Photo by Collective Grace

The Knollwood Community is enjoying a busy week, so it’s time for a quick update.

 

Knollwood Summer 2025 has started at home with two different camps, and preparation for Oshkosh.

The Tiny Tot campers had a wonderful three days learning all about horses, and starting their riding educations. And they asked a lot of questions while laughing a lot.

Our first pattern camp of the summer runs through Friday. These advanced academy riders are furthering their knowledge both in the arena and out. They laughed so hard on Wednesday that one of the riders fell off their horse at a standstill.

Meanwhile, Lin is working horses for the Oshkosh Charity Horse Show on June 25-28. She works horses in the morning and teaches in the afternoons, making sure horses and riders are ready for their trip to the Fox Valley.

Photo by Collective Grace.

Scott, Carol, show horses and customers are in Springfield, Illinois enjoying the Midwest Charity Horse Show.

They’re having a great show in the midst of deep competition. The show continues through Saturday, and you can watch all the action on Richfield Video here.

Our food drive for the Food Pantry of Waukesha County continues through Saturday, June 14. Knollwood Kids of any age who donate a minimum of 5 food kits earn the right to compete on a Knollwood Olympic team of June 21 at 6:00 PM.

Please help us continue the 15 year tradition of helping the food pantry at the end of the school year when food stocks run low.  Plus, you’ll have a blast playing ‘games of skill’ with your friends on June 21.

The Oshkosh Charity Horse Show is going to be a great one in 2025.

Team Knollwood will be at Sunnyview Expo at the Winnebago County Fairgrounds from June 25-28 with both show and academy teams. The academy division is so big that the walk trot and canter championship has been split in advance because of the size of the class.

Please join us for a show in a beautiful setting, hospitality galore, and deep classes. We’d love to have you cheer us on!

We’re closed on Friday, July 4 so Knollwood families can celebrate Independence Day. All lessons will be rescheduled.

Team Knollwood is hitting shows in two states the second weekend of July.

Some show horses will be competing at the Lexington Junior League Show while other will be at Wisconsin State Fait Park with our academy team.

Lexington is one of the oldest and most prestigious Saddlebred shows in the country, while we consider ASAW Summerfun to be our ‘home show.’

Whether you’re in Kentucky or Wisconsin, please join us and cheer us on!

 

Photo by Collective Grace

 

 

See you soon at the barn or at the in-gate!

The Knollwood community is enjoying warmer days, open screen doors, bathing horses outside, and outdoor lessons. Summer is here, and we’re roling!

Our academy team spent last weekend in Woodstock while competing at the Prairie State Classic. We met up with our Morgan friends and enjoyed showing in the big outdoor ring at Beyond Stable Farm.

Out riders gained a lot of confidence as they worked the ring to present themselves and their horses in the best way possible.

We had so much fun learning and hanging out together.

Next up for our academy team is the Oshkosh Charity on June 28.

 

Our Annual Food Drive is in Full Swing!

We hope you’ll help us in our 15^th annual service project supporting the Food Pantry of Waukesha County. The pantry stocks are running low for several reasons, and we like to help them out every June.

Knollwood Kids of any age who donates a minimum of 5 food kits earn the right to compete on an Olympic Team on June 21.

Please put your food kit items in a bag with your name on it and place the bags in the pantry barrels in the show barn lounge.

If your family and friends would rather donate money to the food pantry, each $20 donation equals a food kit.

You can even donate from the comfort of the lounge using the QR code on the barrels. Please add a comment to your online donation noting that the funds are for the Knollwood Farm drive.

 

What are the Knollwood Olympics?

Well, all the donors are placed on teams by the Knockout officers, and then the teams compete in what we loosely call ‘games of skill.’

Teams will compete in the blind buggy race, the helmet toss, the blanket race, a relay race yet to be designed, and one more event yet to be created.

We guarantee you’ll laugh, you may fall down and you’ll have lots of fun while supporting our neighbors in need.

Events will start at 6:00 PM in the big outdoor arena, weather permitting. If we’re in the middle of a monsoon, we’ll move to the indoor arena.

