AACC testing coordinator Kelly Fay schedules exam times for students during the week. But on weekends, she rides her 20-year-old thoroughbred, named “Enough Testing,” in shows.
Fay, who has worked at AACC since 2017, started riding horses when she was 2 years old and started competing when she was 13.
“It’s something my family always did together,” said Fay, who added her parents were involved in equestrian sports.
Fay competes in three events. The first is dressage, an exhibition that shows the horse’s beauty and rider’s skill. The second event is cross-country riding, which involves jumping and endurance. Finally, in stadium jumping, the horse and rider avoid obstacles in a closed arena.
“I like to compare it to a triathlon,” Fay said of the trio of events.
Her favorite, Fay said, is cross-country. “It’s fast, it’s high adrenaline, it’s the most exciting,” she said.
Fay said horse riding sports require her to take care of herself and her horse.
“I really like the connection you have with the animal,” Fay said. “You have to have a partner.”
In fact, Fay has owned Enough Testing since the horse was born.
But Fay and her horse have performed in their last three-part event, as Enough Testing injured her knee during a recent show. They still participate in dressage, however.
“The partnership with the horse is the most important, and my horse is not able to continue to jump,” Fay said. “So we’re not going to jump until she retires and I get another horse.”
She added, “This is not something I can walk away from.”
Caring for Enough Testing, Fay said, is both the best and hardest part of her hobby.
“There’s a joke in veterinary medicine about horses,” Fay said. “Evolutionarily, they should not be alive because there’s a lot that can go wrong in a horse’s biological makeup.”
She makes a comparison between horses and dogs.
“You always have to remember that they’re doing it as something out of loyalty to you,” Fay said. “They’re kind of like big dogs. They want to make you happy.”