Meet this Canadian trick rider who has been wowing audiences with her unbelievable tricks since she was a teenager.
Being born and raised on a farm, 20-year-old Riata Guynup has always been surrounded by animals and spent her childhood riding horses.
At age 4, Ms. Guynup decided she wanted to be a trick rider.
“For my birthday one year, Dad took me eight hours from home for a weekend riding clinic,” Ms. Guynup said. “I spent the weekend trick riding and, from that point, I was hooked.”
A trick rider performs stunts while horseback riding. When she turned 13, Ms. Guynup started performing for the first time at an amateur rodeo—a competitive equestrian sport.
“I was the first person in my family to get into rodeo,” she said. “I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
Ms. Guynup gets an adrenaline rush every time she performs, knowing that her horse has her back.
“We know each other so well—it’s a really cool experience to know your animal knows everything you’re thinking,” she said.
No matter how nervous she is before she gets into the arena, she automatically becomes calm once she steps in.
“When the crowd starts cheering, it really helps the horse. It is impressive how much they feed off the crowd,” she said.
Since she began trick riding, Ms. Guynup has had four horses: Bob, 19, Jesse, 11, Phantom, 10, and Mariposa, 4.
Ms. Guynup first learned to perform on Bob, a horse who has been there with her throughout her whole life and with whom she shares an incredible bond.
Since Bob is now mostly retired, Ms. Guynup has trained Little Jesse and then Phantom to perform in every show. Little Jesse is a quarter-horse gelding and enjoys running. Welcoming him at the age of 4, Ms. Guynup trained him with the help of her father, Jerry Guynup, a 46-year-old farmer. Phantom, Ms. Guynup says, is sassy and fast.
Meanwhile, Mariposa, a 4-year-old mare, was born on Ms. Guynup’s farm and has been trained by her since she was born in February 2019 in a -35 degree Celcius (-31 degree Fahrenheit) cold snap. According to Ms. Guynup’s website, Mariposa is friendly and hardworking and has been making exceptional progress.
Currently, Ms. Guynup performs every weekend between May and September but said her schedule slows down in the winter months due to the weather.
When performing, Ms. Guynup has two stunts that she says make the crowd go wild.
“I try and mix the show up every time I perform,” she said. “The hippodrome stand—where you stand on the horse—is always a crowd favorite and the stroud—where the rider rises from their mount, slides their legs around the side of the horse’s torso, and places one foot atop the horse’s back and the other against the horse’s underbelly.”
Her performances are really rewarding and she says they are usually about five minutes long.
“It is unique that I perform on my own, usually people will perform in a group of two or three, but I am up there alone,” she said.
Behind Ms. Guynup’s success stands her proud father, who accompanies her to every show.
“He is one of the biggest supporters in my life, both in and out of the arena. His dedication and encouragement to my dream have never wavered,” she said. “Whenever I have fallen off or had a fall my dad has never been fazed by it.”