It’s a ridiculous event, and you don’t want to miss it.

 

Midwest Charity

Our show barn team is heading to Midwest Charity for one of the biggest shows of the season.

Nineteen Knollwood horses will be competing in the most beautiful show arena in the country when they enter the coliseum at the Illinois State Fairgrounds.

You can watch all the action live  with a subscription to Richfield Video. We’ll be posting updates as well.

Best of luck to everyone showing!

 

 

What’s Coming Up?

Camp is Starting!

June 9 marks the real beginning of Knollwood Summer 2025 when we welcome 2 camps to the farm.

Our first tiny tot camp with Adrienne Monday thru Wednesday, and some advanced academy riders are coming all week for a pattern camp with Ann.

Camp continues through the Knollwood show in August, and all sessions are sold out. We do have a couple of openings in TIny Tot camp. Please give us a call at 262-367-2391 if you have a rider between the ages of 4 and 6 who might love a first time camp experience!

 

Oshkosh Charity

June 26-29

Sunnyview Expo at Winnebago County Fairgrounds

It’s a sell out!

Stalls are all sold, and it’s going to be a heck of a horse show.

Both our show and academy teams are making the trip to the Fox Valley to compete in the beautiful outdoor arena with a roof to keep us all in the shade.

Please join us for a show that specializes in hospitality as well as great competition.

 

July 4

We will not be holding lessons on Friday, July 4 so everyone can celebrate Independence Day.

All lessons will be rescheduled.

 

 

Lexington Junior League Horse Show

July 7-12

Rolex Stadium

Kentucky Horse Park

It’s the first of the big three shows of the year, and Knollwood will be there in force.

The show will be webcast for a fee, and we’ll update all the latest news on our socials.

 

ASAW Summerfun Horse Show

July 10-13

Wisconsin State Fair Park

Our academy team, and some of our show horses will be showing at one of our favorite shows of the year. We consider it our ‘home show’ and always enjoy a kind of Knollwood reunion with lots of friends attending.

If you’ve never seen a horse show or think you might be interested in joining our academy team in the future, Summerfun is a good opportunity to see show horses and academy riders. Best of all, you can sleep in your own bed!

 

 

IASPHA Summer Show

July 26-27

Beyond Stable Farm

Woodstock, IL

Yay, the IASPHA summer show is coming up.

We’ll be showing in the beautiful covered outdoor ring.

Please join us!

 

Knockouts Car Wash and Brat Bash

August 3

Hartland Piggly Wiggly

All Knockouts are asked to take a shift at the car wash, one of our biggest fundraisers of the year.

Your efforts help to keep our banquet prices down, and help the Knockouts donate to people in need. Plus, it’s a blast to wash cars and sell brats with your barn friends.

 

 

See you soon at the barn or the in-gate!

Photo by Collective Grace Photography

The Madison Classic horse show is always a favorite of Knollwood’s, and the management team put on another great one again this year.

The show was  well attended with almost 600 stalls sold at the New Holland Pavillions.  Trainers from Kentucky to Minnesota made the trip to Madison, and competition was deep.

Some highlights of Knollwood’s show?

Debuts of New Riders

Photo by Collective Grace Photography

Maddie and Averie both made their show horse debuts in the 10 and under walk and trot equitation division. They both showed like seasoned riders, and learned lots of lessons in the show arena.

The future is bright for these two Knollwood Kids.

Photo by Collective Grace Photography

Addison made her show horse debut aboard charismatic show pleasure horse Rosewood’s Homecoming Dance. Known at home as Robert, this big beautiful guy looked like he was having the time of his life with Addison. They’re going to be a pair to watch this season.

 

Photo by Collective Grace Photography

Sophie teamed up with equitation pro Gamora for her first show out of academy. They really clicked in the ring, and turned in some confident performances.

New Horses!

Photo by Collective Grace Photography

Brooklyn made her show ring debut aboard Isn’t She Something, known around the show horse world as Gigi.  Gigi is beautiful, ever so sure of herself, and she really likes Brooklyn. It’s Brooklyn’s first year in the senior division, and these two are going to be a team to watch.

