Black In The Saddle

Christopher Diont'e picked up a camera as a kid because his uncles needed someone to film Sunday service. He left home at 18 to be a full-time artist on faith alone, taught himself to sew when his seamstresses couldn't keep up, and dressed an entire touring lineup in garments built for the stage. Then a Juneteenth pop-up in 2020 turned into a $40,000 month, and the dream he'd been chasing for year...

Frankie was three years old on a pony at the fair, and that was the end of any other plan. Raised by white adoptive parents and riding first in Oakland, then Oregon, Frankie spent years as the only Black rider in the barn. Then a 2020 lockdown scroll through Black in the Saddle showed Frankie Black horse folks in every discipline, and the question of where Frankie belonged started to change. Today...

Imagine growing up in Lexington, Kentucky, but never touching a horses. Now imagine getting a call from the city's tourism board asking whether you can make sneakers for them. Marcus Floyd said yes before he knew what that meant. Four months later, Horse Kicks went globally viral, Nike's lawyers came calling, his Instagram was deleted overnight. Despite all of this, a door opened to the equestrian...

Narsis Whigham grew up in Chicago and learned horses on his family's 125-acre farm in Mississippi, riding the bus south by himself as a teenager to get back to the barn. A Batesville couple who bred spotted Tennessee Walking Horses put him on his first true walking horse, and that ride set the path. Today he trains, shows, judges, and works in equine-assisted services at Mississippi State. In this...

Preshuslee Thompson came to horses with no background, no gear budget, and no one in the barn who looked like her. Six years later she's an equine-assisted psychotherapist who can name the shift from calling herself "green" to handling horses with confidence and supporting clients thorough that same transition. Abriana and Preshuslee met at a HERD Institute conference, and this conversation picks...

At five years old, Mikhail Proctor went for one pony ride at a fair and spent the rest of the day brushing horses and asking questions. Nobody in his family rode, so he found his own way in, cleaning stalls while friends took lessons and copying what he saw once the owners let him ride. That do-it-yourself grit carried him through show jumping, into equestrian vaulting, and eventually to co-foundi...

Jamon Turner is back on Black in the Saddle three years after his first appearance and Just Believe has grown well past where it started. What began as half-day and full-day horsemanship camps is now a full youth development pipeline: a Western Playgrounds program that pulls in welders, fabricators, cattlemen, and cryotherapy coaches alongside horse trainers, an intern program where kids manage an...

Join me as I sit with my good friend and horse girl sister, Natasha Gordon, for an unfiltered catch-up on ALL THE THINGS. Natasha walks us through buying her first horse, how she landed on her mare Tessa after nearly buying three other horses, refurbishing a $700 trailer from scratch, hauling Tessa twelve hours from Charlotte to Toledo after her grandmother's passing, and the six-month hoof injury...

Dr. Letitia Mason has spent over two decades living in two worlds most people assume don't touch: elite academic admissions leadership and a horse program she and her mother ran out of High Point, North Carolina for 25 years. In this conversation, she traces it all the way back to a conversation with her grandfather about "a horse of a different color," through the founding of the HUD-funded Eagle...

Samir Geiger didn't grow up around horses. He grew up in the Bronx watching the Harlem parade go by, catching a glimpse of Black cowboys and cowgirls at the tail end of it, and soaking up Westerns at his grandparents' house. That glimpse turned into Be Worthy Horsemanship, a program built for kids in the New York and New Jersey school systems who'd never so much as touched a horse and in some case...

Ifa Simmonds is back on the podcast after four years. That's a long time. When he was last on the podcast, he was training clients in a cold New Jersey barn and had just launched Equestrian Fitness Academy. Today he's studying equestrian sport science at Hartpury University in England, expanding his business internationally, and preparing to bring his work to the Kinship Conference this November....

Mathena Washington grew up on horseback. From pony rides at three years old to volunteering at ranches in Georgia as a teenager, horses have been a constant thread through a life that's taken her from Boulder to Amarillo to Denver and back again. Now she's channeling everything she's built, an athletic background, a broadcast journalism degree from West Texas A&M, and years of community work,...

