By Laura Scaletti
Portraits by Sophia Donohue
Laena Romond has been lucky to have a team behind her every step of the way of her riding career. From her family to the Mount Holyoke IHSA team to the team at Heritage Farm, Laena has always felt supported in what is typically a very individualistic sport.
Growing up in rural Colchester, Vermont, Laena was surrounded by small, family horse farms. Laena got her first experience riding when her neighbors gave her pony rides in their backyard. Those pony rides soon turned into lessons and by the time Laena was 5 years old, her family bought a Morgan mare, Belle, that Laena and her mom both rode.
“Before we got Belle, no one in my family was involved with horses. However, it quickly became somewhat of a family affair—my mom started riding recreationally, and my dad and grandfather built a stall into an old barn on our property. They also put up fencing for paddocks and a ring, and a few years later built a proper three-stall barn with a tack room, hay loft and a floodlight that illuminated the ring so I could ride in the evenings after school,” Laena said. “My grandfather also built me a whole set of jumps for my birthday one year.”
Laena put those jumps to good use. Her hours of practicing over that home course led her to be competitive in the equitation, hunters and jumpers as a Junior, and winner of the USEF/Cacchione Cup as a freshman at Mount Holyoke. Today as a trainer with Heritage Farm, Laena has helped Junior riders achieve their dreams while also making her mark in the hunter and derby rings.
All-In Horse Life
With a barn at home, Laena was totally immersed in horses from sunup to sundown. “Having horses and ponies that lived at home meant that riding was really a small part of my life with horses as a kid. For every 30-minute ride, I would spend hours in the barn grooming, cleaning or organizing, and I have always gotten a lot of satisfaction out of leaving the barn at the end of the night with everything in its place and the horses content and cared for,” Laena said.
As Laena grew up in Vermont, the seasons dictated how and when Laena rode. “When the ring was too wet in the spring, we rode on dirt roads, and bareback in the snow during the winter. My favorite time of year was the fall, when the hay fields behind our house had been cut,” Laena said. “My friend and I would take our ponies out for hours at a time, building jumps from fallen trees and discarded hay bales, galloping and jumping, and sometimes chasing our ponies back home on foot!”
When summer rolled around, it was time for Laena to enter the show ring. Getting an early start at age 6, Laena started out showing locally at 4-H and schooling shows.
“At those early local shows, all the kids would do everything from trail class to road hack and showmanship. I also participated in Pony Club, where I learned about dressage, eventing and stable management,” Laena said. “I was lucky to be exposed to a lot of different disciplines early on; it taught me that good horsemanship can take many forms and be exemplified in many roles.”
Laena feels very fortunate that from the beginning of her riding journey, her parents always made it a priority for her to have a horse of her own. By having her own mount, Laena was able to set goals in the show ring as she knew she had a constant partner to participate with.
The first major show Laena’s goals took her to was USEF Pony Finals when she was 13 years old. “I showed in the USEF Pony Medal on a mare that I had helped break. She had been difficult to teach lead changes. When she landed on the wrong lead after the last jump and did a perfect lead change, that felt like winning to me,” she said.
Laena got a good foundation from Renee DeCelle and Jeff Garen, both of whom are family friends still today, and they made learning fun when Laena was young. When Laena was ready to go to bigger shows and had equitation aspirations, she became a working student for the Dotoli family, who was running Ox Ridge at the time.
“They made it possible for me to ride all kinds of different horses, all day long, and attend shows I had only read about. My last Junior year, they brought me to Wellington, Florida, and I helped manage their group of horses there for the winter,” Laena said. “I learned a lot and slept really well at night.”
Expanding Horizons
When it came time for Laena to go to college, she chose Mount Holyoke—where she could ride on their IHSA team while pursuing her chosen major, biochemistry. “Mount Holyoke takes riding seriously, and CJ Law, who just celebrated her 40th year there, is a legendary coach,” she said.
Being part of CJ’s Mount Holyoke team was the first time Laena experienced a systematic and thorough approach to competing. “Every practice felt like it had a purpose, and there was a feeling that winning didn’t happen by accident. Everyone on the team was held to a high standard when it came to effort and work ethic, and also with respect to supporting their teammates,” Laena said. “Having that team support at an event like the Cacchione Cup gave me a lot of confidence because their belief in me was so apparent.”
After spending a lot of time riding on her own growing up, Laena loved being part of a cohesive team. “You were never out there alone, whether it was during practice or at a competition. It was really novel for me having teammates model how an exercise should look, and who could push me to raise my level to match theirs,” she said.
Laena’s dad was her model and inspiration to pursue biochemistry, as he was a high school biology teacher and she was always interested in science. “When I graduated, I planned to go to grad school, but I wanted to have some experience working in a related field to help my applications. I worked in an analytical chemistry lab for a while, running soil samples through the Loyd Kahn total organic carbon analysis for eight hours a day,” Laena said. “It was as tedious as it sounds, and after a few months I had the realization that the best day in the lab couldn’t compare to the toughest day at the barn.”
