3-7 IAN Horseback to Snowboard

Idahoan Kaitlyn Farrington won the women’s snowboard halfpipe in the recent Sochi Olympics competition. That feat alone is remarkable. But what makes the story a lot of fun for those of us who are in agriculture in Idaho is the fact that she is from a beef ranching family in Sunny Valley, Idaho. Bottom line is that Kaitlyn grew up riding horses and running cattle. I wondered if the horseback riding with its accompanying athleticism may have contributed to her successes on the snowboard. So I turned to good friend and sometimes tennis partner, Josh Loubek, a Freestyle skier who helped start the trend of skiing in the half pipe, went on to become a professional skier and at the end of his career has become an Olympic judge. In fact he was the head judge in Sochi for several skiing events. “Her run was incredibly technical. You know that she has a background as a beef rancher. She credited a part of her athletic prowess to having been on horseback a lot and developing skills in balance. Do you buy into that? Absolutely. I don't know enough about horseback riding but it has a couple of things. One of it is grit. It is being tough and with her background as a rancher, that may have helped with her mentality in terms of toughing it out with the tough conditions in the pipe. I feel mentally she was very tough. A lot of the other girls were struggling with it so from a mental aspect it helped her. In terms of balance, yes. Snowboarding has that wide stance as well so she has the wide stance, balancing and core muscles that allow her to do the rotations that she is doing and a lot of leg strength to land it.”