Apparently Sara Mittleider is fearless.

She’s not afraid to gallop her diminutive Thoroughbred gelding to the biggest cross-country fences.

She’s not afraid to set her goals on the toughest three-day events in the world. And she’s not afraid to tell people she plans to ride the horse her family bought for $300 in the Olympics.

At 19, Mittleider was not only the highest-placed young rider at the Rolex Kentucky CCI**** last May, but she was also the youngest rider ever to complete the event since it became a four-star in 1998. And to accomplish that achievement, she’s moved up the levels from an unlikely home base.

Mittleider has lived her entire life in Kuna, a small town in southwestern Idaho, a region she describes as “the black hole of eventing.” It’s an area where team roping and barrel racing are king, where the closest advanced-level horse trial is a 10-hour drive away and the next closest is more than 20 hours away.

Still, when she went to watch Rolex Kentucky in 2000, she knew that she and El Primero, her then 5-year-old gelding she calls “Tony,” could do it. She told her friends and family, “I’ll be here in 2005.”

Not surprisingly, “Lots of people said, ‘Yeah, sure, Sara,’ ” she recalled.

But despite her youth, the geographical challenges, her limited resources, and just one rookie horse, she finished Rolex Kentucky in 18th place, with a run-out at a tough combination of two narrow fences late in the course. The two skinny brush fences, following a maximum-sized drop fence, demanded concentration and quick thinking late in the course, the kind of question that catches four-star rookies and even some veterans.

The Genie Has Left The Bottle

Since she’s the youngest child of horse trainers, Mittleider has never been wishy-washy about riding. Father Gary used to train race horses, but for the past 15 years he’s trained horses and riders for eventing. He’s now competing his horse Wildcat Fever at preliminary level. Mother Brenda galloped horses at the track before starting her family and now handles the farm’s business end. Her brother, Jason, 24, is serving in the U.S. Army in Iraq; her sister Jenie, 33, is an exercise rider and pony girl at racetracks in Kentucky.

So as a toddler, Sara adopted a riding hat and rubber boots as daily apparel. “I don’t quite remember when I started riding. I just remember jumping, if you want to call it that,” she recalled. “Dad would lead me on a pony to a jump, then he’d jump over, and I’d hang on.”

She was 4.

Although she traveled with her parents to many events and rode in almost every jumping lesson that her dad taught at their Rocky Hollow Farm, Gary and Brenda tried to delay their precocious daughter’s entry into competitive riding. “Once that genie’s out of the bottle, you can’t put it back in,” said Gary.

But their resolve had weakened by the time she turned 7. By then Sara was trotting around cross-country courses on a Con-nemara named Dain’s Irish Tuppence. She was trotting so Gary could keep up as he ran after her.

It was probably in these first events that Sara began to develop her focus. When her pony got strong on course, Gary told her to just “sit up and ride.”

At the Mountain Mead-ows event in Washington, she called out to Brenda in dressage, “Mom, I forgot my test!” But Brenda just gave her a reassuring smile and hoped that if she didn’t answer, the judge would overlook her daughter’s request for unauthorized assistance and allow her to continue.

In the years that followed, Sara progressed up the levels, wistfully waiting to turn 14 so she could ride at preliminary level, then 16 for intermediate and 18 for advanced. She competed “Tuppence” through training level, then moved to Tony, then a 15-hand 3-year-old who’d run last in his six starts at Les Bois Park in Boise, Idaho.

“My first memory of Tony is trying to tack him up,” Sara said. “He kicked at me when I tried to pick up his left hind leg or brush his belly; he tried to bite me when I was girthing him up. When I was trying to bridle him, he pulled back, so Dad had to bridle him. He’s cold-backed, and I’d never been on one like that, so when I got on him, he just about sat down.”

The only reason Tony ended up in the Mittleider’s barn was that he was part of a package deal, paired with a more likely eventing prospect for Gary.

“The first opportunity they had, my parents showed him to someone to buy,” Sara recalled. “I didn’t speak to them all day. I was in my room all day.”

But the prospective buyer said Tony was too small. “So that’s when I put my hands on him and said, ‘He’s mine!’ My dad said, ‘Fine, but you have to ride him if you want him.’ So I started riding him every day.”

Tony was 4 and had two novice events to his credit when Sara rode him in a clinic with Phillip Dutton at Swiftsure Ranch in Bellevue, Idaho. Afterward, the two-time Olympic team gold medalist invited Sara to come to his Pennsylvania barn to work. The month that followed was her one and only experience training with or working for anyone but her parents.

Although her employment with Dutton was brief, he made a big impression on her. “He’s there every day and works very hard,” said Sara. “I look up to him because he rides so many very different horses, and they all go clean and fast. They all produce the same picture” on course.

Her Day Job

Traveling to horse trials in the spring and fall caused Sara to miss a considerable amount of school, so at 13 she opted for home schooling. She received her graduation equivalency diploma at age 16 and became certified as an emergency medical technician last year, although she isn’t currently working as an EMT.

“I love it, but it’s a profession that takes all of your time, and you can’t have two passions if you want to be good. I’m riding now, because this is my passion,” she said.

And that paramedic training was invaluable in confirming Sara’s commitment to eventing. “Training to be an EMT was my one dip into the real world,” she said. “I’d never experienced anything else.” And it’s given her a profession to fall back on if she wants to.

Sara’s passion has also kept her from missing the social life of a young adult. “I’m not a very social person, so that helps,” she admitted. “Shy people don’t have many distractions, and I’d rather focus on something that I’m comfortable doing.”

Plus, she added, “Horses are less complicated and easier to get along with [than people]. Horses try really hard for you; people often don’t.”

Her decision to pursue her eventing career has drawn praise from her more accomplished peers, including fellow Idahoan Vicky Koss, who’s been competitive in the four-stars at Kentucky, Badminton (England) and Burghley (England).

“After watching Sara go around Jackson Hole [Wyo.] last year, and then seeing how well she did at Fair Hill [CCI*** in Mary-land] last fall, I had no doubt she’d do well at Rolex,” Koss said.

Koss said that she admires Sara for “sacrificing her normal life to achieve her four-star goals,” adding, “there is a certain degree of luck in this sport, and Sara deserved to have luck on her side at Rolex. She’s given up so much, and I admire her immensely.”

A Reticent Role Model

Since she’s an introvert, it’s not surprising that Sara feels a bit uncomfortable in her new role as a role model for other junior and young riders. “I don’t picture myself that way, but I am careful about what I do,” she said. “I never yell at people [while teaching clinics]. I know they’re there to have fun.”

And she politely signed autographs for spectators after her cross-country ride at Rolex Kentucky. “But I kept thinking, ‘Don’t you want me to get [some more famous riders] to sign this for you?’ “

Tony wasn’t as accommodating, though. “They all want to pet the cute little pony. He goes around the course with his ears forward,” turning on the speed in response to applause. But when people approach him, Tony pins his ears, swishes his tail and fidgets. He’s been known to bite people and has even grabbed dogs by the neck if they’ve invaded his personal space.

But he and his rider share the same intensity about galloping around cross-country courses, even courses that are bigger and tougher than anything they’ve seen before.

“Once I’m on course, I focus on the job at hand–my line and the pace I come in,” she said. “When I get nervous, I ask myself, ‘How calm can I get?’ ”