Kimberly Brubaker Bradley is the author of middle grade novels including The War That Saved My Life and Fighting Words, both of which received Newbery Honors. As an avid horseback rider, Bradley reflects on the need for more equity and diversity in the world of equestrian sports, and the origins of her new middle grade series, Ride On—which is off to the races with the first book, Phoenix.

I have always loved horses. One of my earliest, happiest memories is of brushing an ancient pony on my babysitter’s farm. I grew up longing to ride, but although my comfortable middle-class upbringing as a white child in Indiana included ballet and piano lessons, riding lessons simply weren’t in the cards. No one I knew rode. No one had access to horses. If there were lesson barns, I didn’t know where they were. Instead of riding, I read every horse book in my town library—and I dreamed of horses.

When I was 18 and went away to Smith College, the school had both a barn and a varsity riding team. I signed up for lessons, but before I left for my freshman year, my parents took me aside and gently told me not to get my hopes up: to make the riding team I would have had to have been riding my whole life. There was no place for beginners like me.

My parents meant well, but they were wrong. Intercollegiate riding, then in its infancy, was actually designed from the ground up to include riders of all experience levels. Every team had to have a rider who’d been taking lessons for less than a year. I rode on the team from my sophomore year until graduation, and it remains one of the most joy-filled and defining experiences of my life. Maybe that was why, when I sat down to write a horse series for today’s readers, issues of inclusion were so very important to me.

Riding is simultaneously one of the most and least inclusive sports in the world. The English equestrian disciplines are one of only two major sports (sailing is the other) in which men and women compete against each other on an equal basis, from beginning schooling shows, up to and including the Olympic games. I know riders who are nonbinary or transgender. It makes no difference in their ability to compete. Riders don’t separate themselves into the women’s team and the men’s team. They just ride.

On the other hand, my sport is also one of the least ethnically or racially diverse. The competitions that I attend are still predominantly white. At the same time, during the years I was district commissioner– (think troop leader) of Holston Pony Club, in rural east Tennessee, I had several BIPOC members. I never once believed that equestrian sports lacked diversity because only white people wanted to ride—a popular myth. And, while upper-level horse sports are undeniably expensive, I knew income disparity alone wasn’t enough to explain the racial gap. Where I live, a lot of people can keep a horse or pony in their own backyard; riding is not only for the rich. Nor, obviously, are the rich always white, and to believe otherwise is racist and unfair.

It was clear to me that making an activity I loved truly inclusive would require a shift in culture, one that acknowledged that barns and shows were sometimes unwelcoming environments for people of color, and that took concrete steps to be more equitable. I’m far from the first person to want riding to be more inclusive, and it’s already much more diverse than it was even 20 years ago. National organizations like Stride for Equality Equestrians promote opportunity, education, and allyship. But we have a long way to go. The best way I can effect change in the world is through my writing. Therefore, let me introduce you to the diverse and inclusive cast of characters in my new series, Ride On:

  • Harper, my protagonist, is a slightly anxious 11-year-old white girl who unexpectedly, and unhappily, finds herself living in a rented house on the grounds of the fictional Sommer Springs Stable in Sommer Springs, Tenn.

  • Miss Chelsea, who owns the barn and teaches lessons, is Black. She’s married to a white female physician.

  • Night, Harper’s first friend in Sommer Springs, is nonbinary (and this is never a point of conflict in the series).

  • Dante, who owns an Appaloosa mare named Katara, is the son of the local college president, and of Puerto Rican descent.

  • Carine, who arrives just after Harper and also owns her own horse, is neurodivergent (though readers don’t find this out in book one).

  • Emma, the youngest of the group, eight years old and very talented, is Black.

This is not token diversity. This is riding, and stories, the way they ought to be—a place with mirrors as well as windows, where every child knows that they belong.

In my books, Miss Chelsea has a corkboard in the barn covered with photos of her students as well as real-life diverse international riders. Mentioned by name in the first book, Phoenix, are Philesha Chandler, a Black American woman who competes in Grand Prix dressage; Randy Ward, a Black American man who competes at advanced level in eventing; and Beatrice de Lavalette, a white woman who rode for the U.S. in the 2020 Paralympics, and who is a double leg amputee. Riding is for everyone. It always will be.