In college, Ashley Kehoe took an entrepreneurship class that required her to invent a product or service that could earn $400. When her group’s idea fell through with a month left before the project was due, she had to think fast.

Kehoe had a horse that was dealing with an abscess, and she was tired of packing and wrapping the hoof, so she invented her own hoof packing that stayed put in the foot with just some wood shavings on top and called it Rebound.

Kehoe aced her project and went on to create a business out of Rebound, which now helps fund her two top horses, Kiltealy Toss Up and Cinco De Mayo.

Ashley Kehoe and Kiltealy Toss Up at Red Hills. Photo by Lindsay Berreth.

She’s bringing both to the Cloud 11-Gavilan North LLC Carolina International this weekend in Raeford, North Carolina, and is hoping they’ll both get her to her goal of competing at a four-star someday.

“It’s not a ton of money, but it’s just enough to help pay for two horses that I don’t have to sell. That’s huge,” said Kehoe. “So many riders are doing catch rides and teaching lessons, but at the end of the day they have to sell their top horses. I did just get offered a lot of money to sell one of them, but I’d rather be poor and get to [Kentucky] next year! That’s the goal.”

Kehoe grew up in Pennsylvania and earned her A rating with the Radnor Hunt Pony Club. She was a working student for David and Karen O’Connor at 18 and spent five years training with them as she attended James Madison University (Virginia).

When Rebound became a serious business in college, Kehoe tried six months of doing that full time and catch riding on the side, but she felt the pull of the horses too strongly.

Ashley Kehoe and Kiltealy Toss Up at the 2017 Ocala Jockey Club International CIC***. Photo by Lindsay Berreth.

“To do marketing and sales full time, it was crushing my soul!” she said. “I’m a rider and trainer, and I love it.”

Kehoe’s parents offered to help her run the day-to-day operations for Rebound, while she started working with different riders to gain experience, especially in working with young horses, which are her passion.

She spent time with Sharon White, Debbie Adams and Michael Pollard, and in 2015 she got the opportunity of a lifetime to ride with German horse trainer and dealer Philipp Kolossa via a recommendation from her friend Jennie Brannigan.

She spent 1 ½ years with Kolossa, and while there she had her own string of seven or eight horses and competed to the one-star level.

“I learned so much just by doing a ton of different horses at the lower levels,” said Kehoe, who’d competed to the three-star level with Mazetto before he retired. “For me, and I’m not alone, a lot of the young riders move up the levels so quickly, whether they have a packer or whatever. Then you just run intermediate and advanced. That’s like a whole different skill: to produce young horses, finding good quality horses. I’ve learned a really good program to produce them—from Germany, a lot of cavaletti work, longeing. It’s hard to find programs here in the U.S. that also produce young horses.

Ashley Kehoe and Kiltealy Toss Up at the 2017 Ocala Jockey Club International CIC***. Photo by Lindsay Berreth.

“They do everything with the young horses in a snaffle,” she continued. “I’m very into put it in the snaffle and stop trying to be on the fast track and move it up the levels too quickly. Don’t push them too fast because I feel like that could limit their ability to be top horses. Have them in a good program with a hack day and a longe day and a flat day and another longe day and a cross-country school and an easy day. Don’t put too much pressure and stress them out.”

When Kehoe’s visa was denied for an extension at Kolossa’s she went to Ann and Nigel Taylor’s Aston le Walls in England. She also spent time riding for Jodie Amos and Emma Forsyth.

Kehoe, 31, came back to the States in 2016 with Cinco De Mayo, whom she’d taken with her, and a new partner in Kiltealy Toss Up.

“Cinco,” a 9-year-old warmblood cross (Riverman—Belair) bred by Ann Glaus, is one that Kehoe’s brought along. He’s preparing for a CCI** later this year.

“I have to go a bit slower with him,” she said. “He’s brave and careful. I’ve taken my time with him, and he’s come along great.”

Ashley Kehoe and groom Liz Wise with Kiltealy Toss Up. Photo courtesy of Ashley Kehoe.

Kiltealy Toss Up, or “Tosca,” was being competed in England by Abigail Kate Walters. He’d done one CIC***, and with Kehoe has since finished 16th at the Ocala Jockey Club International CIC*** (Florida). This spring they finished eighth in the advanced at both Rocking Horse (Florida) and Red Hills (Florida), and they’ll tackle the advanced division this weekend at Carolina.

It’s been a fun challenge for Kehoe to return to advanced, a level at which she hasn’t competed since 2010. Although Tosca, a 12-year-old Irish Sport Horse gelding (Kiltealy Spring—Kiltealy Lass, Kings Servant), may not love dressage, he shines in the jumping phases.

“I just really loved how genuine he was,” Kehoe said. “Nothing fazes him [on cross-country]. He’s the most chill horse I’ve ever ridden in my life. A bomb could go off, and he’d be like, ‘That’s cool.’ He’s a good solid advanced horse [now]. There’s no doubt in my mind he’ll run around Kentucky next year. He gives you that feeling. He’s a bold, big, brave galloping horse.”

Kehoe is based in Ocala, Florida, right now and trains with Leslie Law. She’ll soon head back to her base at Antebellum Farm in Lexington, Kentucky. She currently has 11 horses in training including a preliminary mare of her own, Remember Me.

Ashley Kehoe is enjoying being back at the advanced level with Kiltealy Toss Up. Photo by Lindsay Berreth.

“I feel like I’m way better now!” she said of getting back to advanced. “I haven’t had the chance to be competing at advanced the whole time, but I feel like those 10,000 hours you get practicing your skills [have paid off], especially riding difficult young horses. Mazetto was like a beast cross-country; he was so forward. Tosca is so lazy, so it’s learning how to ride two different types of ride at the advanced level, and I’m no Phillip Dutton. I’m trying to figure it out. The last time I was at Carolina, Mazetto had the fastest time cross-country. That was my last time at Carolina. Now I’m on this horse where I kick him around. They’re just different. I like it because I want to be a four-star rider, so I’m trying to learn all different types of horses.”

Kehoe is grateful her non-horsey parents help run Rebound, but she still has a lot of involvement. Her biggest clients are racing barns in Dubai, and the product can be found in the barns of top riders all over the world.

“I spent a couple of weeks at William Fox-Pitt’s, and I got there, and they had jars of Rebound out, and I was like, ‘Is this a joke? Did you guys know this is my deal?’ ” she said with a laugh. “And they’re like, ‘No. What?!’ The New Zealand team farrier uses it.”

Kehoe is targeting The Fork CIC*** (North Carolina) with Tosca and then the Jersey Fresh CCI*** (New Jersey).

“I feel really lucky to be at the place that I’m at, to be able to train horses now as a business and be a rider,” she said.

The Chronicle will be on site at the Carolina International starting Thursday, March 22. Check back at coth.com for daily reports.