 

Photo by Collective Grace Photography

After debuting at the Spring IASPHA show, Shaye showed her new equitation partner Far Too Fancy at Madison Classic. Lady is quickly picking up the ways of an equitation horse, and is enjoying the challenge. Shaye and Lady will take your breath away.

 

Photo by Collective Grace Photography

Leighton has moved out of the walk and trot division, and has entered the 11-13 walk, trot, and canter division. She and Fox Grape’s Fort Defiance were a compelling team and performed a fantastic serpentine in their challenge cup qualifier.

Right Back At It?

Photo by Collective Grace Photography

Richie, Natalie and Maiya turned in some impressive equitation rides with their teammates Doc, Garfield, and Riddle.

Photo by Collective Grace Photography

The equitation division was very strong at the show, and these three rose to the top, each winning their championship.

 

 

Photo by Collective Grace Photography

In addition to the equitation performances, we enjoyed performances by Margit and Shooter, Tancy and Mickey, Kerry and both Henry and Jade, Sarah and Zena, Tori and Stella, Tatum and both Lexi and Uno, Kim and Jaydee, Tess and Eli, Jane and Fergie, Natalie and Shane, and Allison showing Arthur for the first time. What a time we had!

Academy Rocked

Photo by Collective Grace Photography

The academy division was huge at Madison, and the Knollwood Kids shone in the heavy traffic. Their group lesson experiences made them standouts in the busy arena.

Great thanks to show manager Vicky for letting the classes get big to challenge the riders in the nice big arena.

Nineteen riders entered the ring for the walk, trot, and canter academy championship. Judge Cater worked the class both ways of the ring before releasing 11 and keeping 8 riders in the ring for additional work.

We had 5 riders in the final eight, and the Knollwood Kids rode to first through 5th place in the finale of 19.

Photo by Collective Grace Photography

The walk and trot classes were large as well. We’re proud of our walk and trot rider Allison who finished a strong third in her championship class. Her class for riders 11 and over featured 11 riders.

In addition, the show added a ‘Best in show’ award for the top academy rider, and it was awarded to Knollwood’s Jilly. Jilly turned in three strong rides on Willis, winning all three of her events.

We’re beyond proud of all of our riders.

What’s Coming Up?

Prairie State Classic Show

May 30-June 1

Beyond Stable Farm

Our academy team is headed to Woodstock for a show in the big outdoor arena in Woodstock. Please come and cheer us on. It looks like a beautiful weekend to watch an outdoor show.

Food Drive Starts

June 1-14

Knollwood’s annual food drive starts on June 1 and runs through the 14^th. We’re big supporters of the Food Pantry of Waukesha County, who runs low on food after school is out and school lunches are not an option.

Any Knollwood Kid who collects a minimum of 5 food kits earns the right to participate in the Knollwood Olympics on June 21. Donors compete on teams in ridiculous events, such as the blanket race, a relay race, and the blind buggy race.

Knollwood Summer 2025

Summer officially starts on June 9 when we welcome the first campers of 2025. We start with a light week of Tiny Tot camp and a pattern camp.

Midwest Charity

June 10-14

Illinois State Fairground

It’s time to show in the most beautiful horse show arena in the country.

Team Knollwood will be at this favorite show, and webcast info will be posted when available.

Photo by Collective Grace Photography

Dad’s Day Ride

June 14 at 6:00

We have a couple of spots available in the Dad’s Day ride. If your Knollwood Kid would like to be a helper for Dad’s first riding lesson, please sign up in the school barn lounge. It’s only $50 to boss your dad around for half an hour.

Helpers must be at least 10 years old, or be an academy show rider.

Photo by Collective Grace Photography

Oshkosh Charity Horse Show

June 22-26

Sunnyview Expo, Winnebago County Fairgrounds

Both show horses and our academy team are headed to the Fox Valley for Oshkosh Charity. The show is relaxed and loaded with great hospitality and competition.

