Horse Crazy

Elizabeth Hill was in a Moscow square with her recently adopted 13-year-old daughter, navigating the foreign streets and the new relationship, when the horses came marching in. At the time, the girl didn’t speak any English, and Hill’s Russian was limited. But her daughter’s eyes lit up.

“She just was beside herself, and she’s jumping up and down and she’s pointing at the horses and she’s all excited,” Hill remembers of that day in 2007. “And I’m thinking, ‘Oh my god, is my daughter horse crazy?’”

The revelation was welcome news for Hill, who also loved horses from a young age. In elementary school, she’d take trips to the library, checking out every book she could find about them. “I’d come home with a stack of books, and I’d read the books and I would draw horses,” she says. “I just wanted a horse in the worst way.”

She finally got one in sixth grade. “One day, I overheard my dad say to my mom, ‘I just think she’s not going to give up this deal on horses. We’re going to have to buy her a horse,’” says Hill, who started barrel racing and taking part in western pleasure competitions. “Before school, I would go to the barn, feed my horses, clean their stalls. And then, every day after school, I would ride my bike back to the barn to feed them at night, ride them. I’d just hang out at the barn all the time.”

College, law school, and then children, took Hill away from the barn. An injury brought her back. “I was also a competitive tennis player, and when I had my third knee surgery, my surgeon said, ‘No more tennis. You have to find something else to do,’” she says. “It was right about that time I met this couple at my church that had a horse rescue.”

Volunteering with that nonprofit, Changing Leads Equine Rescue, reignited Hill’s love for horses and riding. In 2008, she bought a farm in Parkville, Missouri, to house the rescue—as well as her own for-profit barn. “A lot of these horses that were rescued needed more handling, more training, more trust. You really can’t do that when you’re trying to do it in a pasture,” she says.

In its 10 years of operation, the rescue saved 50 horses. And although the COVID-19 pandemic caused Changing Leads to shut down, the ranch continues as Woodson Hill Equestrian Center.

Until recently, Hill lived on the property, which has 40 horses and a full riding lesson program. Her children grew up on the farm, with her sons working in the barn and her daughter riding competitively. “We were able to employ all the boys and teach them a good work ethic. You don’t get to phone it in because you’re tired and don’t want to get up. These are live animals,” she says, adding that her daughter taught at the barn for several years.

Three of her sons still live on the ranch, along with three of Hill’s grandchildren. “My grandkids love living out there,” says Hill. “I’m blessed with that, too, because now I’ve got two little granddaughters and they are both horse crazy.”

Hill goes out whenever she gets a chance.  She loves speaking with the children in the riding program, seeing their love for horses grow. “Their eyes just light up when they talk about their favorite horse. It’s just so much fun,” she says. “That’s my happy place. When the world is crazy and upside down and I’m really tired after work, I can always go to the barn and ride a horse. … There’s nothing like a horse.”