By KIMBERLY LOUSHIN
Head to the Eynon family’s KHC Farms in Rolling Hills Estates, California, and you won’t find a professional groom in sight, but three teenage girls, Kylie, Hailey, and Chloe Eynon tending to their horses, grooming, bathing, turning out, and helping with the never-ending to-do list that comes with keeping horses at home. It’s a time-intensive investment, but the horsemanship lessons the Eynons are learning is something their mother, Amy Eynon, felt was important.
“I really wanted them to have the experience of doing the work for themselves,” says Amy. “I’ve always said that riding is a privilege, and you have to earn it, and I feel like just going out to the barn and having your horse handed to you at the mounting block isn’t proper horsemanship.”
It was a lesson Amy learned as a child riding at the famed Foxfield Riding School in Lake Sherwood, California. At Foxfield, there were no grooms—the students were expected to do the work themselves—and as the daughter of non-horsey parents, Amy only started lessons once she was old enough to do everything herself. So years later, Amy wanted her daughters to have a similar hands-on approach.
As the girls got more involved and horses of their own entered the picture, the family purchased a farm in an equestrian community. The benefits were two-fold: it had some economic benefit as prices in show barns continued to rise, but more importantly doing the work would give the girls more opportunity to build their horsemanship and help them build stronger bonds with their horses than are available in a boarding situation.
“They’re much more in tune with the horses, and I feel like to be honest that that makes the horses perform better sometimes in the ring because they trust the girls,” Amy says. “They know the girls, and they have a bond with them that really makes them perform to I think even a higher level because of that.”
Each girl knows their horse intimately. They recognize every new bump or scrape, no matter how minor, and thanks to all that time getting to know each individual quirk, they know exactly what mood their horse is in before ever stepping foot in a stirrup. It’s a connection that Chloe, 15, has really come to appreciate.
“The reason why I love riding so much is—obviously, the wins and going to horse shows and riding the horse is super fun, but I love the horses as animals,” says Chloe. “I feel like you can have so much of a better connection on the horse if you know them on the ground too. You don’t treat them like a soccer ball; they’re an animal, and they do so much for you. I like doing the work on the ground because I feel like they feel more appreciated and they trust you more, and I think trust is an important thing to have.”
And for 19-year-old Kylie, it’s given her the life skills that are benefiting her at the University of Tennessee, where she’s a freshman studying finance.
“I would say I’m a very driven person, and I think a lot of my work ethic came from the fact that I always had to do everything myself, that I always had to work to be in the ring and work to show,” she says. “It wasn’t just, ‘Oh here’s your horse.’ This horse looks this way because I take care of him.”
For the Love of the Horse
While Amy returning to the saddle as an adult was an impetus for getting her daughters involved in the sport, she put her own competitive ambitions on hold to support her family after finding herself distracted while on course because one of her daughters was competing in the adjoining ring. For now, she and her husband, Jason Eynon, are tireless supporters, and Chloe is currently competing Amy’s horse Exquisite RW in the 3’3” small junior hunter division.
For Chloe, a big highlight of the year was topping the 3’3” small junior hunter 15 and under division at the Adequan/USEF Junior Hunter National Championships West at HITS Del Mar Horse Park in California, with “Elle,” a 12-year-old Dutch Warmblood (Spartacus x Zafir).
“I was just really proud of me and Elle,” says Chloe. “That weekend was the best that we’ve worked as a team in a long time, and I was just really grateful to my mom for obviously taking me to all these horse shows and giving me all these opportunities, and obviously my trainers too for just taking the time to help me and make me be the best that I can and feeling really confident. My sister had been helping me a little bit too, and she won two classes there, so we kind of got to share the win together. We won on the same day, so we got to share which I thought was really cool.”
Chloe started riding Elle at the end of 2023, first in the children’s hunters before moving up to the juniors, and she took over the ride from Hailey, who rode Elle for two years.
“She’s a very calm horse, and she’s super trustworthy,” Chloe says of her partnership with Elle. “I feel like whenever I’m riding her, she’s a really good teammate, and she’s super cooperative too. I never feel like I’m scared on her. Whenever I make a mistake, she always has my back, and she never punishes me for it. She’s super forgiving. On the ground she’s super sweet. I love her.”
While the Eynons primarily ride with hunter professional Jamie Sailor, distance means they don’t get to ride with her on a weekly basis, so they supplement their training by working with dressage trainer Stacey Wakaki.
“She has helped me so much with Elle to get her in shape and fit, and I’ve noticed a really big difference in Elle with the jumping,” says Chloe. “I think it’s really important to work on your at and better yourself the best you can on the at because I think that’s the biggest help in your jumping because if you don’t have a really good at foundation, it’s going to be really hard for you to do well jumping.”