It’s worth the drive to watch!!

Knollwood Summer Entries Accepted

July 1-13

It’s time to get your entries in for the Knollwood Summer Show on August 22-24. It’s going to be a great one.

Independence Day

July 4

We won’t be holding lessons on Friday, July 4. Your instructor will schedule a makeup lesson.

Knockout Car Wash

Sunday, August 3

It’s the most entertaining fundraiser of the year!

Save the date to join the fun of washing cars and running the brat stand with your barn friends.

Knollwood Summer Show

August 22-24

Let’s celebrate Knollwood Summer with a weekend horse show celebration. You won’t want to miss it.

 

 

Photo by Collective Grace Photography

See you soon at the barn, or at the in-gate.

Thanks to the involvement of our Knollwood community, we held a heck of a horse show last weekend.

To give you an idea about the size of the affair, we had 85 riders competing over the course of three days.

Friday night’s pattern performance welcomed 67 riders. In qualifying classes, we also qualified 4 riders for the Knollwood Challenge Finals in October.

Olivia and Stella will compete in the walk and trot finals while Kali and Madison S will compete in the walk trot and canter division.

 We're still looking forward to riders qualifying at the summer and fall shows.

Photo by Hanna Agathen Photography

Saturday welcomed 44 riders to the big outdoor arena for a day of competition. With many riders moving up to the walk, trot, and canter division this year, we offered 5 splits for riders aged 11-17.

Perhaps best of all, we only had one horse who decided to canter in the 11-17 walk trot classes later in the day.

Sunday is the showpiece of the weekend. We were happy to see 41 riders who competed in the 10 and under and maiden divisions as well as our leadline stars.

The little arena was the perfect venue for these newest stars, and they sure did shine.

 

 

We have many, many people to thank.

Amy, Olga, and Michelle were the co-chairs of the event. They ran the Knockout village, answered questions on all sorts of topics, and ran a great event.

Anne grilled for the duration of the show.

Melissa created gift basket themes and put the vision to work with her assistants.

Wendy and Karina handled announcing duties and taught the audience all about horse showing.

Jane was our Sunday concierge who made sure attire was just right, numbers were straight, and answered some very creative questions from the young competitors.

Concession stand volunteers were the best.

Our ringmasters made sure riders were safe, and that victory passes went just right.

 

Bella and Taylor worked with the announcers and created ribbon bags for riders to pick up when they returned their numbers after the show.

 

Photographer Hanna captured special moments for the riders.

Knollwood Kid for Life Shelby was an inspiration. She offered feedback, encouragement, and a lot of humor.  Our recently married judge is one in a million.

 

Our Sunday personal assistants are amazing people.

Each is responsible for a hard-working walk and trot horse on Sunday, and for the riders showing them. They change tack, adjust stirrups, ensure that reins are just right, and give riders pep talks and congratulations throughout the show.  A special shout out to Thea, Jilly, and Kylie for acting as the ‘seniors on’ throughout the Sunday show.

We say it a lot, but it’s really true. We have the best lesson horses in the world. From pattern classes to leadline, these horses behaved like unicorns.

We rewarded them with a day off on Monday, when the slept the afternoon away in a nice dark barn with the lights off.

Apologies if we forgot anyone.

We’re grateful to our community for pitching in to make these shows wonderful events for all the Knollwood Kids.

Oh, and if you're counting, these numbers made for 433 trips through the ingate.

 

Rest up, our summer show is coming up August 22-24, and we can hardly wait.

 

Madison Classic is almost here!

Scott made several trips to Madison on Tuesday to deliver show horses to the exciting Madison Classic show. With almost 600 stalls sold, it’s surely worth a trip to Madison this weekend.

Some debuts to look forward to?

Averie will be showing Prince in 10 and under Walk Trot, her first show in a suit.

Maddie will be showing Zach in first show out of academy.

Sophie will show in a suit for the first time on Gamora.

Brooklyn will make her debut in the 14-17 age group on beautiful Gigi.

