Young Guns! Profiling BC Native Cassandra Kahle

“Cassandra has been riding for Silver Fox since she was five years old,” reads Cassandra Kahle’s biography on the Silver Fox Horse Sales’ website, a testament to Kahle’s early start in horse sales.

Throughout the 23 years since then, riding and competing high-quality sale horses has remained a constant for Kahle and has propelled the British Columbia native to great success across the hunter, jumper, and equitation divisions.

As a junior rider, Kahle, now 28, rose to the top of the equitation ranks in both Canada and south of the border in the U.S. For the past seven years, Kahle has been a professional rider for Emil Spadone’s Redfield Farm, earning accolades from the derby field to the grand prix ring.

A Foundation in Equitation

Kahle’s early introduction to riding and competing sale horses is a credit to her mother, Natasha Brash. Brash owns and operates Silver Fox Horse Sales, the Langley, BC-based hunter/jumper training and sales program where Kahle got her start. Kahle is quick to thank her mother for instilling in her a strong riding foundation.

“I grew up riding with Mom and riding the sale horses,” said Kahle, who competed in the hunter and equitation divisions throughout British Columbia. “Whatever came to the barn I was eager to ride. Mom was always good at working with me, and I gained a lot of experience there.

“As a teenager, I really wanted to do some of the American equitation finals, and the CET Medal was also a big goal of mine growing up,” continued Kahle.

With her mother’s support, Kahle pursued those goals. In 2009, she topped the ASPCA Maclay Regional Final held in Washington State. Around the same time, Kahle also placed second in her CET Medal Regional Final to qualify for the CET Medal Final at the Royal Horse Show in Toronto, ON, but the equitation horse that she had been riding was leased out to another rider.

“I didn’t have a horse to ride for any of the finals,” explained Kahle. “When I won the Maclay Regional Finals, Gary Duffy was judging, and I was really fortunate that Gary and Bobbie Reber took an interest in helping me. They helped my mom set me up with Missy Clark.”

Kahle met Clark, renowned for her equitation training expertise, just before the Pennsylvania National Horse Show in Harrisburg, PA, home to the U.S. Equestrian Federation (USEF) Hunter Seat Medal.

“I had no idea what horse I was going to be riding or what the deal was, but we got to Missy’s a few days before Harrisburg,” remembered Kahle, who then spent the fall as a working student at Clark’s North Run in Warren, VT. “The night before the Medal practice class, we decided on a horse, and I have to say it was a great, great experience.

“I’d never really been out of our backyard region before,” continued Kahle. “We’re fortunate that Thunderbird and Milner Downs were our home base, so we didn’t really travel a whole lot farther. To get to Medal Finals and to get to work with Missy Clark was a huge eye opener, and I learned a lot.”

In the culmination to an incredible 2009 season, Kahle returned home to Canada to finish second in the Running Fox CET National Medal Final at the Royal Horse Show.

“When I was a small kid, I would watch the CET Regional Finals and they would change horses. I dreamed of being in there one day!” said Kahle. “Doing that work off, getting to switch horses, and just being a part of that class was one of my favourite moments. I was really close friends with Lauren Gue who won that year, so for us to finish first and second was such a big moment.”

Going Pro

The following year, Kahle spent her final junior season based with Jim Hagman at Elvenstar in Moorpark, CA, as a working student.

“It was an amazing experience,” said Kahle, who catch rode a talented young equitation horse and a number of junior hunters while at Elvenstar. “I can’t say enough good things about Jim. He really went out of his way to help me and to give me every opportunity to get in the ring. That was an amazing year, for sure.”

After aging out of the juniors, Kahle thought she might continue riding as an amateur but, after a year, she knew she wanted more.

“I wanted to be more hands-on; I wanted to work and do this for a living,” said Kahle who soon turned professional and spent roughly three years working for her mother before she was introduced to Spadone and his Redfield Farm.

“I started out as kind of a second rider, and I did a bit of everything,” explained Kahle of her early role at the farm based in Califon, NJ, and Ocala, FL. “I rode. I taught. If I had to do stalls, I did stalls. I’d make up feed. Any work that I could do in the barn or be helpful with, I did.

“Eventually as the years went on, I stepped into the first rider position,” continued Kahle. “It’s been amazing. I started to do some hunter derbies and also stepped into the jumper ring, which I didn’t have experience in before. Now, I even have grand prix horses to ride.”

With anywhere from 50 to 85 horses at Redfield Farm at any given time, Kahle has been able to gain experience on a wide variety of horses and across the divisions.

“I’m just getting my feet wet in as many classes as I can and with lots of different horses – young horses, older horses. It’s been amazing,” said Kahle.

While Kahle may say that she’s just getting her feet wet, her competition results reveal much more than that, with a host of hunter championships and grand prix wins to her name.

In 2019, Kahle claimed one of her favorite victories to date, topping the $30,000 World Championship Hunter Rider (WCHR) Professional Challenge at the Capital Challenge Horse Show in Maryland.

“That was a big moment,” said Kahle, who earned the win aboard Monday Balous, owned by Redfield Farm and Don Stewart. “I think that’s a hard one to top. It’s a class that I always wanted to do; most of the riders in that class are people I really look up to and that I’ve watched over the years. I had dreamed about competing with them and getting to rub elbows with them, so to win a class like that was mind-blowing.”

In addition to the winning moments, one of Kahle’s favourite parts of her current job is the opportunity to work with up-and-coming young horses through Spadone’s successful breeding program.

“One of my favorite horses, Blue, we produced as a jumper, and I won a lot of classes on him up to the 1.45m level,” said Kahle. “Blue was a homebred, so I think that further sparked my interest in the breeding program, getting to ride the four-year-olds, and being a part of when the babies are born.”

Looking Ahead

This spring, Kahle was able to enjoy more time than usual with the young horses. The Redfield Farm team remained in Ocala, FL, abiding by the stay-at-home orders surrounding the coronavirus pandemic.

“The breeding farm is just a couple of minutes from our main farm in Florida, so the break gave me more time to spend with the four-year-olds,” said Kahle, who also enjoyed getting to do more “normal people things,” including yoga and cooking, during the quarantine. “We were there for the new babies that were born this year, and we got to play with them. It was enjoyable to relax a little bit and to not be going from place to place.”

Now, Kahle is happy to be back in the show ring, as the Redfield Farm team returned to competition in Saugerties, NY, in July. Ultimately, Kahle would love to compete in Europe in addition to furthering her North American career – be that in the hunter or jumper ring.

“People ask if I prefer the hunters or the jumpers, and I never know how to answer,” said Kahle. “If I have a nice hunter to ride, I love riding it. If I have a nice jumper to ride, I love riding it. If you have a nice horse, to me it doesn’t really matter if it’s a hunter or a jumper.

“I’d love to have a string of horses and be able to get a bit of international experience in Europe; that’s the dream,” continued Kahle.

In the meantime, she’ll enjoy riding and producing quality sale horses like she has for the last two decades.