Jamie Sailor is Never Afraid of Hard Work
Jamie Sailor was just 9 years old when fate stepped in and sent her on her current career trajectory. Her mom had just purchased a horse for her, but only a few weeks in, the horse went quite lame. They were advised to go look at a horse Mike Edrick had, but there was one problem, they’d already spent their budget on the lame horse. They tried the horse anyway, and Edrick struck a deal. He’d do a payment plan, but she would have to ride with him.
“Now I look back, and he saw something special,” she says. “I didn’t really have a trainer at the time, so it was really fun growing up there, and really him taking me under his wing.”
From that moment on, Sailor rode under Edrick, first as the student standing ringside with her saddle and helmet, waiting for the opportunity to climb onto the back of any horse on offer. She was never afraid of hard work. Mucking stalls was her currency, and she was ready to cash it in for what she really desired. For years she trailered over the Edrick’s for lessons every Saturday, and once she was an adult, she began working for him and continued to do so until she was 29.
“I was very fortunate to work for him for so many years and just learn the old school horsemanship way,” she says. “We always kept it very simple, and it worked great. We had a lot of fun and a lot of success together.”
From there Sailor went to work for Meadow Grove Farm in Los Angeles where she learned a new facet of the business and got even more opportunities to show at the elite level. One of her favorite memories includes riding Laura Wasserman’s Skyhawk to win the $50,000 USHJA International Hunter Derby at Desert International Horse Park in 2021.
“It’s always nerve-wracking riding a famous horse, and then to go in there and win that big derby, that brought tears to my face,” she says. “It’s not always about the win, sometimes it’s about the journey, and that one was a long journey to get to because it’s such a good horse, but also being able to manage all the emotions to get to that point was incredible, and even to have that opportunity to ride a horse of such caliber.”
Three years ago she went out on her own, establishing Sailor Sport Horses and melding the lessons she learned at her previous jobs to build a business that worked for her. While she doesn’t have a lot of students—training horses is her true passion—she has worked with a few including the Eynon family. Sailor first started working with them when they asked her to ride and train their young hunter Love Story.
“Romeo” had all the talent to be a top horse, but it was going to take time for him to be a winner as he gained confidence and she helped Hailey Eynon learn to be the best partner for Romeo.
“He’s such a cool guy, he just didn’t have a lot of self-confidence, so Hailey then had a lot of confidence, so he gets the confidence from his rider. It was really fun working with them,” says Sailor. “It definitely had its challenges, but to see them competing at big indoor events was just breathtaking. The fact that they’re out there doing it, I’m so proud of both of them.”
Like the Eynons, Sailor grew up with horses in her backyard. Sailor’s mom ran a boarding facility, and she rode all types and disciplines, from Andalusians to mules and Paso Finos, from reining and driving horses. She’d disappear for hours, heading up the mountain trails with her Quarter Horse without a care in the world. While that kind of upbringing is more unusual now than it was when Sailor was a kid, she believes in the insight and lessons gained from having horses in the backyard.
“It’s very unique but special that they get to do their own grooming, and they know their horses’ legs and they know when they feel right or wrong or if they’re having an off day,” Sailor says. “I think it’s super important for kids these days to still feel that and understand that, and I think we’re losing that a little bit. I totally support it, and I think it’s great they get the opportunity and the fact that their parents support that and help manage all that. It’s a lot to handle. But I think it’s good bonding time for the sisters, and it’s good bonding time for the horses.”
Building Confidence
Like her younger sister, Hailey went into junior hunter nals without huge expectations. With her hunter Love Story, a 7-year-old Oldenburg gelding (Chacoon Blue x Elite-St. Pialou), she’s been working on giving him confidence in the ring and being the rider he needs at the point in his education. In Del Mar, the pair won two classes, and the following week, Hailey rode “Romeo” to victory in a $10,000 USHJA Jr/Am National Hunter Derby Hunt and Go.
“On the ground he’s actually the sweetest horse ever,” she says. “He’s literally like a dog, and he wants you to pet him and cuddle you. He will follow you around, and if you’re leading him he touches your back the whole time.”
In addition to Romeo, Hailey competes Alleto, an 11-year-old Holstiner, who was previously ridden by Kylie, in the equitation under the tutelage of Karen Healey. When Aletto got hurt, she started leasing Castelino 5 from MZ Farms LLC to get her through the fall indoor season. It was her first time traveling east, and at Capital Challenge she won a class in the 16-year-old equitation division and ended up reserve champion before heading to her first Dover Saddlery/USEF Hunter Seat Medal Finals at the Pennsylvania National Horse Show.
The number of competitors was unlike anything Hailey had experienced before, and she was proud to have held her own, especially her performance at Capital Challenge.
“It was really cool for my first time going, especially on a horse that I’d only been riding for a month and a half, so I was so proud,” she says.
Like her sisters, her biggest reward is spending time with her horses and accomplishing her goals with true partners.
