Katie Krell
news@greenepublishing.com
"Never underestimate a girl's love for her horse." This quote describes Madison local, Taylor Killingsworth. Not only does Killingsworth love horses, she also enjoys sharing her love of horses.
Killingsworth is a Madison County resident who has a passion for teaching young kids how to ride and race horses. She has always loved horses and has been riding since she was a young girl. She started trail riding with her mom at a young age and then advanced to barrel racing in third grade. She originally learned how to race from Ashley and Kathy Norwood, but has had many other trainers. "I believe you can never know everything and should always strive to learn more. I always say once you think you know it all, you stop learning. So I keep my mind open all the time. I will take things from other trainers, tweak it a little bit and make it my own style of training." She currently has two horses: a retired barrel horse named Kuna and her current racing horse, Reign, that she trained.
Killingsworth started teaching kids four years ago, saying, "It has always been a dream of mine to teach kids how to handle horses." Her main focus in her lessons is to teach her students the basics of horsemanship and how to communicate with the horse. This establishes a good foundation for the kids to build on. Killingsworth commented, "To be able to communicate with the horse is the main goal. The student's relationship with the horse is very important."
Killingsworth teaches all of her students solo and uses her own horses. The kids learn different things based on both their skill level and how long they've worked with horses. Each lesson is about an hour, but some students go for more than one lesson each week. The amount of students she teaches varies, but she currently has four kids coming for lessons one to two times each week.
Killingsworth was recently accepted into the Physical Therapist Assistant Program at Florida Gateway College, which she will be attending in the fall. She will move to Monticello, for school, but plans to keep teaching her current students and perhaps add more.
Killingsworth is the daughter of Ben Killingsworth and Christy Mansouri. She graduated from Madison County High School in 2015 and is getting married to Hunter Handley on Saturday, Dec. 5, 2020.