“We Are All Responsible for Making Our Sport More Accessible—The Future Is at Stake” Named Best in Class at 2025 AHP Equine Media Awards
[Hartford, Connecticut] — May 2026 — The Plaid Horse Magazine is proud to announce that its February 2025 feature article, “We Are All Responsible for Making Our Sport More Accessible—The Future Is at Stake,” has been awarded the American Horse Publications (AHP) Equine Media Award for Public Awareness Journalism. The honor, one of the most prestigious in equestrian media, recognizes outstanding journalism that advances public understanding of critical issues facing the horse industry. The article, led by contributor Rennie Dyball and featuring voices from across the equestrian community, was selected from a national field of entries for its courageous, compassionate, and unflinching examination of one of the most pressing challenges in horse sport today: accessibility.
The AHP Equine Media Awards are the gold standard of recognition in equestrian publishing, honoring the writers, editors, photographers, and media organizations whose work elevates the industry and serves its readership with integrity and excellence. Winning the Public Awareness Journalism category places The Plaid Horse among the most impactful voices in equine media, a distinction the publication’s team accepts with deep pride and an equally deep sense of responsibility.
“This award belongs to every person who was brave enough to tell the truth in this article,” said Piper Klemm, publisher of The Plaid Horse. “It belongs to Rennie Dyball, who opened the piece with the kind of personal honesty that makes readers feel seen. It belongs to Katie Rose, who described in raw and specific detail what it looks like to be a talented, driven young rider who cannot afford to stay in the sport she loves. It belongs to Kimbreley Hill, who is doing the hard, daily work of building a program that actually lets people in. And it belongs to every reader who shared the article, sent it to their trainer, or used it to start a conversation in their barn that needed to happen. We are honored, and we are more committed than ever.”
The article, published in the February 2025 print Issue of The Plaid Horse, brought together a remarkable range of voices including trainers, sport psychologists, community advocates, and riders to examine the growing crisis of accessibility in the hunter-jumper world from every angle. Dyball’s opening essay painted a vivid picture of what it means to be welcomed into the world of horses, and what is lost when that welcome is not extended. She followed that personal reflection with a clear-eyed call to action: that every barn, every trainer, every owner, and every rider has a role to play in opening doors that are, at this moment, closing to too many people.
Trainer Kimbreley Hill of KMH Sport Horses in Poolesville, Maryland, shared how she built a boutique riding academy that allows students of varying budgets to compete and grow, which is a model the article held up as proof that creative solutions exist for those willing to pursue them. Sport psychologist Dr. Darby Bonomi offered a searching examination of the psychological toll that the sport’s cost and competitiveness takes even on those already inside it, particularly junior riders who feel that talent alone is no longer enough. Ellie Trueman of the Ocala Horse Alliance described the transformational power of programs that bring non-equestrians into proximity with horses for the first time and the community-building that results. And equine massage therapist Beth Sabor made a thoughtful case for the particular gift that beginners bring to horses: an openness, a simplicity of presence, and an authenticity that horses respond to in ways that more experienced riders sometimes forget is possible.
But it was perhaps Katie Rose’s contribution that generated the most response from readers. Writing with the kind of honesty that costs something to put on the page, Rose described in precise, unsparing detail what it means to be an adult amateur who has done everything right , including working multiple jobs, cutting every corner, making every sacrifice and still cannot afford a single lesson per week. “Money may not buy you talent,” she wrote, “but it definitely buys you opportunity.” That sentence resonated across the equestrian world in the weeks following publication, shared in barn aisles and group chats and social media feeds by riders who recognized themselves in her words.
The American Horse Publications jury cited the article’s breadth of perspective, its editorial courage, and its genuine usefulness to the equestrian community as central to its selection. The piece did not traffic in easy answers or comfortable reassurances. It named the problem plainly, shared real stories of real people navigating it, offered concrete and actionable suggestions for readers at every level of the sport, and issued a clear-eyed warning: without meaningful change, horse sport risks becoming an exclusive province of the very wealthy, shrinking into irrelevance while the broader public remains locked outside a gate that was once at least partially open.
For The Plaid Horse, this award is not a conclusion, it is a continuation. The publication has long believed that honest, community-centered journalism serves the equestrian world better than any amount of flattering coverage, and that the sport’s future depends on the willingness of its most established voices to speak uncomfortable truths with clarity and care. This article was that in every sense.
The Plaid Horse extends its sincere gratitude to American Horse Publications for this recognition, to the contributors who trusted the magazine with their stories, and to the readers who made this article one of the most widely shared in the publication’s history.
The full article remains available at theplaidhorse.com.
