When Matt Brown and his wife Cecily Clark realized the lease on the property that they run their East West Training Stables out of in Petaluma, Calif., would be expiring sooner than they’d anticipated, the couple had to make a quick decision. After weighing their options, they ultimately decided to relocate to the East Coast this summer in pursuit of Brown’s dreams of representing the U.S. on future teams.

Brown, who was recently named an alternate to the Pan American Games (Ontario) eventing team with BCF Belicoso, came east for the first time last year to contest the Dutta Corp. Fair Hill International (Md.) CCI** with Happenstance and the CCI*** with Super Socks BCF. He returned this spring with his upper level horses to compete at the CIC*** at Fair Hill in April and the Jersey Fresh CCI*** (N.J.) in May.

“It’s a great property, and we really enjoy our clients there, but at the same time, it’s difficult financially to make it work and coming to the East Coast in the fall of last year and this year and trying to manage the business as well as manage the property has turned out to be very difficult,” he said.

Brown and Clark were based down the road from Phillip Dutton and Boyd Martin in Pennsylvania, at Doug and Cindy Howe’s farm, but they have started the search for a more permanent place.

“They’ve been generous enough to let us take over the barn, and it’s been great, but I think they have other plans ultimately for the property, so we’ll start to look for a property where we can have a few more horses and have a small scale full training business but also looking to start doing more clinicing and lessoning,” he said.

While Brown admitted it was a tough decision to uproot his business and leave his clients, he thinks it will ultimately benefit his riding goals with less travel time and more access to a variety of instructors.

“I think the horse industry is a difficult industry, and we’re all faced with pretty difficult decisions when it comes to our own competition careers and building a business,” he said. “I think we have to constantly remind ourselves that we have to make the best decision we can with the possibilities in mind. I think for a long time I sort of held myself back because I was thinking more about my limitations and less about the possibilities, and it can be really scary. It’s scary to walk away from a business that you’ve spent a dozen years building, but thinking about what I want to do in the future, I have to make decisions based on that. At the same time, if we’re not trying to reach our potential and reach for our bigger dreams and goals, then what’s the point?

“We really appreciate and realize that we wouldn’t be doing any of this without the support of all of our sponsors and the clients that made up our business in California. They’ve ultimately got us to this point where we’re able to make this step, and it’s difficult to walk away from them, but we hope that we have built them up in their riding the way that they’ve helped build us up,” he added.