Cat grew up in the upstate of South Carolina where she gained her foundation and love for horses and nature. Her family frequently went hiking and backpacking in the mountains near their home. This was the first place Cat found the enjoyment of her own inner quiet within nature, and she calls those mountains her heart home. She began riding at Riverbend Equestrian Center and built a foundation of classical dressage there. Dressage has always been what Cat comes back to, her Great Grandfather trained horses for the calvary, and dressage was his skill set. As Cat continued to grow her horsemanship skills, she also took jumping lessons with Lisa Brown before moving herself and her horse at the time to Bramblewood Stables to apprentice with Mihran Dulgeroglu.

She went to College of Charleston where she obtained a BS in Sociology, but also was introduced to the sport of rugby and the use of horses to help those dealing with trauma. During her time in Charleston, she volunteered at an equine assisted psychotherapy barn and was able to see that the ability that she had seen in horses as a teenager to help us heal ourselves was not something that was meant to be a secret. This planted a seed of thought for Cat, and confirmed her belief that we can accomplish more with our equine companions.

During her senior year in college Cat joined her school’s rugby team and she was hooked on the sport. Once she graduated, she moved to Boston, Massachusetts and joined a division 1 women’s team there. Her time with Boston Women’s Rugby made her fall deeply in love with the spirit and culture of rugby. The sport has an unconditional acceptance of all players, so long as they have the will and desire to be part of the team. Your background, physical appearance, religion, orientation does not matter, you are part of the team, and you work hard for each other on and off the pitch. Even as a retired player, you are still part of the community, your team is all the players who came before you and those after you. The only other place Cat found this level of pure, unconditional acceptance was with animals, with horses.

While in Massachusetts, Cat also began riding again at East Hill Riding Academy and volunteering at Bay State Equine Rescue. This experience started growing the seed that was planted in her mind back in Charleston into a sapling. She saw how these horses that people had abused or thrown away could help to guide us to a place of self-acceptance in our desire to help heal them. Her instructor at East Hill Riding Academy helped bring her back to her foundation and instilled a great appreciation for riding bareback. When she and her husband moved back to South Carolina in 2020 she was lucky to be able to teach horseback riding at the first barn she had worked at as a young adult. In this space she was allowed to stretch muscles that she had not been using in the corporate world.

After being in an accident in December of 2021, she once again felt the pull to do something more. She found EquineFlow through Kim Carter at Bramblewood Stables, who owns the barn where she taught riding lessons. This answered the questions and filled the gaps she needed to grow the sapling that was started many years ago, into the many branched tree it is today. Her service dog, Sprocket, and her horse, Guinness, wish to use their skills to be their client’s rugby team, the unconditional support as they strive for their own path to inner knowledge for themselves and their horses.