Every little girl dreams of having her very own stallion, straight from the pages of Black Beauty; riding horses through glimmering, dew-covered grass, feeding little cubes of sugar to long-legged colts.

For sophomore Andrea Olson, riding horses is more than a childhood fancy; she has two of her very own, both of which she has had for over eight years. “I board them at a different barn… I’ve always loved horses, so did my mom,” she said.

Despite the amount of space horses can take up, Olson didn’t have many difficulties with taking care of her pets. “I could keep them at my house if I wanted to. I have a barn and a fence in my backyard,” Olson said. “My family loves animals [and] we’re just that type of family…I [also] have two dogs and two cats.”

When Olson first met her horse, it was love at first sight. “I loved him right away, he was the prettiest horse. He needed a lot of training but I knew he had the potential to be really competitive,” she said.

Olson found her horse, Tux, online and went to see him at his stable at the suggestion of her trainer. While he “wasn’t at the level where we wanted him,” her mom surprised her by buying Tux for her. “I almost cried, I was so happy,” Olson said.

Although Olson loves her horses, she doesn’t get to spend a whole lot of time with them anymore. “Hockey’s kind of taken priority over riding, cause that’s what I want to do in college,” she said. “When I get older, I want to pick it up again… I am very privileged to have had the opportunity to ride.”

Olson also competes in pleasure shows with Tux. “It’s basically the judges scoring you for how your horse moves, how well you can control him… last year I was showing against Pinto horses from all over the country, mostly from the midwest,” she said. “There’s horse people, dog people, hockey people. When you compete, you meet people who are interested in horses just like you.”