Portraits by Melissa Fuller
The moment Finwe Duffin swung her leg over a pony at age 5 she knew her life’s trajectory. “From the time I started riding, I can’t remember even thinking I was going to do anything else with my life. If you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I’m sure I said a horse rider,” she said.
Born in England, Finwe would travel back to her home country as a child to visit her extended family for a month each year. She happened to be on one of those trips when she celebrated her 5th birthday. “My aunts bought me riding lessons for my birthday over in England. I was hooked from the get-go, so as soon as we returned home to California, my mom immediately put me in a riding school,” Finwe said.
While it was Finwe’s aunts who set her equestrian journey in motion that birthday, it was her mom, Martina, who’s supported her passion for horses ever since. Martina grew up in England grooming in a polo stable, so once she knew Finwe had the horse bug she enthusiastically hopped on for the ride.
This shared passion created the strongest bond between mother and daughter. “She’s been there for every single early morning and long horse show day of mine,” Finwe said. “Because she had so much experience grooming, she became the mom in our group whom everyone turned to when they had any questions about horse care.”
Having a mom who was fluent in horse gave Finwe a different perspective than her peers. “I never had to worry about my mom not understanding where I was coming from, either from the emotional side or being frustrated if I wasn’t progressing at the rate I wanted to. A rider herself, my mom understood what I was describing and I never had to ‘dumb it down’ for her,” she said.
Without her mom, Finwe isn’t sure she’d be able to have the horse career of her dreams. Today, Finwe works for the Gochman family’s Baxter Hill. “Never in a million years would I have guessed I would’ve wound up working alongside professionals of this caliber or seeing this level of the industry,” Finwe said.
Growing up in Silicon Valley, one of the wealthiest areas in the country, meant many of the girls at Finwe’s barn had parents who could afford to buy them the winners. “That was really hard for me because my family wasn’t in the same position. It always made me feel like I was putting in so much more time, effort and literal blood, sweat and tears than those girls were,” she said.
Childhood trainer Heather Franco helped Finwe keep pushing through even on the hard days. “I wouldn’t be half the horsewoman or rider I am today without her. She showed me that if you stick with it, the hard work really will pay off,” Finwe said.
As a teenager, knowing the judge was only judging her time in the ring and not the effort to get there disillusioned Finwe. “It was very frustrating because I felt like I was putting in all this energy and my results weren’t changing. What I didn’t realize, at the time, was how all the hard work I was putting in back then was going to serve me long term,” Finwe said.
Once she was one of the older girls at the barn, Finwe rode a lot of the horses and ponies that the younger girls were having trouble with. “I also had my own horse, Rags To Riches, that I had to rehab and bringing him back was very difficult as he had an excited buck in him,” she said. “It’s funny: I wasn’t super confident about jump height as a kid, but through these experiences, I felt like I could sit on anything and deal with whatever antics came my way.”
Learning to ride horses that weren’t “push button,” develop her own horses and be responsible for her horses’ care made Finwe feel a bit lesser than her riding peers. “As I got older and was in college, I saw the roster of incredible riders on the team and realized they may be incredible riders, but I had to learn skills that actually brought worth to me,” Finwe said. “My hands-on childhood made me such a well-rounded horsewoman and I’m grateful for it.”
That worth became even more obvious once she entered the industry as a professional. Not only can Finwe hop on any horse and make it better, but she can also drive a trailer and fix a braid if a horse rubs it out. Finwe can handle the out-of-the-saddle, unglamorous parts of the job that many young professionals have never learned.
Her willingness to jump in and be a team player was honed when she was part of the White Rock IEA and Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) IHSA teams. “When you’re in the show ring, you’re out there by yourself, but I always loved the feeling of giving my all for my team,” she said.
Finwe was a member of the White Rock middle school and high school IEA teams, serving as the high school team captain her junior and senior years. During her junior year, Finwe qualified for the IEA Nationals. Excited to go, these plans were derailed the week before Nationals when she got sick and ended up hospitalized.
Upset she missed her chance to ride at Nationals, Finwe was surprised when she found a packet in the mail from SCAD a few weeks later. They told her they were sorry they missed her at Nationals and hoped she’d come ride at one of their summer seminars.
When Finwe got the packet from SCAD, going to college to further her equestrian career wasn’t on her radar. “I didn’t really know there was an avenue of getting into the industry via college. I thought that it was all through working-student opportunities, proving yourself and working your way up through the industry,” she said.
Although Finwe couldn’t make any of the summer sessions work, she quickly booked at trip to Savannah to tour SCAD. “Coming from Silicon Valley, where everything has such a futuristic vibe, I immediately fell in love with Savannah. It was unlike anything I’d experienced before in terms of feeling you’re living alongside such rich history,” Finwe said.
