Junior Katie Ladin discovered her passion for horses during a summer camp in Oswego when she was 8 years old.

“I asked my mom to do a summer camp and she was like, ‘Oh you’re not going to like this I’ll let you do this camp,’ and I liked it and I continued doing it,” she said.

Eager to have a horse of her own, she bought her first horse, Beau, around five years ago.

Unfortunately, after a couple of years, Beau was injured and no longer able to jump, causing Ladin to transfer him to a more docile environment, a farm where the horses are available to offer rides to disabled children.

After leasing another horse for about five months, Ladin was on the search for the next horse to accompany her training and finally met her match: a thoroughbred named Derby.

“I was trying horses at other barns and at my barn, and none of them really worked out, but when I got on Derby I knew he was the one,” she said.

Derby was not a horse with privileged beginnings and met Ladin with a considerable amount of anxiety.

“I rescued him from a lady who found him a pasture, and she fed him and worked with him, but I continued to train him,” she said.

After a year of building a relationship with Derby, Ladin spends her time at Judgement Farm after school training with her horse, additionally riding two to three other horses for her friends or other people at the farm. But most of her time is spent jumping Derby, brushing him, and of course, occasionally feeding him his all-time favorite: white doughnuts with sprinkles.

One of Ladin’s friends at the barn, Kesley Taylor, admires the relationship that Ladin possesses with Derby.

“I know he likes to run around a lot and when she tries to calm him down he actually responds to her,” Taylor said. “And sometimes when other people ride him, like I’ve ridden him before, and I can’t get him to go as well as she does. [Ladin] calms him downs so he’s not as wild as he normally is with other people.”

Ladin will prepare to compete with Derby in future competitions this year.