Lexington, Ky.—Aug. 30

Brynna Gang’s journey with her longtime partner Wise Guy started with a book. Her mom had read a book about a woman who owned a Nokota horse. At the end of the book, was a section detailing the breed, which led Gang’s mom to the Nokota Horse Conservancy’s website. And on the site, she found a sale page for a then 2-year-old Wise Guy.

“He looked a lot like my first horse, Bucky,” Gang said. “And it just happened to be that I was starting to horse shop. I liked what he sounded like, and we went down and looked at him. Like, it was complete happenstance, and it changed my life because now I have a second one of the same breed, because they’re such thinkers in a way that I’ve not had in any other breed.”

Nokotas are a rare breed—there are only about 1,000—and are descendants of the wild horses of North Dakota, and they still reside in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Though Wise Guy had been handled prior to Gang purchasing him, she picked her second Nokota, Clarion, from a pen, similar to how the Bureau of Land Management sells wild mustangs to keep the population in check.

Her future eventer “Kit,” however, was residing in western Pennsylvania when Gang met him and was a companion to a steeplechaser.

“They threw me on him, and then we went for, like, an hour trail ride at a walk,” said Gang.

Impressed by the young horse’s behavior, she bought him, and though he was a happy trail companion, they still had a long way to go. The first time she rode him in an indoor, he cantered right out the door because steering wasn’t in his skillset.

“They’re really people-friendly,” she said of the breed. “[Kit’s] super curious, and that’s one of the reasons he’s such a good eventer, because he wants to see what’s next. He likes to think. My other guy’s the same way—[it] definitely seems to be a breed trait, and they’re very athletic.”

Once he started eventing, Kit found his calling.

“He has always done his best and tried,” she said. “The moment he went out of a start box, even when he was 4, and we did our first unrecognized, he just loved it: ears pricked, galloping forward, happy, happy horse. I think that’s something kind of unique to eventing and cross-country in particular—they have to love it. When you are riding a horse that you know well, and that you can feel is just as excited to be doing this as you are, there’s nothing like that.

“He’s just amazing,” she added. “It’s like every dream I’ve ever had.”

In their 17 years together, Gang and Kit—now 19—have competed through training and spent five years at that level. She looked at moving him up, but then COVID waylaid those plans, and once things went back to normal she decided against it because he was getting older, and she wanted to preserve his longevity.

“He loves his job so much that I just want to keep him sound and happy and doing this as long as I can,” she said. “My dream for him is to be like 25 going starter and having a blast.”

Gang, who lives in a suburb of Chicago, is an attorney practicing vaccine injury law out of a court in Washington, D.C., so she works remotely.

“I was working [Wednesday] morning, in fact, but I generally try to schedule around [the USEA American Eventing Championships],” she said. “Last year here, and I was working in the stands because I had a trial the next week. So again, you just have to get it done. His age, just the way this works, [it’s] probably our last one, right? I could have said the same thing last year. So I’ve tried to show up when we can, to make these memories with him. I’m going to do whatever I can do, right, to actually make this happen.”

This year marks the pair’s fourth time competing at the AEC, and this time they’re competing in the novice rider division. They scored a 30.4 in dressage and were double clear on cross-country to sit 13^th going into show jumping.

“Every horse trial I’ve ever been to, goal No. 1: finish,” she said. “Goal No. 2, honestly, for us, I just really want to take the time to appreciate everything he’s done for me.”