The tour won her over and, in the fall of 2017, Finwe happily became a member of the SCAD Equestrian Team while pursuing a bachelor of arts in equestrian studies. “My life was horses all the time, which was such a dream come true. When you’ve shared that experience with a bunch of other people who are also thrilled to be there, it makes the whole thing so amazing,” she said.
Some of Finwe’s favorite moments at SCAD came in the barn with the team horses. “The caliber of horses that they have at SCAD is unbelievable. They were some of the nicest horses I’ve ever sat on in my life, and they were winding down their careers. As nice as they were when I rode them, I can’t even imagine what they were like at the height of their careers,” Finwe said.
Excited to get as much saddle time as possible at SCAD, Finwe ended up bringing her own horse to school freshman year. “I was able to ride SCAD horses for the team and in my ride classes, then I could take what I learned in my lessons and use it to develop my horse,” she said.
Finwe credits Ashley Henry and Eddie Federwisch with making her SCAD experience so remarkable. “We had so many wonderful professionals at SCAD who had been in the industry forever. As our IHSA trainer, Ashley instilled such a fighter spirit in the team. No matter the day or weather conditions, she’s always the most upbeat person. I took numerous classes with Eddie and he’s so full of knowledge and always so much fun,” Finwe said.
SCAD not only gave Finwe the knowledge and skills she needed to enter the industry as a professional, but it also gave her the right connections. Through one of her closest SCAD friends, Autumn Janesky, Finwe got her first job out of college working at the Brandywine Horse Show in Devon, Pennsylvania. It was there she met Bill Rube, a dear friend of Autumn’s mom, Wendy.
“I honestly owe so much of my career to Bill and his networking capabilities. His passion is finding the next generation to take care of the sport as his generation gets older. Bill introduced me to Will Baker, a young professional he had his horses with, and I ended up getting my first manager/assistant job with Will,” she said.
After spending time working with Will, Finwe continued to build up her resume gaining knowledge from other professionals across the country. “I worked under Simon McCarthy at Rock Ridge and from there I spent some time with Lauren Crooks and James Brennan at Crooks Show Jumping. In December 2024 I landed at Baxter Hill working for the Gochman family,” she said.
Once again, it was a SCAD connection, Brady Martino, who helped Finwe move forward in her career. Hired as a flat rider for Baxter Hill, Finwe’s not the one out there competing on the horses. Rather, her specialty is keeping the horses fit and focusing on the flat work that makes up so much of their rounds in the show ring.
When she first considered a career as a professional, Finwe wasn’t sure how that would work as she was always super anxious prior to competing as a kid. Once she realized there was a path to be part of a professional team producing horses for the show ring, Finwe knew that’s the part of the industry she was destined for. “The first question I ask when I’m interviewed is always, ‘You’re not going to make me show, right?’,” she said.
For Finwe, her greatest joy comes from standing at the in-gate watching a horse she’s prepared perform to its fullest ability. “It gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. That’s the moment I work for and I love for others to be able to watch just how amazing these horses are,” she said.
Finwe’s job today brings her back to those long hours where she put in the work as a teenager. However, now she’s actually seeing her hard work pay off with big scores and success in the show ring as the Gochman family pilots their horses to the wins.
This past February at WEF, Finwe watched one of those big score days when Mimi Gochman rode her sister Sophie’s mare Daydream to a score of 98 in the 3’6” Amateur Owner Hunters. “It was during WCHR week and I just started crying. I wasn’t the one riding and it wasn’t my horse, but I felt so involved getting the horse to that point that all the emotions came,” Finwe said.
With pinch-me moments almost daily, Finwe says bad days are few and far between at Baxter Hill. “On those days, I remind myself having this job would blow the mind of little me. Really the only person that you need to impress is little you and if you’d done that, that’s all you can really ask for,” she said.
“I’m so incredibly lucky to be here and grateful for the opportunity to work with professionals like Scott Stewart as part of my job. If I could go back and give myself a pep talk when I had more physically demanding jobs at the beginning of my career, I’d tell myself, ‘Have a little faith, all of this is going to pay off,’” she said. “’One day you will be preparing horses to get high scores in the International Ring at WEF.’”
Having reached her dream job, Finwe is living her ultimate horse-girl life. “It’s funny to think when I was kid, other kids made fun of the weird horse girls. Today when I meet people outside of the industry and they find out I’m a professional equestrian, they’re so enamored that I made my passion my career,” she said. “So, young riders, never let anyone dim your dreams. Being a lifelong horse girl is a dream worth chasing.”
Follow Finwe on Instagram @f.inwe
Photos by Melissa Fuller, melissafullerphotography33.mypixieset.com
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