By Helen Townes
Portraits by Sara Farrell
The equestrian story of four-star eventer Alexa Ehlers Thompson starts with a little hand-me-down Shetland pony named Panda, brought home in the back of her dad’s pickup truck. Panda was intended for her 10-year-old older sister, Kelsey, but Alexa was smitten and had other ideas.
“I was the classic younger child wanting to do everything my sister did, so I’d sneak out in the field, try to put a halter on Panda, and get stepped on,” Alexa laughed. “Whereas the first time my brother Robbie got bucked off, he decided he wanted nothing to do with horses!”
Three decades later, Alexa’s can-do, “go for it” attitude towards horses is as strong as ever. After many successful years as a Junior eventer, Alexa continues to ride and competes now at the four-star level. With the financial savvy and support of her parents, she successfully established her own eventing barn, Clear View Farm in Lexington, Kentucky, when she was still in college.
Starting Out Small
When Alexa was a young child, the Ehlers family of five—Alexa’s parents, Jeff and Stacy, and her older siblings, Kelsey and Robbie—lived in a home on a few acres with a little barn in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Jeff and Stacy were both accountants with minimal horse experience, so Alexa and her sister enjoyed a do-it-yourself introduction to horse life.
What they lacked in equine experience, Jeff and Stacy made up with wholehearted support of their daughters’ passion for horses. From the beginning, they instilled in their children a strong work ethic and a financially prudent approach to horse life. When Alexa was 4, the family, including Panda, moved to Blacksburg, Virginia, where they had five acres and a small barn. When Kelsey outgrew Panda, they acquired her next horse, this time an unlikely 4-year-old, green-broke BLM Mustang named Cisco found in the local newspaper’s classified ads. “My parents meant well, but they didn’t know any better at the time and were just so uneducated about horses,” Alexa laughed.
After Kelsey moved on to Cisco, Alexa got what she had wanted all along. “Panda finally ended up being mine on my 6th birthday. I got off the school bus and they had her waiting, wearing a big bow,” Alexa remembered.
Later, when Alexa was 8, the family made another move, this time to Bartonville, Texas. Fortuitously, it was in this new hometown that they connected with venerable eventing Olympian rider and trainer Mike Huber and Mary D’Arcy, former Olympic coach of the Irish Olympic eventing team. Kelsey began to compete seriously in the Area V eventing scene and went on to ride for Baylor University’s equestrian team. Back at home, Alexa was just as horse crazy as ever, showing natural aptitude—and boundless enthusiasm.
When Alexa was 10, she was paired with a new mount, Crystal Clear, a 7-year-old Thoroughbred mare her trainer Mike found at a Louisiana racetrack. Mary D’Arcy also helped find her a horse for competition a little later, connecting her with a New Zealand Sport Horse named In Any Event, whom she called Mitch. From the time Alexa was 13 until she turned 18, Crystal and Mitch were her partners in the USEA’s Young Rider Program and the Pony Club Championships, where Alexa became only one of three U.S. riders to obtain all three USPC “A” certifications for dressage, jumping and eventing.
From 2010 to 2013, Alexa competed in the North American Junior and Young Rider Championships four times, consistently finishing in the top 10 and contributing to her team’s gold and bronze medal victories. In addition, Alexa was chosen to represent the U.S. Pony Club Show Jumping team, traveling to Australia in 2013 and earning another selection to compete in Canada in 2015.
Prioritizing Education and Stability
As determined as Alexa was to make a life with horses, her parents were just as determined that she go to college and establish a “fall back” career. Alexa decided on pursuing nursing at the University of Kentucky (UK) in Lexington while continuing to ride and compete, training with renowned Lexington trainer and course designer Cathy Wieschhoff and five-star event rider Allie Knowles.
With her parents’ prudent advice always in mind, Alexa decided that after graduation from UK she would work as a neurology intensive care unit nurse just long enough to walk away with a vested 401(k) as well as the option to return to the medical field if horses didn’t work out. In the meantime, Jeff and Stacy made another strategic financial decision: They purchased a property in Lexington so that Alexa could pay in-state resident tuition and have a place for her horses rather than paying to board them.
“We were lucky to find a short sale on a 100-acre farm with three barns and a farmhouse,” Alexa recalled. They named the farm Clear View after Alexa’s winning mare Crystal Clear, who had recently been sold but would eventually return to the farm.
For the next several years, Alexa’s boundless energy was sorely tested. After finishing nursing school, she worked as an ICU nurse for three years—12-hour shifts at a time—all while renovating Clear View, building her Team Clear Equestrian and competing.
Alexa also delved into the world of breeding, starting with Crystal as well as a new mare, La Vie En Rose. “I bred both of them at Spy Coast Farm in Lexington, with a Belgian Warmblood named Diktator van de Boslandhoeve,” she said. “I liked him a lot—he was a careful, efficient jumper, and a very nice horse around the barn as well.” In 2015, Crystal Clear’s filly Parlez Clear, aka Prix, and La Vie En Rose’s colt Clear Candidate, aka Prez, were born only seven days apart.
