If you attend a clinic organized by 22-year-old Daina Kaugars, you’ll ride in front of renowned riders like Sinead Halpin, Colleen Rutledge and Dom Schramm. She’ll set up a hot lunch for auditors and riders alike, and best of all, you won’t be living in a cardboard box after paying for your day’s lessons.

Affordable and approachable are Kaugars’ top priorities when it comes to hosting clinics.

“I noticed there was a big lack of affordable clinics in the area when I came as a freshman,” Kaugars said. She attends the University of Kentucky in Lexington, graduating in the spring of 2016 with degrees in agricultural economics and equine buisness.

Most recently, Kaugars put on a Sinead Halpin clinic at Antebellum Farm in Lexington.  

“I grew up in Michigan, and there’s a big eventing scene up there, and then in New York too there’s a smaller, local, almost family friendly atmosphere,” Kaugars said (her family currently lives in Oneonta, N.Y.). “I got to Kentucky and I was kind of expecting the same. It’s the horse capital of the world, but I was kind of disappointed.”

Kaugars was raised to be a self-sufficient equestrian. Her parents purchased her first horse, a breeding stock paint gelding, but told her everything else was her responsibility.

“So what I started doing was buying and selling tack, so I would look on Ebay, find a saddle for $200, turn around and sell it for $600,” Kaugars said. “Mostly I was looking for something that would fit me and my horse, but at the same time I was making money. So I guess I’ve always been business minded.”

It’s that dollars and cents-minded young lady who didn’t content herself with being a whining railbird when she couldn’t find affordable training options in Lexington.

“Sophomore year I said well, what all goes into putting on a clinic? How can I do something? How can I make it happen?” Kaugars said. “So I messaged Colleen Rutlege.”

Did approaching a big-name four-star rider like Colleen Rutledge, who has jumped around Rolex Kentucky, Badminton and Burghley, intimidate Kaugars?

“Oh, it was terrifying,” Kaugars said of that first call to set up her first clinic. “I had all these questions, and Colleen had a very nice list of things for first-time organizers, and I just kind of grabbed it and ran with it.

“I also did a lot of online research and just read everything I could about everyone,” Kaugars said. “And I’m pretty good friends with Kelly Gage, who hosts [clinic by] William Fox-Pitt, so we chatted a little bit. She caters to a little different clientele with her clinics. They’re a little bigger and fancier, a little less approachable, so as a college student I said I want something scaled down.”

Daina Kaugars and Re D’Feined schooling cross-country. Photo by Rachel Kelly Photography

So Kaugars hosted her very first clinic in 2014 with Colleen Rutledge, and she rode in it herself with her then 5-year-old horse, a Hanoverian mare named Re D’Feined. Kaugars traded her very first paint gelding for “Rori” when the mare was an unbroken 3-year-old, and brought Rori to college with her in 2012.

She keeps Rori at a friend’s farm in Lexington, and works off her board doing stalls on the weekend. Kaugars can’t afford to be in full training with someone, so she takes ala carte lessons when she can. Rori hasn’t competed in any rated events yet, with Kaugars focus being on brining the mare up through combined tests, where they’ve gone through the training level. She has plans to enter their first training level event in June of 2016 at the Larkin Hill Horse Trials (N.Y.).

Since the Rutledge clinic, Kaugars has hosted two more clinics, both with Don Schramm, in addition to the most recent two-day clinic with Sinead Halpin.

“The response I’ve gotten has been incredible,” Kaugars said. Throughout the Halpin clinic, parents of children riding in the beginner novice groups and riders in the training level lesson alike came by to thank Kaugars for hosting the event.

Daina Kaugars riding Re D’Feined in the Sinead Halpin clinic that she herself organized. Photo by Ann Glavan

Clinics with bag-name riders sometimes come with hefty pricetags. Ever the economics major, Kaugars saw a space in the market for cost-effective clinics to serve lower level eventers. Not only is she hosting them, she no longer needs to scour the internet for tack to resell. 

“Now hosting the clinics finances my personal eventing season,” Kaugars said.

Kaugars will head out to Colorado to get her masters degree in agricultural economics in the fall of 2016, but she hopes to continue hosting clinics in Lexington, arranging them remotely.