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Seven t een - yea r - o l d Megan Millon is part of a riding family that includes her amateur mom, Dr. Angela Millon, a pediatrician, and her brother, Mike, a former competitive junior rider who is a freshman at Wofford College. The family lives in Easley, South Carolina, outside of Greenville, on their own horse farm complete with a Victorian farm house.

“We keep our horses on our home farm and care for them ourselves. We split the barn chores, feeding, watering, cleaning stalls and dragging the

ring every day,” Megan said. “My mom also body clips our horses and ships our horses to where ever we need to go. I also groom, clean tack, and pack supplies for shows.” Megan said she loves being part of a horse show family and that it has brought her family closer together. “We stay at the horse shows in our living quarters horse trailer, and since we bought the trailer even my dad enjoys coming to horse shows to watch us ride. I really like doing night check with my mom because we can talk about how the show day went, what went well and what we are going to do differently the next day.”

Sidelines caught up with Angela and Megan to fnd out more about the adventures of this fun-loving mother-daughter duo. We gave Megan the chance to speak frst followed by her mother, Angela – because mom always gets the fnal say!

MM: I started riding when I was four years old, but honestly I can never remember not riding. When it came time for me to start jumping Mom said it was time for me to get a real trainer. I started showing on the local circuit with Lee Cone, and he helped me when I was showing in walk-trot-canter and cross rails. Our family then decided to train with Holli Adams, of Still Creek Farm in Columbus, North Carolina, in order to start showing on the A circuit.

AM: I started riding back in the ‘70s with Rick Fancher when he was just starting out as a professional at his parents’ farm in Weston, Connecticut. He laid a great foundation and not only did he teach me how to ride but we all did our own barn work back then. All the kids learned to groom, bathe, wrap legs, body clip, braid and clean tack correctly. I rode up until I went off to college. Then I took about a 20-year break - college, medical school, residency and

MM: I currently ride Corleona and Forte. Corleona is a 9 year old Westphalian mare that I have been riding in the high children’s jumpers. I hope to move up to the low junior jumpers on her soon. Forte is my brother’s equitation horse and I plan on showing him in the equitation and junior hunters until he gets sold.

AM: Currently I don’t “own” any horses myself! We have three kid’s horses on the farm, a hunter, jumper and equitation horse. I have taken over my daughter’s young hunter because the mare was green and not coming along as fast as we had hoped. I like projects and quirky horses. We found the mare on a trip to Ireland two summers ago. We did not go to Ireland on a horse-hunting trip - it was just supposed to be a regular vacation - but we came across a very nice green prospect that came home with us. My husband thought we might come home with some handmade sweaters and blankets. Oh well, another case of better to ask for forgiveness than permission! As it turns out, I love the mare, Hallie, and I started with her last summer and we moved up to the 3’3” amateurs last fall. I hope to step up to the regular amateur owners this year.

MM: My favorite horse is Corleona because she is very opinionated about

everything. Her favorite things are treats and jumping but she is really grumpy about everything else. She detests fat work, dogs and all other horses because they compete for my attention and treats. She is really a sweetheart deep down when you get to know her but she can come across as a “tough German broad.” At home she is as quiet as my old children’s hunter but in the ring when the buzzer goes off she is all business and ready to go fast and turn hard.

MM: I get to spend a lot more time with her than most teenagers spend with their parents which make us really close. We have a lot of fun riding at home and doing barn chores together every day. We also travel a lot because we trailer our horses to lessons every weekend at our trainer’s farm and to shows, which means we have a lot of time to talk. She is very supportive of my riding career and will often get me out of school early in the week so we can get to the show in time to let our horses settle in before they