That following winter Laena found her way back to Wellington to help a friend’s family that needed help driving to and nannying at the show. Not only did the kids Laena was nannying for show, but Laena also had the opportunity to show one of the family’s hunters, who was for sale at the time, in the Adult Hunters. Coincidentally, the family rode with Heritage Farm.
“For a little while, Patricia Griffith was my trainer on that horse until it sold. Then I worked for another family whose oldest daughter started riding at Heritage,” Laena said. “I just kept finding my way back to Heritage, so when they were looking to hire someone, I became a professional and took the job.”
Team Heritage
Laena has been a member of the Heritage Farm team since 2007. “At first, my role involved some managing as well as some riding and training. Eventually there were some opportunities to show some equitation prospects and greener horses, and I was able to gain a lot of show mileage that way,” Laena said. “Those horses were often not the winner in the divisions I was showing them in, but I credit those rides with giving me the ability to perform in the ring when I have been fortunate enough to ride the winner.”
Laena has since had plenty of opportunities to ride the winner. Most notably, she won the 2021 $50,000 National Horse Show Hunter Classic with Catherine Cowie’s Traveller and the Tier II Championship with her own Uptown at the 2021 USHJA International Hunter Derby Championships.
Much like Laena’s Mount Holyoke IHSA team, the team at Heritage is all in when it comes to supporting each other in achieving their goals. “I think it can be hard sometimes, when you have big dreams and ambitions, to find the people willing to work as hard as you, or to be unafraid of a lofty goal and fully go after it. There’s a certain amount of audacity inherent in that: to say, ‘Why not me?’ and pursue a goal when you can’t yet see all the steps that will get you from point A to point B,” Laena said. “The outcome is never guaranteed, so you need to be a little brave, too, to put yourself out there like that, but that’s how dreams are made and championships are won. That’s why I love going to indoors and equitation championships with our team.”
In addition to achieving her own goals in the show ring, Laena loves being able to help the Junior and Amateur riders at Heritage check items off their riding bucket lists. Watching her students achieve their dreams is rewarding for Laena whether it’s a Junior who rides 20 hours a week or an Amateur who is lucky to ride one day a week.
Laena believes the focus on preparation at Heritage is what helps everyone feel more confident about setting lofty goals. “When you show up to a big event and know you’re prepared for any question you may be asked, that helps boost the rider’s confidence. We often replicate courses from previous championships to practice over, and when you tell a kid they just rode last year’s Maclay Finals course in their lesson, that’s evidence for them that they have the ability to answer those questions,” she said.
Amateur Marathoner
While Laena is a professional by day, in her free time she trains and competes in marathons as an amateur. Pursuing her own amateur hobby has given Laena a new sense of respect and empathy for her clients.
“From the outside, it may seem like the stakes are lower because you’re just doing it for fun, but anyone who is competitive by nature knows the feeling of always wanting to be able to do more, devote more time and resources, and not miss an opportunity to capitalize on everything we put into our sport,” she said.
A runner since she was a teenager, Laena didn’t start running marathons competitively until 2018. She was inspired to sign up for a race after watching the Boston Marathon. She knew it was a lofty goal to do marathons, given her lifestyle and work schedule, but she gave herself grace if she missed a run or training session here or there.
After the first few races, Laena knew if she trained in a more serious way, she could run faster. Now during her peak training weeks Laena runs 70 to 80 miles a week, which amounts to 10 hours of running, give or take, and aims to run a marathon in the spring and fall.
In 2021, Laena ran the Boston Marathon. Although she qualified before the pandemic, the race was postponed and she didn’t have the opportunity to run until it resumed in October 2021. “Boston is one of the most iconic marathons in the world; it’s like the Devon of marathons, and similarly, you have to qualify for it by running a certain time for your gender and age,” Laena said. “By the time 2021 rolled around, I had torn both my ACLs, my meniscus in both knees and damaged the cartilage in my left knee in a June 2020 riding accident. I couldn’t ride for four months after my surgeries and didn’t run for nine months.”
Fifteen months after her accident Laena made her Boston Marathon debut. “It was one of my slower marathons, but I was grateful for every step, and it was hugely emotional for me not just to reach the finish line, but to even be on the start line,” she said.
Although running is a simpler sport to understand than horse showing, Laena has learned some lessons that cross over to her day job. “The biggest thing I’ve learned is you are not owed an outcome or result. Even on a day that you put out your best performance and the stars seem to align for you, someone else might just be better or faster that day. That doesn’t take away from your own effort, but it can give you the motivation to push yourself to the next level,” she said. “Running has taught me that performing well on a big day isn’t about rising to the occasion or performing beyond my ability. If I show up well prepared, I just need to trust my preparation and rely on the skills I’ve taken time to master.”
Through her athletic endeavors, Laena has learned there is always room for improvement in sport. Whether she’s hitting the pavement, in the saddle or standing at the in-gate, Laena wants to keep raising the level she’s at in the sport as she looks to the future.
Follow Laena on Instagram @heritagefarm, at Heritage Farm on Facebook and at www.heritagefarm.com
Photos by Sophia Donohue, sophiadonohuephotography.com
