Rachel Reynolds was born in Taos, New Mexico, to a family of ranchers. She spent the majority of her early childhood in the Black Hills of South Dakota before traveling throughout Mexico, Central America, the West Coast, and then back home to New Mexico. Some of Rachel’s earliest memories were made on the back of a horse. Before Rachel could walk, she rode with her parents on the front of their saddles, where she grew accustomed to the feel of a horse, to their smell and sounds. From then on, she spent more time on a horse than she did on the ground, and by the time she was five, was riding a big buckskin quarter horse named Rowdy. He taught her about trust and communication, and about the partnership between a person and a horse. Since then, there have been many horses in Rachel’s life. Right now she rides a bay thoroughbred mare she calls Emmy, with her own young son on the front of her saddle.
Chance Reynolds has spent his life on top of a horse. He started breaking colts in Northern New Mexico in the 1970s, and spent a summer following big horn sheep across the la Garita range in Southern Colorado. He was foreman of two large ranches and owner/operator of his own large cattle and horse ranch in South Dakota's Black Hills. He has ridden cross country through three Mexican states, owned and operated two successful horse businesses in Mexico, and for the biggest part of it all, he has taken his daughters with him.
Gus Parker rode a horse for the first time on the 53rd day of his life. The big blood bay, Emmy Lou, knew after sniffing his barren and exposed little head, that he was too young to sit upright and lacked other skills in the saddle necessary for travel--and so she stepped very carefully and not too far. Since then, he has slept to low equine murmurs, the cadence of their hoof-falls, and wakes to the odor of their coats--sorrel, roan, bay, seal brown--from the window of his mother's bedroom. He is the incumbent lactation efficacy consultant and director of all matters mammary, slobbery, and insomniac at RHRC.