Every other Friday for This Is Nashville, we hop out of the studio and into the passenger seat to ride shotgun with a fellow Middle Tennessean. But this time, instead of a car… we’re riding horseback. We sent our producer Rose Gilbert out for a tour of BlackFriar Farm in Cheatham County for our episode on the Iroquois Steeplechase, which can be found here.
After driving half an hour out of Nashville and up a narrow, hilly driveway, I met assistant trainer Lisa Conto, a lifelong equestrian who moved to Tennessee from Los Angeles last year to work at the farm.
Conto introduced me to Val, an easy-going mare whose dark coat was shot through with white around her eyes and nose.
We got Val tacked up, placing the saddle pad right behind her withers, followed by the heavy leather eventing saddle. Next, Conto pulled on the bridle, the browband embellished with a row of rhinestones, and placed the bit in Val’s mouth.
“It sits in their mouth in a place where there’s no teeth, so this just sits on their tongue,” she explained. “And as you pull the reins here, it’s going to move in their mouth. That’s how they’re trained – they feel every single movement of this bit.”
After retrieving and tacking up Conto’s mount, a quarter horse named Bunny, we led our horses down to the arena. The ground is soft, white sand to encourage ultra-precise footing when training for eventing.
Conto climbed into her saddle with practiced ease, but she said she’s taken plenty of bad falls.
“You have to get back in the saddle,” she said. “Even if you have a broken arm, you still better get back up in the saddle. Right after, if you can.”
After a few laps around the arena, we made our way down one of the wilderness trails that surround the farm. As we passed, a pair of yearlings from the neighboring farm trotted up to greet us.
“They’re curious, and they’re very social animals. They know who’s in their pack and who lives across the way,” explained Conto. She added that horses are quick to pick up on people’s emotions.
I asked her if it’s true that horses can smell fear.
“Oh, absolutely! If you’re scared, they know it. They know everything, everything you’re feeling,” she said.
That’s why it’s so important to stay calm while riding, she explained. She doesn’t have a lot of trouble with that – riding is calming for her, especially in such a scenic area.
“I really love it out here. I come out here in the morning, and all the birds are just chirping and going crazy. It’s just beautiful, the most beautiful thing,” she said.
It’s hard to believe that BlackFriar Farms is so close to a major metropolitan area because surrounded on all sides by rolling hills and dense stands of vine-covered trees. Conto says she makes the trip into Nashville about once a week to explore or see her fiancé – an artist – perform.
Although she loves all things equestrian, Conto will not be attending the Iroquois Steeplechase this weekend. She’ll be busy getting married!
“That was our backup plan, actually, to go to the Steeplechase if the wedding didn’t work out,” said Conto. “We’re eloping, so it’s kind of a last minute thing. If the wedding wasn’t going to happen, we were going to go to the Steeplechase!”
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