her accomplishments in competitions, Peterson’s work with horses doesn’t stop there. She is currently working for Circle Vee Ranch in St. Francis. At the ranch she gives riding lessons and trains horses for shows. She is currently training 10 young girls and getting them ready for shows themselves. Peterson stated “I ride at least 4 or 5 different horses every single day. So now training comes really easily, I start a lot of young ones (horses) and people will bring older ones to me and I get them ready to show.”

Peterson stated that there is quite a bit of work involved in training a horse. “To compete and win it takes about a year. If you just want to just get out there and get some experience I can do it in 3 months,” stated Peterson “That’s a horse that’s never been rode, but they probably wouldn’t be winning. That’s for the pleasure events; in gaming though you can probably win in about 3 months because it’s a little easier. You’re racing a clock instead of someone else’s opinion.”

Within Peterson’s family the work with horses doesn’t end with her. Both of her parents are riders as well as her sister Lyndsie, who also designs clothing for shows with her company Owl Creek Designs. Peterson considers Lyndsie her partner as she designs all of the clothing for her competitions.

Looking towards the future Peterson plans to move to Hastings, Minn with her best friend Courtney Parson and her sister Lyndsie. The three will share an apartment where Peterson and Parson will share a room while Lyndsie will have a room to herself in order to be able to continue to design her clothing.

Peterson plans to help her sister sell her clothing once she has more of a background in sales through her pharmaceutical representative training and the two want to someday own two houses on the same property with an arena and a barn in between them in order to continue their work with horses. For now Peterson is training a horse named Dreamer, maybe she will make it three years in a row with a state title.