Leighton will enter the 11-13 equitation division with Teddy.

Shaye will debut on her new equitation partner, Lady.

 And these are just in the equitation divisions!

Our academy riders will show at 10:00 AM on Saturday.

Please join us!

What’s Coming Up?

Memorial Day

We are closed Monday, May 26 in honor of Memorial Day.

All lessons have been rescheduled.

 

Food Drive to Benefit the Food Pantry of Waukesha County 

June 1-14

We’ve been partnering with the food pantry for 15 years as we help them at a time of year when stocks run low.

Anyone who donates a minimum of 5 food kits can compete in the Knollwood Olympics on June 21. Olympic teams compete in ‘games of skill,’ and it’s a great night at the farm.

 

Knollwood Summer Starts!

June 9

We open with a pattern camp and a Tiny Tot camp

 

Dad’s Day Ride

June 14 at 6:00

We have a few openings left for riders who want to help their Dad in an intro lesson.

It’s only $50 to tell your Dad what to do for half an hour.

Please sign up and pay in the school barn lounge.

Riders must be 10 or over or be an academy rider.

 

Knollwood Olympics 

June 21

6:00

All Knollwood Kids who have collected a minimum of 5 food kits will compete in ridiculous games.

July 4 Closure

No lessons as we celebrate Independence Day

Lessons will be rescheduled.

 

 

 Summer Show Entries

July 1-13

Entries for our summer Knollwood Show to be held August 22-24.

 

 

See you soon at the barn, or at the in-gate

 

We’re kicking off the in-barn show season this weekend, and we can hardly wait.

Here’s some legal insider information to help you enjoy the weekend to the fullest!

 

Parking

Our friends at the Kettle Moraine Curling Club have graciously offered us their parking lot for the weekend. It’s directly across from the little outdoor ring where we’ll be showing on Sunday.

Please do not park on the curve of Horseshoe Bend between the ‘No Parking’ signs. It’s a low visibility curve on the lightest of traffic days, and we’ll have a lot of pedestrian traffic this weekend.

So if you don’t want to be a nuisance or meet a big beefy Delafield police officer, please park in the lot.

Arrival Times

We try to be respectful of everyone’s valuable time. Each rider has received a personalized schedule in their show bag. If you can’t find the schedule, please feel free to give us a call or stop in and we’ll be happy to help.

Horse shows are not the most exact timed events.  When spending time with young riders and horses, it’s best to chill out and enjoy the beautiful day. We’ll do our best to stay on track.

Clothing

As a list minute reminder, show attire includes dark jods or riding leggings, black boots, the cool blue show shirt, and gloves. Helmets are worn if worn in lessons, and are, of course, required for all 10 and under riders.

Please, please remember to have tie downs for your jods. No judge wants to look at a rider with their pants riding up towards knees.

Jodi does have number magnets for sale at the school barn counter if you need a set.

 

 

Horse Assignments

As you can imagine, it takes many brains and a whole lot of fuzzy logic to assign horses to 90 riders in 64 classes.

Your rider may not be able to show their favorite horse at the show this weekend. There are several reasons why this may be:

Some horses behave differently in daily lessons than they do in different situations. Our number one goal for show weekend is safety.

Some horses are requested by most of the riders, and we carefully watch each horse’s work load for the weekend.

Riders can learn from all the lesson horses. Some of our horses who aren’t considered beautiful on the outside are very beautiful on the inside. These great souls help us keep riders building skills and confidence. And they’re cute as buttons.

We never want to overmount riders. Once a rider is scared, it’s difficult to overcome the experience. In different situations such as horse shows, we mount appropriately to be sure riders learn and advance, but are never in a scary situation.

The Knollwood Village

Our fantastic volunteer army of Knollwood parents and kids create a village for show weekend.

They’ll have tents set up for concessions, gift baskets, and Woodwear.

We’re still ordering summer clothing through show weekend, and size samples will be outside in the Knockout village.

We can’t thank these hard working parents and riders enough. Best of all, we’re always looking for more friends to join the volunteer army.

