Equestrians know her voice. They know her carefully crafted, curious questions and lengthy conversations with riders from across the globe. They know that she isn’t afraid to dive into tough topics, often personal, vulnerable and sometimes difficult to articulate. 

On the airwaves, longtime podcast host Caroline Culbertson is polished and inquisitive. 

But day-to-day, Culbertson says her life hardly fits the image many hear in her interviews and see on social media. 

Based in Portland, Maine, Culbertson wakes each morning with her two young children and with a third on the way. She manages their home farm, with her personal horses in the backyard and a coop full of chickens. 

But while she’s mucking stalls or packing lunch for her kids, her thoughts are elsewhere, likely thinking about horse welfare or training tactics, contemplating the toughest questions facing our sport today. Later in the day, she’ll jot down those thoughts and eventually produce an hour-long conversation with someone equally as passionate about horses as she, and share it with the horse world. 

In 2024, Culbertson launched Horse Person, a podcast aimed at exploring what makes us tick as people obsessed with horses. “Being a horse person is like this: the more you learn, the more you realize you know nothing… at all,” reads the show’s description. Every other Monday when a new episode drops, Culbertson, 35, aims to share perspective and humility when it comes to riding and training horses. 

“I just felt like I wasn’t done,” said Culbertson, who is likely best known for her previous podcast Equestrian Voices, produced by the equestrian media company Noëlle Floyd. She left Noëlle Floyd in March 2024 to spend more time with her young and growing family. 

“There was so much I still wanted to talk about,” she said. “There’s so much to the messiness of being a horse person that I wanted to reflect back to the people who were listening.” 

Culbertson has produced 16 episodes of Horse Person so far, a show she owns completely by herself, but is marketed and shared by the media company Horse Network. Each episode is dedicated to one conversation with one other horse person, from dressage rider Anna Buffini to journalist Tori Repole. It’s similar in style to Equestrian Voices, but with its own defining edge. 

“I had so much creative freedom with Equestrian Voices, but when you’re creating something for a brand versus purely for your own joy, it’s different,” she said. “When you listen back to Equestrian Voices, you can hear that I’m careful about keeping myself out of it. I didn’t want the show to be about me. I’ve kept that philosophy with Horse Person, but I have become more comfortable with sharing more.” 

And her previous fans are finding her again. 

When Equestrian Voices announced it was ending with Culbertson’s departure, fans were shocked. Culbertson had created a space for in-depth, long-form interviews with equestrians that hadn’t existed in this way before. In her role at Noëlle Floyd, Culbertson relied on her print journalism background to produce glossy magazines, interviews with celebrity-status top riders and on-demand educational video series. Equestrian Voices was a bit of a side project.

“I’ve always thought of Caroline as the Oprah of the horse world,” said Sally Spickard, managing editor of Eventing Nation and host of recently launched The Go Eventing Podcast. “She is so thoughtful in how she approaches each topic and is able to go deeper in interviews than anyone else in our industry.”

The medium of podcasting always felt like a relatable way to reach equestrians to Culbertson. She relied on some short-lived experience gained from launching Heels Down Happy Hour in 2017, a podcast on the Horse Radio Network produced by Heels Down Magazine, which she did before taking on the job at Noëlle Floyd. 

“Podcasts weren’t brand new then but they were becoming something people paid attention to,” Culbertson said. “It felt like a chance to explore these conversations with riders that sometimes felt a little bit shortened by the word and text format, and a way to inject some personality.” 

Stepping away from podcasting and the equestrian media world after the birth of her second child was also a defining challenge of her career. 

“The hardest part was stepping away from Equestrian Voices. I felt so close to that community of listeners,” Culbertson said. “I had another baby, but had never taken a breath. Kids really force you to slow down. I remember feeling like I had my priorities all wrong at the time. My kids wanted more from me.” 

But she couldn’t stay away for long. 

What makes Horse Person different is that Culbertson retains full creative ownership. She sets her own schedule—working around her growing family and the farm—but still dives deep into the often uncomfortable topics facing the horse world today. Naturally, the feelings of starting over with something new made her nervous at first. 

But, “it’s been so warmly received, and it’s confirmed to me that this is a space people want,” she said about Horse Person. 

And she just can’t stop thinking about the conversation she wants to host next. 

“I’m thinking about in the shower. When I’m cutting apple slices for my kids. When I’m on a walk,” she said. “It’s a happy thing for me because it feels good to think about it that much. With my work and my life, it doesn’t feel like a progressive obsession. It feels productive and true to my passion.”