[Hartford, Connecticut] — May 2026 — The Plaid Horse Magazine is proud to announce that Marley Lien-Gonzalez, a junior journalism student at Fordham University and writer for The Plaid Horse, has been named a finalist for the 2026 American Horse Publications Student Award. The recognition, one of the most competitive and prestigious honors in equestrian media for emerging journalists, places Marley among the very best student equine communicators in the country — and The Plaid Horse could not be more proud to call her one of their own.
The American Horse Publications Student Award recognizes undergraduate and graduate students who demonstrate exceptional promise in equine journalism and media. To be named a finalist is a distinction that reflects not only strong writing ability but a genuine understanding of the equestrian world, the readers who inhabit it, and the journalistic standards that serve them well. For a student balancing the demands of a rigorous Fordham University journalism program with a part-time editorial role and an active career grooming at top horse shows around the country, this recognition is a reflection of her dedication and work ethic.
Lien-Gonzalez’s path to The Plaid Horse began, as the best stories often do, with a love of horses that was bigger than her circumstances and a work ethic determined to close any gap in between. She joined the publication as an intern who was not afraid of a story that sparked industry conversation and consistently turned in work that was several years above what might reasonably be expected from a student journalist in her early college years. It was not long before the internship became a part-time position, a hire that reflected the staff’s genuine confidence in her talent and the practical reality that good writers are hard to find at any level.
What makes Marley’s story particularly resonant is that her journalism career has not existed in a comfortable academic bubble. While pursuing her degree at Fordham and developing her editorial voice at The Plaid Horse, she has simultaneously been working as a groom at top horse shows across the country, a physically demanding, early-morning, late-night profession that requires a level of commitment and horsemanship that few outside the industry fully appreciate. Grooming at that level means understanding horses not as subjects to be written about from a comfortable distance, but as living athletes whose needs, moods, and physical wellbeing are a daily and intimate responsibility. That experience has made Marley a better journalist. It shows in her writing — in the texture of her observations, in her instinct for what actually matters to the people inside the sport, and in her ability to earn the trust of sources who can immediately tell the difference between someone who understands the life and someone who is merely visiting it.
“Marley represents exactly what The Plaid Horse has always believed about growing young equestrians in journalism,” said Piper Klemm, publisher of The Plaid Horse. “You cannot write well about this world if you are only watching it from the outside. Marley has been inside it — in the barn aisles, at the in-gates, in the early mornings before the classes start — and it shows in everything she writes. This recognition is completely deserved, and it is only the beginning for her.”
The Plaid Horse extends its heartfelt congratulations to Marley on this well-earned recognition, its gratitude to American Horse Publications for championing student journalists in the equine media space, and its sincere thanks to Fordham University for educating the next generation of journalists with the rigor and standards the craft demands.
Marley Lien-Gonzalez’s work can be read at theplaidhorse.com.
