Featured Alumni

I didn’t begin riding horses until my freshman year at Sewanee. I rode once in Arizona when I was like 5 years old. My parents plopped me on an old mare named Pepperoni at some roadside tourist trap because she was supposed to be tiny, slow, and good with kids. That cranky old lady cantered me halfway across the Sonoran before they caught her and pried my petrified hands from her mane. It’s actually a miracle I ever got back on a horse.

I credit Megan Taylor, my coach at Sewanee, single-handedly for my equestrian experience there. I was on my mountain bike one Fall day, flying down a singletrack trail past the Equestrian Center, when she ran out screaming at me to freeze. I thought I must have been trespassing; her voice just about knocked me off my bike. She said she wanted to talk to me. She needed me to ride a horse at a show that coming Thursday as her walk-trot rider had just ‘placed out,’ whatever that meant. I told her I didn’t know how to ride a horse and she told me she didn’t care. “If you can sit on that bicycle, you can sit on a horse. And all I need is a warm body to sit on that horse and not fall off. I’ll teach you the rest later.” I got fifth place that Thursday. And she did teach me the rest later!

Competing on our equestrian team was a surreal experience. As a guy —and a rookie, at that —I stuck out like a sore thumb. But my team points counted, so I wasn’t ignored! I’ll never forget all the team emails addressed to “Gals and Brad.” I probably wouldn’t have fit in well as a female anyway. I rode alongside classmates who boarded their own gorgeous horses, who enjoyed deep-pocketed parental sponsorship, while I was just glad mine paid for lessons and pitched in for muck boots. It was also a ton of work, and while everyone at the barn burned with a fiery passion for riding, it was very difficult for those outside the equestrian community to understand why I disappeared for weekends at a time. But I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything!

I think few things prepared me better for veterinary school than my time spent on the Sewanee Equestrian Team. Not because of the large animal experience it afforded me, though I’m sure that helped me get in, but untold other reasons. There was this terrible thing I used to hear all the time about how awesome it must be to be the one guy on a team of beautiful women... Let me just say, yeah, the eye candy was great, but those women were untouchable too. Megan put the fear of God in me pretty publicly from day 1. There was to be no defecation where one dines (she put it less delicately than that). And who am I kidding, my teammates were out of my league anyway —fitter, smarter, much better/experienced riders, etc. Sure, outside the barn I totally played into the perception that the equestrian center was my personal dude ranch, but the reality was that I was like the grunt little brother. I mucked the stalls and moved the port-o-potties at shows. It was pretty much exactly the blow to my ego I needed before entering a now female-dominated profession with some of the sharpest minds and strongest personalities you will ever meet.

Admittedly, I’ve been really bad about keeping in touch with my team. And the team extends far beyond just my teammates. My equestrian coach, Megan Taylor, was also my life coach and a mentor —she pushed me physically and mentally farther than I knew I could go. Eric Hubbard, our assistant coach, kept things light when tensions were high. Al Brown, our barn manager, was my spiritual advisor; taught me to break ice in a 5-gal bucket and drink sun drop with whiskey. But I’ve been bad about keeping in touch with people in general. I blame my career —academic and professional —for taking over a significant portion of my life the last decade. I blame Facebook for a false sense of security, for the illusion of closeness to the people you still “see” everyday, but then fail to call. It was a mutual friend/classmate’s suicide that got me on the phone with the last teammate I spoke to. I blame myself for not taking more initiative; I’m more introverted than most people realize. But it doesn’t mean my teammates didn’t shape my life dramatically. I think of them often.

Student loans notwithstanding, I couldn’t be happier with life now. After bouncing around the southeast for a few years between grad school at Tulane and veterinary school at NC State, I finally made my way home to Raleigh where I bought a house with my fiancé and we’ve already filled it with animals.I’m working at a phenomenal small animal private practice that holds it to university level standards of care and excellence, but has still built its business and reputation on the relationships we build with clients. I love going to work every day and take great pride in the difference I make for pets and their people every day. Sadly I haven’t been riding much since I left Sewanee, but I did unblock a barn cat the other day whose urethra was plugged up with stones, and the barn manager invited me out to ride sometime as a thank-you. I just might have to take her up on that. After all, it’s just like riding a bike…