A Conversation With...Laura Connaway
By Lisa Boradwater

By the time Little Rock native Laura Connaway was 6 years old, she was jumping horses. By the time she was 25, she had established her own farm insurance company, Connaway & Associates. Today, at 38, she's one of the top amateur Grand Prix show jumpers in the country and owns one of the top three farm insurance companies.
When editor Lisa Broadwater caught up with Connaway at her Little Rock-based farm, she had just returned from competing in the Harvest Time Grand Prix in Germantown, Tenn., where her youngest horse placed third. Next, she heads to Wellington, Fla., in late January— to the biggest show jumping competition in the country.

Horsemen's Roundup: When did you start riding?
Laura Connaway: When I was 5.

HR: What got you into it?
LC: My mother [Annette Connaway, who has worked with Laura for the past six years]. She had ridden dressage and had done show jumping a lot growing up in Denmark.

HR: Was dressage even here at that point?
LC: No; my sister and I got our early training when we went to Europe in the summers. When I was 5 and my sister was 9, we got our first horse. He was a 2-year-old that had been injured. He ended up being a real nice horse. We taught him to jump; we taught him to do everything.

HR: How old were you when you started jumping?
LC: Six or seven. My father called me "glue monkey" because I wanted to get to the other side of the jumps so bad, and nothing was going to stop me.

HR: What kind of training have you had?
LC: Being in Arkansas, we didn't have a huge variety to train under. We were really lucky when we started because there were some people stationed at the Little Rock Air Force Base from California who were excellent horsemen. A woman taught lessons, and she gave tremendous basics. That's where we learned to jump. She taught great positions — you know, form leads to function, and if you had the proper form, the function could follow. And it did.
She also taught fierceness, which you have to have as a jumper. And she did things that I don't think anyone in not just Arkansas but in this part of the country would think of doing.
She'd blindfold you, put you through this jumping chute and tie your hands behind your back, and you'd have no stirrups. So you'd learn the feel of the horse, and you weren't relying on your eyes or your hands or anything like that. It was set up so you wouldn't get hurt, of course. But she taught things that were very foreign in this area.

HR: Does it take a certain personality to jump?
LC: At a high level, it probably does. I think you have to be a good trainer of the horses and of yourself, in that you don't look back. It's a very forward-thinking thing. You're always thinking about the next jump. You jump into a combination thinking, "Let's get this one, then this one," and you never have any doubts. It's a firm commitment.
And if you have a bad experience in a class or have a fall, you have to just let it go. You have to be able to get right back on and do it again — for the horse as much as the rider. Because the horses can get rattled.
And when you're teaching young horses, which is what I do a lot, you're jumping them over things they've NEVER jumped, and they have to trust in you. You have to teach them that they can do it, and teach them HOW to do it. And teach them that whatever you point them at, there's a safe way, and a good way, to get to the other side. So that even if they're in an arena and they see this sea of poles, they trust that if they jump, there's going to be a place for them to put their feet, an appropriate step to take, depending on what you ask them to do.

HR: And they're counting on you to tell them what they need to do?
LC: Exactly. Because a horse can't see the last three strides before a jump. So it's up to you to get them to the takeoff place with the right balance, the right impulsion — not only in this one spot but there's a box you need to be in and you need to know if you want to be in the front side of the box or the back side of the box, plus how much impulsion. And that all depends on the horse you're riding.

HR: When did you start competing?
LC: When I was 7.

HR: What all have you done?
LC: I'm competitive through the Grand Prix level at the national level but not at the international level, which is my goal.

HR: You grew up at the farm next door. Have you stayed in Little Rock the whole time?
LC: Yeah. And I'm really surprised at that because I never thought I would live in Arkansas. I don't know where I thought I'd live, but I thought I'd grow up and move away. I guess I just haven't grown up.

HR: What made you want to do start the insurance company?
LC: I didn't want to ride professionally for other people because I get so attached to the horses. And a lot of the owners won't allow you to bring the up horses the way I want to bring them along.

HR: And how is that?
LC: Treating them more as an individual, and really tailoring each horse's show schedule and each horse's training based on what they need. Then if they need a little extra time, they can have it. And if they're really going great guns, you might go a little bit faster.
I think being a horse person, you can make a grave mistake either way. If you push your horses too fast, you completely ruin them. Or you can hold them back and make is so boring for them that you completely ruin them. Then there are times when you think everything is going great and the horse is obedient and doing everything, but it doesn't feel quite right. As the person responsible for their training, I really look at that.

HR: So you train all your own?
LC: Oh, yeah.

HR: When did you start that?
LC: Well, the first horse we got was 2 years old, and we ended up training him.

HR: What gave you the confidence to do that?
LC: I guess my mother. She knew we could do it, and somebody needed to train the horses. To afford a really nice Grand Prix horse is completely out of most people's price range. We've always bought them as 2-year-olds — and you build your own.

