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Emily Elek is one of the most respected and prolific figures in American pony hunter sport — a trainer, breeder, and program builder whose Stonewall Ponies in Ixonia, Wisconsin has become one of the largest and most recognized pony operations in the country. 

While attending the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where she majored in zoology, she helped establish the school's equestrian team and competed in the open equitation divisions and the Cacchione Cup. That combination of academic rigor and hands-on equestrian leadership was a preview of the career she would build. While Elek was still in school, her mother purchased 38 acres that would become Stonewall Farm in Ixonia, Wisconsin — and what began as family land became the foundation of one of the Midwest's most significant equestrian programs. 

Today, Elek operates one of the largest pony leasing, sales, breeding and training operations in the country, taking a holistic view in developing ponies and riders for lifelong success. Her breeding program has produced generations of competitive hunter ponies, and her leasing model has long been recognized as one of the most thoughtful and accessible in the sport. Her stated goal — to produce top quality ponies while allowing kids to have the same opportunities she had — is evident in the reach and structure of Stonewall's program, which sends ponies to riders across the country and annually fields one of the largest strings at USEF Pony Finals. At Pony Finals, the Stonewall show team competes on average about 20 ponies in barn and has leased or sold annually up to 100 other competing ponies. 

Beyond the ring, Elek has emerged as a genuine voice in the governance and structure of pony sport. She has written and spoken publicly about the format and future of USEF Pony Finals, advocating for changes that prioritize partnership between pony and child rider — a perspective shaped by decades of watching young riders develop through the division she has dedicated her career to. As a horsewoman, she has said she is most proud of her older ponies that are still out there teaching kids how to ride — proof, in her view, of a strong foundation and good care when a horse or pony is happily working in their late teens and twenties. 

Emily Elek is, in every meaningful sense, one of the great stewards of the pony world — a professional whose program has launched countless junior careers and whose commitment to accessibility and quality in equal measure has made Stonewall Ponies a name that resonates from the Midwest circuit to the championship rings of Kentucky.

Lily Bisson is a Maryland-based equestrian, horse farm owner, and nonprofit founder whose response to one of life's most difficult diagnoses became a gift to an entire community. An avid foxhunter with clubs in Maryland and an amateur eventer at local venues, Lily owns a horse farm in Clarksburg, Maryland — a life built entirely around horses and the tight-knit community that surrounds them. She was diagnosed at 40 with breast cancer during her first routine mammogram, a moment that would change the trajectory of her life in ways she could not have anticipated.

When she joined a few online support groups for women with breast cancer, most didn't quite fit. "It was the women in my local horse community who truly understood," she said. That realization planted a seed. During her recovery from a double mastectomy, while she couldn't ride, Bisson launched Gallop For Life, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization — channeling the energy she could not put into the saddle into something that would reach far beyond her own barn.

Gallop For Life is a grassroots organization that sends equestrian-themed gift baskets to newly diagnosed women across the country, each basket handmade by Meredith Ingram, one of the group's survivors. While the supp