By DANI BLACKBURN

Most typical 10-year-old girls do not spend their days dreaming of being the first 19-year-old to win a million dollar prize at the national horse jumping grand prix, but Bailey Robinson, fourth grader at Bowie Intermediate School, is not your typical girl.

For Bailey, riding horses has been important all of her short life. She was riding before she could walk, and competing by the age of three. Her parents also have always been in the horse business. Her dad, Mikal, is a horse trainer, and her mom, Wendy, competed as a child, but they say her love for horses is something she came across on her own.

“We love to watch her ride. We never pushed her to ride because we didn’t want our passion to be pushed on her, but she came into it on her own so it’s really special,” said Wendy. “It’s a family sport and we are doing it together.”

Mikal loves watching his daughter compete. “It’s great to see because she’s really intuitive and I love to watch it all happen. Things that happen for the first time she handles, and I will ask her how she knew to do whatever it was, and she will say she just knew.”

Bailey currently competes in hunter jumping competitions, usually two weekends every month. The young rider is headed to Kentucky in July to compete in the national competition for the United States Equestrian Federation, where almost 500 kids compete. Read the full feature in the weekend News.