Coach Kamerra Brown didn't set out to be a coach. She set out to be a veterinarian mostly, she admits, because she couldn't figure out another way to afford her horse habit. What she found instead was a calling she'd been living out since she was nine years old, cleaning stalls just to stay close to the thing she loved most. In this episode, Kamerra walks us through a journey that spans a childhoo...

Sydney Steverson didn't grow up in the show ring. She got bit by the horse bug at summer camp, had to put it down when life got complicated, and then made a beeline for the barn the day she crossed the graduation stage. No plan B. No "let me ease into this." Just: here we go. In this episode, Sydney, an adult amateur eventer training in Virginia with her horse Superman, brings that same energy to...

In this episode, I am joined by Tiombe Vaughan , whom I had the pleasure of meeting in person at the Black Equestrian Summer Bash. Tiombe is an incredible equestrian, artist, and breed preservationist who is doing vital work to protect the Spanish Barb horse . We dive deep into her journey from being a kid in Queens, New York, to establishing Falcons Heritage Farm in Waldorf, Maryland, where she b...

Sometimes you need a little pep talk before you go to the barn. In this episode, I update you on my own 90-day recommitment plan. I share where I am now, what’s been working, and the moment I realized I was letting my “inner bully” tell me a story about my horse that wasn’t even true. I want you to know the exact ways I’ve learned to shut that voice down, build self-trust, and create those small m...

In this episode of Black in the Saddle , I sit down with the incomparable Pennie Selina Brown, a community connector, wellness champion, and founder of The STAND Foundation. From trail rides under the stars to leading equine-facilitated leadership retreats in Jamaica, Pennie’s journey into the horse world is anything but traditional. And yet, her impact is exactly what this industry needs. We talk...

In this episode, I’m unpacking something that’s been on my heart, and on the minds of a lot of folks in our community: the future of work in the horse industry. We’re in a different era now. College is more expensive, student loan systems are shifting, and the next generation isn’t buying into the “go to school, get a good job” blueprint the way we were told to. So what does that mean for people w...

In this episode, I’m diving into a topic that’s become deeply personal and professionally exciting for me: agritourism. I’ve been studying this space for over a year now, and through my work on the board of the North Carolina Agritourism Networking Association, I’ve seen just how much untapped potential there is — especially for Black-owned farms and horse facilities. This episode is for anyone wi...

In this episode of Black in the Saddle , I'm reflecting on a type of grief we don't often name, the grief that shows up when our reality no longer reflects our vision, especially when it comes to our horse journey. What happens when the life you said you wanted feels out of sync with the life you're actually living? After a meme, a TikTok, and one simple question from a mentor, I found myself refl...

In this episode, I’m reflecting on my experience at Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter concert and using it as a jumping-off point to explore history, identity, and how narratives get reclaimed. We’re talking Black cowboys, the politics of genre, and why Beyoncé’s artistry is about legacy, protest, and power. From the symbolism in her visuals to the deep roots of denim in our ancestral labor, this is an epis...

I’m back after a much-needed break and a whole lot of reflection. This episode is my personal reset. I share why I paused the podcast, what I’ve learned from producing over 100 interviews, and how Black In The Saddle is evolving into something more intentional, grounded, and community-driven. If you’ve been riding with me for a while, or you’re just saddling up, this one’s for you. In this episode...

Let's ease into this podcasting thing shall we?

Periodically we like to check-in with each other, assess what we are noticing in our community and in our industry and share any plans coming up for BITS. In this episode, we covered our newest project "Moments", the Fireside Chats with our Facebook community and our plans for the end of the year. Want to join the Moments Waitlist? Visit www.blkinthesaddle.com/moments-waitlist

COMMUNITY RELATIONSHIP EMPOWERMENT WELL-BEING The CREW is a nonprofit based out of Minnesota that has gone to great lengths to create spaces for children of color to learn how to interact with and grow with horses. In this week's episode we speak with Jenny and Kenatia from The CREW Urban Youth Equestrians about their journey as a fairly new non-profit organization and their vision for the future....