What is your day job and how often are you at the barn? I work in Global Finance & Procurement for a global bio-pharmaceutical company. I strategically source and negotiate services and goods that directly support the business. This involves doing high dollar/detailed negotiations and contracts – it’s a very fast paced environment. The ultimate goal is to deliver lifesaving drugs to our patients, which makes it all the worthwhile. I am now luckily enough to work 15 minutes from the barn, so I am usually at the barn about 5 days a week How do you plan your horse's training and show schedule around your work schedule? How often do you show? Organization is key to fitting in both a professional career and riding. I live about 45 mins away from work and an hour away from the barn (same proximity) so planning ahead is key to the balance. I try and keep the same plan every week as much as possible, so I can to keep a consistent riding schedule. I usually plan Mondays and Fridays as no barn/re-charge days to not get burnt out from long days/driving. I devote Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursday’s as after work barn days. I also do night check at the barn these nights  A typical day for me ... I work 8-5 and then head over to the barn those 3 days after work during the week. I get to the barn at about 5:30 pm or so. I ride/groom/spoil my horse till about 7pm. At 7/7:30pm I work night check there which consists of watering, feeding, re-blanketing and checking on all the horses. It’s extremely convenient to be able to do night check as the additional money helps with some of the horse expenses. In regards to lessoning/showing – my trainer is the key to my Adult Ammy success. My trainer, Dina Mazzola is very amateur friendly and will meet me for lessons early morning before work, or late night when I get out of work. I try and show about once a month which I find to be a perfect balance for my horse and I. Sometimes the shows consists of smaller one-days in the winter to get medal points and during the spring/summer season we like to alternate between HITS, Vermont, Fieldstone and many of the other east coast venues. What do you find you struggle with most as an adult amateur? And how do you overcome that? I find what I struggle the most with is trying to maintain a time balance. Balancing a soon to be husband, friends, family, a busy career, planning a wedding while trying to be competitive and successful on the circuit is hard. How I overcome that struggle is reminding myself truly how lucky I am in to be in a position where I have so many great opportunities going on in my life that its hard to balance them all. I have worked so hard to be where I am today and I want to continue to work hard in all aspects of my life to keep those fortunes – whether that be health, happiness, a great horse. I don’t ever want to take any of them for granted. What's been the best advice you've received and what advice would you give other adult amateurs? One of the best pieces of advice actually came from a quote I came across online. The quote by Samuel Goldwyn read, "The Harder I Work, the Luckier I Get". I found this quote to be extremely inspiring, especially for adult amateurs. I myself did not come from a wealthy upbringing. I never had fancy horses, trainers, barns. Any success in my life has been through hard work. Especially in riding, I find that the more time effort I put into my horse, the better the success. Keep working hard and the luck will come! What does being #AdultAmmyStrong mean to you? #AdultAmmyStrong is all about having fun. In my opinion, we work far too hard to do anything but enjoy it. And whether that means AA rated horse shows, beach rides, trail rides, grooming, lessoning and anything in between – enjoy your horse and enjoy the time you have with them (whatever time that may be). Connect with Samantha
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