Alexa felt overwhelmed during that period, but she found the energy to push through. She worked nights in the neuro ICU ward while competing with Amistoso, her main horse at the time, and teaching clients. “I would do nights at the hospital, go to the gym in the morning, then sleep until 1 p.m., ride a few horses, teach a couple of lessons, take a shower, then boogie back to the hospital for my night shift—and do it all over again, every day,” she recalled.
After three years as an ICU nurse, Alexa decided it was time to step away from nursing so she could fully commit to horses. The decision paid off—both Prix and Prez excelled in the USEA Young Event Horse (YEH) program that year, competing in the 5-year-old division and year-end Championships. Prix achieved an impressive third place on the East Coast, while Prez secured fifth place in the same rankings.
Romance on the Horizon
As it turned out, Spy Coast Farm brought more than the foals Prix and Prez into Alexa’s life—it also brought her life partner, a fellow horseman named Ciaran Thompson. Ciaran hailed from Ireland and was working for Spy Coast as one of their trainers when the two met.
“I remember seeing this guy and thinking, Wow, he really knows what he’s doing,” Alexa remembered. “I ended up shooting him a text and asked him if he would be willing to help me with Prix and Prez. And when he came out to the barn to help me,
I realized just how good looking he was to top things off.”
The pair became friends, at first, until Alexa got up the nerve to ask him out for a date, ostensibly to discuss what kind of bit to use on a new horse. When she showed up at the Irish pub, he was there with a bunch of his Irish buddies and her heart sank. Fortunately, Ciaran realized by the end of the night that this was more than a professional meet-up.
The pair got engaged in the spring of 2022 and were married that fall. In May of 2024, Ciaran decided to leave his role as head of young horse development at Spy Coast to join forces with Alexa at Team Clear Equestrian. “We’re doing everything as a team, but running two relatively different programs while supporting each other,” Alexa explained.
Yet another pivotal moment occurred in spring 2023, when Alexa did a clinic with French eventing rider Maxime Livio. “I jokingly asked Max if he took people in for training at his facility in France, and he said, ‘Yeah, of course, go have a chat with my manager!’”
Ciaran urged her to take the opportunity and offered to hold down the fort at Team Clear in her absence. Alexa sold one of her three-star horses to finance the trip, taking three horses—Prez, Prix, and a very promising young horse named Just To Be Clear, aka Karti—to enter full-time training and competing with Max for four months that fall of 2023. “We went everywhere—France, Poland, Italy, Belgium—and Karti did his first four-star at Strzegom Horse Trials in Poland, where we were stabled in the same aisle with one of my idols, Michael Jung,” Alexa said. “It was an unbelievable four months!”
Home Sweet Home
Through it all, Clear View Farm has become the cherished home base for Alexa and Ciaran, with a “barn family” made up of staff and clients who supported her during her trips abroad. The barn property supports 32 horses, which include seven of Alexa’s own horses as well as her eventing clients’ horses and Ciaran’s and Alexa’s sales horses.
Instrumental to Alexa’s success over the years has been her head groom, Hannah Warner, “my ground lady, my right hand, my best friend, my everything,” who manages the many essential tasks in the barn and at competitions so that Alexa can stay focused on her rides. “Hannah makes it so that all that I have to think about is doing my job, and that’s a huge blessing,” she said. “Also key to meeting Team Clear’s day-to-day demands is its working student, Neko Duvall.”
When she arrived home from training in France, Alexa decided to compete in the Kentucky CCI4*-S as a chance for her parents, siblings and the entire Team Clear family to gather and celebrate together. “It was so special to gallop around and know that they were all there cheering us on, since usually we’re competing out of state,” she said. Everyone important to her was there, including her head of grounds, Manuel, sporting a Team Clear T-shirt and snapping photos.
Karti is proving to be a serious contender; the pair clinched the win at The Event at Rebecca Farm CCI4*-S in Kalispell, Montana, this past summer. Alexa plans to continue to bring along her young horses Prix and Prez, now 9 years old, and hopes they will soon be competing at the four-star level.
November 2024 brought another exciting development when Alexa acquired Maxime Livio’s European championship horse, Api Du Libaire, as Max takes a temporary break from competing to pursue other projects. Alexa posted photos of Api’s arrival from France on Instagram, saying, “’Professor Api’ has arrived in good spirits, and I look forward to having him pass on Maxime Livio’s wisdom every day. I have the utmost appreciation for everyone who has put their trust in our team to do right by this very special horse.”
It’s safe to say that at just 30, Alexa Thompson has gone for all she wanted—and gotten it. And despite her impressive accomplishments and drive to succeed, she’s also lighthearted and doesn’t take herself too seriously. A recent Instagram video showcased her “galloping” on foot around a course wearing an inflatable horse costume for a charity event. “Any time I have the chance to act silly and embarrass myself—count me in,” she said. “We’re so lucky to do the horses and live this life, right?”
For more information, follow Alexa at teamclearequestrian.com or on Instagram @alexa-e-thompson and @teamclearequestrian
Photos by Sara Farrell, www.threeredheadsandamoose.com
