04/08/2026
It has been a whirlwind, to say the least, these past few weeks both personally and professionally. But with our 4th season of special olympics coming to a close here at Brevard Equestrian Center, I feel story time coming on...
Back in 2022, one of our barn moms pulled me into a meeting with two gentlemen from Special Olympics Florida. Her daughter was (is) an athlete and participates in a multitude of sports. I thought we were meeting to talk about the use of our facility to host a small competition. It made sense since we were nearing completion on the roof over our jump arena. An hour into this meeting Brevard Equestrian Center was hosting the Region Games for equestrian and starting a team. Our first team was small, maybe 6 or 7 riders, most of whom already rode at our facility. Who knew that three years later, our fourth team would consist of over 45 athletes and be (I think) the second or third largest program in the state?
The 2025/2026 season topped all expectations for the Brevard Equestrian Center team. For the first time, at state games, our championship finalists had TEAM SHIRTS thanks to Precision Companies of Cocoa, FL! It made it so much easier to pick our coaches and our students out of the crowd. Begin Again Equestrian took the lead on polling each athlete's caregiver to fill in what each rider was missing from their competition outfits, with amazing quality loaner equipment from boots, to awesome ties, to jackets! You name it and Lillyana B had it ready to go. Where we were missing items, Nila's Closet came through with a huge donation!
These three sponsors are not the only ones who made our season a success. When we realized we left our helmets in Grant, Kristin F and her equestrian daughter, Alex, drove up to Ocala to bring our helmets and cheer on our riders for the day! Two of our region games judges, Ann H and Katie K, made donations that will allow a few of our athletes to ride in the off season.
To all our coaches and volunteers, we couldn't do it without you guys! Hopefully as we continue to work to gain additional sponsorships, we can continue to grow our program not only to serve more athletes, but to serve them all year round.