07/16/2024
Right off the bat, the English riders are coming in strong for this year's 2024 All American Horse Challenge Pro division rider Jess Phoenix and his Morgan, Nite, are excited to join us! And we love seeing new riders pushing their horsemanship because that's what it's all about!
Jess Phoenix has over 34 years of experience riding, training, and showing horses of all types in a variety of English riding disciplines. Jess competed in the Colorado Hunter Jumper Association show circuit from 1990-2000 in Hunters, Equitation, and Jumpers. In college, she competed in Intercollegiate Horse Shows Association Equestrian events at the NCAA Division III level for Smith College, where she placed in the Top Ten riders in the Region under the coaching of IHSA legend Sue Payne. This experience included riding unfamiliar horses after a brief warmup period, and taught Jess the versatility needed to train a variety of horses. Also during college, she worked as a riding instructor at the renowned Camp Robin Hood in New Hampshire where she taught horsemanship, riding fundamentals, and advanced riding and jumping to a cohort of talented students.
Jess began acquiring Thoroughbred racehorses directly from racetracks and the slaughter pipeline in 2002. Since then, she has retrained dozens of ex-racehorses for new careers and happy lives after their race days ended. She has trained and competed in both the United States and Australia. Jess was selected to compete in the 2012 Mongol Derby, the world’s longest horse race that follows the legendary postal routes created by Genghis Khan. She is a USHJA credentialed instructor and has a training barn in Lakeview Terrace, California.
Nite was born free in the mountains south of Tehachapi, California. He is 14.2 hands of spicy wild pony. He spent his early years in an offshoot band of what are known as the Oak Creek Wild Horses. These horses are suspected to descend from the Morgan breeding stock of Roland Hill, and have been feral for decades. Nite's band has zero human contact, and if he hadn't taken over a herd of cattle belonging to a local rancher he would have remained running wild. A long series of events brought him to Jess, where his talent in the jumper ring was discovered. Nite qualified for the US Hunter Jumper Association National Finals in Las Vegas, NV in 2023 with his junior rider Hayden, and he has successfully completed against (and beaten) some of the finest horses in the world at Desert International Horse Park. His favorite activity is bossing everyone around.
