Paula Oliver always wanted to pursue riding, and dressage in particular, as a young person, but when the time came to attend graduate school for genetics and pathology, she knew horses would have to move to the back burner while she established a career that could fund her passion.

Oliver earned her doctorate and now teaches immunology at the University of Pennsylvania. About 10 years ago, she decided it was time to get back into riding, and she did it with her daughter, Evie Oliver, who’d inherited her passion for horses.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Paula decided she wanted to seriously pursue breeding, so she sold her home in Philadelphia and bought a farm in nearby Chester County, Pennsylvania. Her interest in genetics extended to matching mares and stallions, and she knew she wanted to start her breeding program with strong mares.

She’d purchased Shiloh, a now-15-year-old Oldenburg mare (Shakespeare RSF—Dhominica, De Niro 6), who was bred by Maurine Swanson of Rolling Stone Farm in Pennsylvania, in 2017 in hopes of finding some show ring success before breeding her. She also purchased Shading, a now-10-year-old Oldenburg mare (Shakespeare RSF—El Wyneth, Widmark) also bred by Swanson, for Evie.

Shiloh was pregnant with her third foal, and after that foal was born, Paula restarted the mare, who’d only been ridden as a 3-year-old for her mare performance test.

This week, Paula and Shiloh will canter down centerline at Kingsview Partners Dressage At Devon (Pennsylvania)—their first CDI—to contest the CDIAm Prix St. Georges and Intermediaire I classes.

“It’s an amazing opportunity, to have this so close to us and have this opportunity to come and do my first CDI on a mare that I developed,” she said. “It’s really huge. It’s my first time, but you’ve got to have a first, and I’m just thrilled to have this opportunity to get out and start this phase. I hope there are many more in the future.”

Paula gets occasional help from Olivia LaGoy-Weltz and works regularly with Lauren Sammis. She doesn’t have a huge goal for this weekend since it’s her first CDI, but the pair have been scoring in the mid- to upper-60s in national Prix St. Georges classes.

“She’s been an amazing partner,” she said of Shiloh. “In the beginning she wasn’t completely convinced that she wanted to leave her broodmare life, but she clearly just loves what she does now. It’s been really amazing. The appreciation you have for a horse that allows you to learn as you go along and tolerates the mistakes you make—which are inevitable while you’re learning—it’s hard to describe the appreciation I have for that mare.”

Evie will also be competing this weekend in the CDIYR division with Shading. 

“Seeing her have the love of horses in her blood, it’s kind of indescribable,” Paula said. “She’s every bit as into it as I am, and it’s really made for a nice excuse for me to expand my program! I can buy more horses because it’s for both of us. It’s been amazing watching her develop and her determination and challenging herself and improving her riding skills and her training skills. She takes it very seriously. She quickly became a better rider than I was, even though I had many years in the saddle. I may sit a buck a bit better, but she’s definitely the more talented rider at this point!”

The pair operate Dressage at Laurel’s Edge in Unionville where Evie, 21, rides and trains. She competed at the FEI North American Youth Championships (Michigan) this year with Shading and has shown Shiloh in the past when her mount was out with an injury. 

Paula still holds down her full-time job at the University of Pennsylvania and says eventually she’d like to expand their operation when she has more time. They currently have 25 horses which include foals, weanlings and yearlings as well as their four personal horses to ride, a sales horse and a client horse that Evie rides. They have three broodmares and also do embryo transfers. 

“We really focus on mares with strong competition records,” Paula said. “It’s an important addition to make sure you’re producing offspring who excel in competition. We’re developing a program where many of our mares are proven in competition and stallions that are often Grand Prix.”

While Paula, 59, appreciates the quality of stallions in the U.S., she says they currently utilize European stallions since there are more with proven Grand Prix and international show records.

Their first group of young horses will be under saddle next year, and Paula and Evie hope to compete them in the materiale and breed classes at Devon. They’ll keep some for future broodmares and sell others.

Evie has enjoyed growing up and sharing her love of dressage with her mother, and she’ll be ringside this week cheering her on with Shiloh.

“When she started Shiloh back, it’s a really difficult process,” Evie said. “When they’ve been broodmares for that long, they’ve lost all of their muscling, so it’s really starting a horse from scratch. It was difficult, but she stuck with it. It was a long process, but they made it through, and she made such huge progress in a small amount of time. Shiloh’s amazing.”