Ask Meghan Hopkins what she loves most about her job working in the equine industry and she can’t say enough.
“One thing horse people love to do is talk about horses!” she said.
Hopkins is the owner of H & H Equestrian Center in South Range, which offers boarding and training for horses in its “barn family.” Her background in working with the animals began in her youth.
“I started showing an interest in horses from a young age,” she said. “I always wanted to see them, be around them, ride them any time I saw them at county fairs.”
Hopkins got riding lessons from her parents for Christmas when she was 6 years old.
“We were living in Fiji at the time and I took riding lessons over there for a few months before we moved back to Superior,” she said. “Once we got home and settled, we found a local barn where I continued to take riding lessons for years.”
Hopkins said she was lucky to have a father who leased her her first pony, and they eventually purchased one. She began showing in 4-H and other smaller local shows.
“I spent every waking moment at the barn, my parents dropping me off every day up there in the summer and on weekends,” she said.
Hopkins would spend her days riding horses, cleaning stalls and working around the farm, doing odd jobs just to spend the whole day there.
“My barn friends and I would have sleepovers in the barn office so we could wake up and spend the entire day at the farm, playing and cleaning and riding any horse that was available to us,” Hopkins said.
Hopkins’ first pony was a small half-Arabian mare named Angel, whom she said had nothing in common with her name. However, Angel taught her how to ride without getting bucked off and patience.
Her family then purchased a small quarter horse named Keeno, bred to chase cows, and they did everything together for 10 years. Together, Keeno and Hopkins got an entire wall of ribbons and trophies.
“He will forever be one of the best horses I will probably ever own,” she said.
In 2016, Hopkins found a black thoroughbred on Facebook Marketplace who failed off the racetrack in Minnesota. She later had two more geldings for lesson horses, “which will also spend the rest of their lives right here with me,” she said. “And I’m always hopeful another one finds their way into my herd.”
As she grew up, Hopkins discovered one could pursue higher education in the equine field, and she knew that was where life was taking her. It was all she wanted to do. She began researching as many colleges as possible. The only two requirements were having an equine science degree and that it couldn’t be from Minnesota, Wisconsin or any state touching the two. Hopkins said she needed a break from winter anyway, so she and her father flew around the country to look at schools. She narrowed down her choices to three and was accepted to all of them.
“I had to decide which one was going to be the best fit,” which was William Woods University in Fulton, Mo., she said. She began in fall 2012.
After a year at William Woods, Hopkins decided it wasn’t as “horse-focused” as she wanted it to be, so she transferred to Meredith Manor International Equestrian Center in Waverly, West Va., a small school with only 150 students.
“We would some days spend as many as 10 hours in the barn, riding up to six horses a day, in addition to our classroom learning and, of course, barn chores,” she said. “It was absolutely the perfect fit for me.”
Her goal was to train and show horses initially, then sell them to other riders.
“I actually had zero interest in teaching riding lessons. I just wanted to work with the horses, not people,” she said.
Still, students were required to take a teaching course.
“And after the first day, I decided I never wanted to do anything else except teach people how to ride,” she said. “It was so much fun watching people accomplish their goals, learn skills and advance.”
Hopkins poured every single second into learning how to teach, communicate with people on what they needed to do and of course, have fun doing it. Teaching the next generation of riders was what made her happiest, and she figured it made the most financial sense to operate her own business of boarding.
Hopkins has been in the industry professionally for eight years, and her college experience, she said, was 100 percent the most accurate example of what the industry is really like: long days, always something to be done, no free weekends, riding in all types of weather and working with all types of horses.
“It was hard work, but I learned so much and it was an invaluable experience,” she said.
After she got her degree, Hopkins moved home to figure out her next steps. She said the Twin Ports aren’t exactly a booming place for the horse industry.
“I spent months looking for jobs, interviewing around the country,” she said.
Eventually, Hopkins took a job in Houston, but ended up leaving shortly after starting, as it wasn’t the right fit for her career goals. She moved back to Superior.
“Out of sheer luck, I asked the owner of the barn I had grown up at if they had any interest in hiring a second riding instructor to help with overflow lessons, and I was hired,” she said.
Hopkins had to build her own program from the ground up, but she was successful and worked there for a couple of years. Unfortunately in 2017, the barn was sold and she needed a new job.
“I didn’t know what my next move was going to be, but the universe always opens a door when one closes,” Hopkins said.
Her longtime friend was housesitting for a small farm just outside Superior and said, “I think they’re going to list it soon; you should come take a look.”
Hopkins had ridden at that farm once for a clinic and remembered how much she loved it and wanted to board there. She looked at it and said “I decided I was going to do everything in my power to get it, start my own business and finally live my dream.”
The paperwork was signed after a few months, and the rest was history.
“I remember when my first shipment of hay showed up at the barn, how many people came to help me,” Hopkins said.
Her family, friends and even parents of kids she showed in 4-H with through the years all showed up to help put the hay away.
“The horse community up here is small and close-knit, but everybody helps everybody,” she said. “None of us ever do this for money or glory; we do this because we really love animals. They say if you want to be a millionaire in the horse industry, start with two million, and soon enough, you’ll be down to being a millionaire.”
Hopkins said she has learned from every single person she has met in her years in the equine industry.
One highlight of her career was receiving her first check for teaching in her own arena on her own horses.
“It was a feeling I wish I could bottle up and have forever,” Hopkins said. “I finally felt like I had made it. That all the blood, sweat and tears that had gone into my education, buying the farm, the years of hard work, they were for something. I did it. Being able to sit on my deck and look out and see my horses grazing in the backyard under the sunset, that’s a highlight that never gets old.”
She also loves watching kids smile because they mastered a skill they have been working on for weeks, and seeing horse owners spend an evening riding or sitting with their horses while watching the sunset as the horses graze. She even loves giving all the horses a few treats on Christmas Eve when she tucks them into their stalls for the night. Horses don’t care how bad the day was, she said, or if you’re stressed out about something small.
“They expect to be fed, watered and taken care of, so leave your problems at the door,” she said. “And just being able to have that mindset and enjoy the moment you’re in and focus on being around them makes you forget anything that didn’t go your way over the course of the day. Horses for me have always put things into a better perspective.”
She credits her horses also for making her the calm, confident, strong woman she is around them.
As for the future, Hopkins feels she’s in a good spot for what she can offer. The center has full-service boarding and a call lesson program “I can sustain on my own without going insane,” Hopkins said. “I’m happy with the state of my farm.”
Eventually, she would like to expand on the program to offer more lessons full-time and offer clinics at the farm, bringing in guest instructors.
“I’ve worked hard on running this place with top-notch horse care in mind, and I’ve decided to keep it a smaller operation so that I make sure I have the time to dedicate to each and every horse, owner and lesson student,” she said.
Hopkins is the sole employee of the center, which allows her to keep a close eye on the day-to-day operations, and horse owners then know exactly who to go to for questions. Therefore, Hopkins said going forward, the plan is to continue to study the equine industry, stay up on the standards, continue to upgrade the farm and expand the business as much as possible while enjoying it for the rest of her life.
She also thanks her parents, family, friends, mentors, riding instructors, college professors and everyone else she has met along the way who helped make her dream come true.
“We hope that somebody reading this also has a horse-crazy kid at hone who wants to come hang out in the barn with us, too!” she said.
H & H Equestrian Center is located at 5675 E. Cty. Rd. C in South Range. To learn more, visit https://hhequestriancenter.com/.
Regan Kohler is a freelance reporter.