Got some time this weekend? We have some shifts open, and you can sign up here.

 

Show Schedule

We kick off the weekend with pattern night on Friday night at 6:00.  Our most experienced riders perform patterns in the indoor arena, and some will attempt to qualify for the Knollwood Challenge final in October.

Our walk, trot, and canter riders as well as our 11 and over walk and trot riders will compete in the beautiful big outdoor arena starting at 10:00 AM on Saturday.

Riders will compete in Horsemanship, Equitation, and Equitation championships.

We have a record number of walk trot and canter riders at this show, with 5 splits of 11-17 year old riders!

We’ll finish our Saturday with a special charity class to benefit the Food Pantry of Waukesha County.

10 experienced riders will compete bareback at the walk, trot, and canter with a $20 bill under each Judge Shelby will put the riders through their paces while trying to dislodge the money. 

The last rider with money left will take home half the money, and the other half will be donated to the Food Pantry of Waukesha County, Judge Shelby’s charitable choice.

You’ll want to stay and watch this!

Sunday’s performance will spotlight our 10 and under and maiden walk trot riders.

We’ll start at 10:00 AM with our leadline riders.

Sunday will finish indoors with an 8 and under pattern class.

How to Watch the Show

Please bring lawn chairs to watch the show.

On Saturday, you can set up anywhere in the west pasture. Please don’t sit in Scott and Carol’s yard so they can enjoy privacy. We have plenty of room for everyone.

On Sunday, please set up your chairs on the north side of the small outdoor ring. We will need to maintain a path to the in-gate, and will mark it off with cones.

 

We’re Looking Forward To …

Watching the best lesson horses in the world enjoy the weekend as much as their riders do.

Helping Knollwood Kids build confidence and resilience through showing.

Watching the Knollwood community create a weekend centered around the riders.

 

 

What’s Coming Up?

 

Horses’ Day Off

Monday, May 19

We’re not holding lessons on Monday, so the horses can enjoy a day to rest.

All riders received a credit on their May bill.

 

Madison Classic Horse Show

May 22-25

Oh, it’s going to be a great show, with almost 600 horses entered.

The show barn will be almost empty with so many horse making the trip to Madison, and the academy riders show at 10:00 on Saturday.

Please come join us at the show!

Memorial Day

Monday, May 26

We’re not holding lessons so we can honor our fallen heroes.

All lessons have been rescheduled.

Prairie State Classic

May 30 - June 1

Our academy team is heading to the beautiful big outdoor ring at Beyond Stable Farm. Please join us at our first outdoor show of the year.

Food Drive Starts

June 1

Our annual food drive begins today, and runs through June 14.

Knollwood Kids who collect a minimum of 5 food kits or the cash equivalent of $15 per kit will earn the right to compete in the Knollwood Olympics on June 21.

Collect from friends, neighbors, or relatives to help the Food Pantry of Waukesha County at a time of year when their stores run low.

 

Dad’s Day Ride

Saturday, June 14

Knollwood Kids are invited to be their Dad’s helper during a fun introductory lesson. It’s only $50 to show your Dad why you love riding so much.  Helpers must be at least 10, or be an academy show rider. Please pay and sign up in the school barn lounge.

Knollwood Olympics

Saturday, June 21

All of the Knollwood Kids who collected a minimum of 5 food kits are getting together to compete in ‘games of skill.’  It’s silly, it’s competitive, and you’ve probably never laughed so hard in your life. (Unless you rode in the Mom’s ride last weekend…)

Oshkosh Charity Horse Show

June 26-29

Team Knollwood is heading to the Fox Valley for the Oshkosh Charity Horse Show. It’s held at Sunnyview Expo Center, a relaxing park like setting. Riders compete in the beautiful covered outdoor arena, and ringside tables are a highlight of the hospitality offered.

Academy riders will compete at 10:00 AM on Saturday, May 28.

Independence Day

July 4

No lessons on July 4^th so everyone can celebrate.

Lessons will be rescheduled.

 

 

See you soon at the barn, or at the in-gate.