This Sunday’s Spotlight lands on our friend, the passionate, driven, incredibly successful owner of The Plaid Horse magazine, Piper Klemm. Piper is a mogul in the horse industry, running her well-respected company and keeping education, kindness and inclusivity at the forefront of every venture she tackles. This week, Piper and her adorable ‘Reuben’ made their way to World Equestrian Center. Piper took time to chat with us about the industry and how she found herself riding horses and Reuben was sweet enough to offer up some sweet snuggles in the process.
WEC: How did you get into riding?
Piper: My parents love to tell this story. When I was about three years old I went to a friend’s birthday party and they had a pony for the kids to ride. There were thirty kids at the birthday party and everyone got a turn on the pony, then about ten kids lined up for a second ride, then about three kids lines up for a third ride, and then there was one kid left on the pony – me. I didn’t want to get off of the pony for presents or cake. They had to make me get of the pony when it was time for it to go home. From there I just begged my parents to ride. When I was seven years old, I finally wore my parents down. My parents weren’t horse people and didn’t know anything about horses, so they opened the phone book and found a barn for me to ride at in the yellow pages. I’m originally from a town called Millbourne just outside of Philadelphia. It’s great horse country there. Radnor Hunt is there and I was in Radnor Hunt Pony Club. There are a lot of great local horse shows. Devon is right there, too, so we were always able to get a glimpse of the big league.
We connected early on with a really amazing trainer, Shirley Fox. We didn’t know anything at the time and she took all of the time in the world to teach us how the sport worked and how all of the divisions worked. She really fostered my love of projects and puzzles in young ponies and green ponies. I couldn’t be more grateful for the foundation she gave me.