“I feel like it’s so cool that I can walk a 100 feet and go see my horse whenever I want to and just have that relationship and that trust with them, grooming them and turning them out and feeding them and just spending extra quality time on trail rides and just calm times that it’s just you and the horse and no one else there,” she says.
The Best Motivator
For Kylie it was her relationship with Alleto, who she rode for four years that kept her motivated to go to the barn, to work as hard as she did in the ring, to skip activities with her friends to make sure all his needs were met.
“He really was what really motivated my riding because I loved him so much, and he was literally my heart horse,” she says. “That horse would’ve jumped through fire for me, and I knew that. And that’s something that was always super motivating for me and kept me in the sport.”
With Alleto, she was second in the American Tradition of Excellence Equitation Challenge, second in the PCHA Horsemanship Finals, had two top 8 finishes in the USEF/NCEA Junior Hunter Seat Medal Final-West, and was sixth in the R.W. Mutch Equitation Championship. It was knowing him inside and out that gave her extra confidence and helped them produce such consistency.
“Every time I would ride, every time he would need turnout, I was always the one doing that and working with him,” she says. “So I think that really helped me get to know him in, out, and upside down, like every quirk, everything he was a little bit weird about, everything that he didn’t care about. It made going in the ring so much less nerve-racking because I was like Oh, he’s going to look at this or Oh, he’s not going to look at this.
“It’s just really connected me to him because we were always together, every time he was getting care it was always from me, so I think that comfort went both ways, me towards him, but also him towards me, like OK Kylie’s here, it’s going to be OK,” she continues. “I think it gave me an advantage at certain points compared to people who have their grooms do all the work with their horses.”
With her move to college imminent, Kylie,19, took a turn in the jumper ring in 2025 with Samantha Browning’s CHS Hugo, thanks to support from Sailor.
“I had some of the most fun, awesome shows I’ve ever had getting to do the jumpers for the first time, navigating a new section of jumping,” says Kylie. “[Sailor] was always cheering me on and always making me feel so confident in my riding.”
Sailor’s horsemanship-first approach is part of what led the Eynon family to working with the professional. The family needed someone who supported them keeping the horses at home, and Sailor’s dedication to putting the horse’s well-being above everything else was what drew them to her.
“Jamie is incredible,” says Kylie. “She is the sweetest, most down-to-earth trainer, and I really do think she puts her clients and the horses’ best interest above all else. In the few months that I did ride with her, I got more opportunities than I have ever received in my entire riding career.”
A Supportive Environment
For the Eynons, riding isn’t just a hobby; it’s a lifestyle, and the fact that four of them are involved in the same sport has brought them closer together. They understand the dedication that it takes to be successful and also understand the inevitable disappointments that come with competing with an animal.
“When we show with each other it’s even that more important because we know everything that’s going on, and we can talk to each other and I feel like it makes our connection as a family stronger because we’re also invested with what is going on with everyone,” says Chloe. “I feel like when wins happen for any of us it’s that much more special because we all have experience together.”
The family also makes sacrifices for one another, because Hailey traveled east to show at the indoor finals, the other two cut back on their showing for the year so she could have that opportunity. Other years, Chloe and Kylie had the chance to compete on the East Coast. For them, it’s worth it, and when they do all show together, it’s a supportive environment.
“It was never a competition, it was always cheering each other on, and being like, ‘Oh you’ve got this. You’re doing so good,’ ” Kylie says, adding that they could always offer some helpful advice.
Rarely do all the stars align for everyone to have a great day at the same time, which is part of what made Chloe and Hailey’s successful trip to junior hunter finals so meaningful.
“Sometimes it’s hard when you have two kids in the sport and one is winning and one is having a hard time at that particular show which happens more often than everybody being successful, but this was unbelievably special,” says Amy.
Adding More Finesse to the Equation
The Eynon family also relies on renowned equitation trainer Karen Healey to up their game. While all three sisters have ridden with Healey, Hailey has worked with her the most, as equitation classes have been a huge focus for her this year.
“Hailey is extremely talented,” says Healey. “This is a big step for her, but she’s a great student. She’s like a sponge, and Chloe is delightful, and so is Kylie.”
Healey closed her barn back in 2015 and since then has been focusing on freelancing, helping her clients pursue their equitation goals. Because Hailey is newer to equitation, Healey’s been working on enhancing her knowledge of the division and improving her understanding how to ride the track most effectively.
“They’re a great family and lovely to work with, and the kids are polite and brought up well and eager to learn, which is a huge thing,” says Healey.
Like their other trainer, Jamie Sailor, Healey appreciates the connection the Eynons have with their horses and the education they’ve gained by having them at home.
“They appreciate the horses; they love the horses,” Healey says. “They understand the care. They understand soundness. They understand what they have to do to keep them going. I think any hands-on experience for any kid is great.”
