THANK A FARMER: Sharpsville woman takes the reins at her Tipton County horse facility

Jul. 2—SHARPSVILLE — There's a picture of Kindra Gingerich as a toddler, sitting on a horse and being held up by her father.

The 24-year-old Sharpsville resident said she doesn't know where that picture is right now, but the thought of it still brings a smile to her face.

Horses have pretty much been a part of Gingerich's life since the beginning, and she said she wouldn't have it any other way.

After high school, she went off to Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College in northern Indiana, the only university in the state that offers an equine degree.

With plans to major in equine therapy, Gingerich said it was actually internships to North Carolina and Arizona to study under world-renowned trainers in the horse industry that eventually changed her entire career path.

"I had notebooks full of information that I learned while out there (in Arizona)," Gingerich told the Tribune recently. "I learned how to run the facility, care for the horses and the different ways that people do things. When I was out there too, I made friends and colleagues in the industry that I wanted to be in, and it kind of set me up from there."

Gingerich remembers calling up her parents and telling them of her aspirations, to one day have her own horse training facility.

"I said I really think I can do this," she recalled. "And they (parents) were awesome and supported me 100% in every single way. They started shooting ideas at me. 'Hey, we have this pasture. Hey, we've got this. Hey, we've got that. You can do it right here.'"

And in May 2020, KG Performance Horses LLC was officially born on the family's seven-acre property in Tipton County.

There are currently 22 horses at the facility, mostly from paid clients, and Gingerich took a few moments to explain what she does with the animals once they get there.

"Typically, people will call me up and tell me they want their horse to do this or that, and it's a program we go through," Gingerich said. "For a horse that say the client wants them to go and do a certain discipline like reining (circles, spins and stops), the horse will come in un-started, usually around 2 years old. I work with it at the beginning to make sure it's prepared to ride and take a rider.

"We do it in a way that's going to give the horse some confidence," she added. "Then we have the actual riding. We'll ride them really easy, just going through the motions for the first few months. Then we'll add in some maneuvers like spins and jumps after about three or four months. Some of it, especially if they're being trained to be reining horses, can be a two-year process."

And while Gingerich said some people think all she's doing is "riding ponies" all day, it's actually quite a lot of hard work.

"It's fun, but it also can get very tiring," she said, "especially when you're riding 10 to 15 different horses every day. We also go and get hay every week or so. We clean the stalls every day. It's a lot of grunt work. If you looked at how much we work versus how much we ride, it's not even 50-50. We work way more than we ride. So, while people just see me 'riding ponies,' they don't see me putting in all the other work first."

Many of the horses Gingerich has trained have already gone on to compete at various shows throughout the area, and she's excited about the potential for the group she has now.

But don't call Gingerich the horse whisperer, she laughed.

"It's really just about reading the horse's body language and what they're telling you," she said. "Ok, it's funny to say it that way because that actually does sound like they're whispering to you, but it's not. It's just looking at what they're showing you — their eyes, their ears, their muscles — and getting them to relax. ... And once they do what you want them to do, it's a feeling of accomplishment. You then pat the horse on the neck and say, 'Good job. You did it.'"

Gingerich took the Tribune on a tour of the facility and its pastures, stopping periodically at each fence line to pat the horses and engage with them for a little bit before moving on to the next.

And she said she knows she's a role model to kids who have aspirations of getting into the horse industry one day, especially to the young girls.

It's a responsibility she takes seriously.

"That's something that's really driven this business," she said. "Pretty much all of my kids (that come to take lessons at the facility) are young girls. And it's just about opportunity. You have the opportunity, now go and chase it. We need to keep pushing them (kids) toward whatever it is they want to do (in the horse industry). I'm headed that way anyway, so I guess I'll take whoever wants to come with me along too."