HR: So you're self-taught?
LC: Mostly. At shows, I get tidbits from different people.

HR: What makes you a good trainer?
LC: I like the horses, and I think about them. I really do consider what they need to work on. And I do the hard things with them. I work on what they're not as good at, and that's hard to do.

HR: Okay, so back to the insurance business.
LC: I had always owned horses, and at all the horse shows I'd gone to and all the people I knew who owned horses, no one knew their insurance agent. And I thought it would be really good to have somebody that you would see if you had a problem and you knew that they would help you. They would have more of a commitment to helping you.

HR: How'd you get started?
LC: I started as an agent for another agency. The agent I was working for just didn't have the idea to service my customers as well as I wanted. She wasn't always very pleasant; she could be snippy. I was always apologizing to my clients for something she had said that was not very considerate. Finally, I decided that if I was going to run it the way I wanted to, I was going to have to start my own agency.

HR: By then you had figured out what it would take?
LC: I had a small idea what it would take.

HR: Were you scared?
LC: Not at the time, but looking back, it seems like a big step. But you grow so slowly that you get into it in a slow way. It's not like I started with 1,500 customers. I'd get one new customer at a time. Growing your own business is always extremely slow, so I worked another job to help support that for probably five years.

HR: Who's your typical client?
LC: A commercial horse farm — somebody who has a boarding and training operation. We specialize mainly in dressage and show jumping. We're not as competitive in the small farm market because our dwelling rates are higher.

HR: If more people understood liability, they would have insurance?
LC: Yes. Even if you're riding your own horse, you can injure someone else. For example, last year, I was warming up one of my horses for a class, it bucked, kicked out and broke someone's arm. So you just never know. And you want to make sure that as an owner of horses, you take responsibility for what the horse might do and the damage it might cause.

HR: How much time do you spend competing?
LC: I don't compete on the same schedule that a lot of other barns do. It's typical in the United States to spend maybe 30 weeks out of the year. And the horses actually stay on the road for maybe three weeks at a time, then come home for a week and go again for three weeks. It's pretty grueling.
I chose to do more at home, and go to the shows to test the horses and see how they are — and hopefully go to win — and then come home. I usually won't stay on the road more than two weeks. My horses probably show in 18 shows a year.

HR: What are you doing to make the leap to international competition?
LC: I purchased better young horses — which was a very big step for me. I found two in Europe and one in Omaha.

HR: What do you look for?
LC: Their jumping technique and the way they're made. I bought mares, so you look at the bloodlines. You're hoping you're going to have the same type of horse from those bloodlines — and it may work; it may not work. But at least you're starting with a good basis. And if you're going to buy a really young, unproven horse, you want to have everything in order: the best bloodlines, the best body shape, the best movement and the best technique over jumping. So to get to my next level, I've really stepped up my horse power.

HR: How far away are they from competing?
LC: They're competing now at the national level. They're not old enough to even consider competing internationally, but I would think that when they're trained sufficiently and they're of the age where they're allowed, they'll be able to do that.

HR: How far are you from that?
LC: I think two years. It's really a burning desire I have.

HR: Have you always had it?
LC: Yeah. I've always wanted to get to the very top, and I'm still trying.

HR: And you did it all on your own?
LC: I do bring in clinicians. Alex Gerding has been very, very helpful. I really trust what he says, and he has certainly helped my young horses. Because the young horses need so much work. And he's changed a little bit the way one is going, which has helped him tenfold.

HR: What's your biggest strength as a rider?
LC: Being able to train horses from the bottom level to the very top level — and not scaring them or ruining them. Having a good horse when you get to the top level.

HR: Do you have any desire to train for other people?
LC: No, I'd have to compromise the training of my own, and I wouldn't be able to run my business very well — because it's all I can do to do what I'm doing right now.

HR: Do you need both to feel complete?
LC: Yes, the business IS me. I built it from the ground up.

HR: What if you had to chose between the two?
LC: I couldn't; they're both so much a part of me.

HR: What's your favorite aspect of jumping?
LC: Mentally, you have to think so fast. The challenge is thinking fast and reacting fast enough to the different things that come up. Because every jump changes based on the last jump. So reacting fast enough — and having the horse have a good experience because that doesn't always happen. You do have horses who have tragic experiences. And it's the rider's responsibility to make sure you don't let that happen to your horse.
When I ride a horse in a really big class, especially if it's his first big class, it's up to me to make sure he doesn't come out an emotional wreck. That's the biggest challenge: giving the horse a good experience. Because it's hard on a horse, and they take it personally. If they perform poorly, they're worried. And if they perform really well, you can barely get them back to the barn because they're bucking and they're playing and they're sassy.

HR: What are your hopes for Wellington?
LC: To be in the top three.