Episode #502
502. Plaidcast in Person from Spy Coast Farm- Dr. Michele Frazer, DVM, Berry Porter, & Eleanor Rudnicki
Send us Fan Mail Dr. Michele Frazer, DVM, is a board-certified equine veterinarian at Hagyard Equine Medical Institute in Lexington, Kentucky — one of the world's oldest and most respected equine veterinary practices — where she holds dual diplomate status in two of the most demanding specialties in veterinary medicine. A diplomate of both the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine and the American College of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care, Dr. Frazer represents the kind of deep, specialized expertise that the most complex equine cases demand. Her passion for horses and the equine industry was always present, but her specific desire to become an equine veterinarian crystallized in a memorable moment: watching Seattle Slew win the Triple Crown. From that spark, she built a career at the highest levels of equine medicine. Her professional interests center on neonatal medicine and the treatment and research of Lawsonia intracellularis, a bacterial pathogen that causes significant disease in young horses and remains an active area of veterinary research. Dr. Frazer describes her first week at Hagyard as her favorite memory of her veterinary career — a dream come true because of the people, the horses, and the extraordinary location in the heart of the Thoroughbred world. Outside of work, she is an enthusiastic supporter of the arts and shares her life with an impressive menagerie that includes horses, llamas, dogs, cats, saltwater fish, rabbits, and lizards. Berry Porter is one of the most respected and inspiring professionals in American hunter-jumper sport — a trainer, judge, volunteer leader, and community builder whose career is as much a story about what is possible in this sport as it is about what he has accomplished within it. Porter's introduction to the hunter-jumper world came through a pony ride as a young child in the Houston area — a single moment that set the course of his life. At 22, he attended his first hunter-jumper competition at the Great Southwest Equestrian Center in Katy, Texas, arriving without a groom — cleaning all the stalls himself, arriving at 3 or 4 am to do chores before stepping into his role as professional rider and trainer. That combination of humility and relentless work ethic has defined everything he has built since. Berry Porter is the head trainer at Brookside Pine Farms in Conroe, Texas, where he has developed many riders from the beginner level, progressing to compete in the collegiate ranks and succeed at the top levels of equestrian competition. He once watched Frank Madden, Stacia Klein Madden, Andre Dignelli, and Missy Clark on television and thought they were rock stars — and now has those same professionals on speed dial while his students go toe-to-toe with theirs at championship shows. His competitive accomplishments are substantial. At the 2025 Platinum Performance/USEF Show Jumping Talent Search Final — East, Porter took Leading Trainer honors after coaching riders Eleanor Rudnicki and Emily Jurnovoy to the top two finishes. His contributions to the governance of the sport are equally significant. Porter voluntarily serves on the USHJA Hunter Working Group and the Joint Equitation Task Force, and in December 2025 was awarded the USHJA President's Distinguished Service Award at the USHJA Evening of Equestrians — an honor bestowed upon members who have gone beyond the call of duty to bring the sport to a new level. In May 2026, he was named a recipient of the Ethos Award presented by Ethos Award Equestrian, Inc., which celebrates and elevates the contributions of Black and Brown equestrians who are creating meaningful change and inspiring a more inclusive future in the sport. Porter was among the initial members of the USHJA Diversity Task Force, formed in 2020, and has consistently approached conversations about race and access in equestrian sport with the levelheadedness, generosity, and fundamental optimism that characterize everything he does. Berry Porter is, in every sense, a professional whose presence in this sport makes it measurably better. Eleanor Rudnicki is one of the most compelling success stories in American hunter-jumper sport — a young professional from Conroe, Texas whose journey from a small local barn and a cart-bred pony to the winner's circle of the nation's most prestigious equitation finals is the kind of story the sport tells about itself at its best, and one she actually lived. Her start in the sport was far from glamorous. Growing up in Texas, she began at a small local barn with a pony originally bred to pull a cart — and that same pony, through hard work and persistence, carried her all the way to Pony Finals. The barn where she learned to ride focused primarily on jumpers, but Eleanor was drawn early and irrevocably to the hunters and equitation. She moved to Berry Porter's Brookside Pine Farm in Conroe, Texas at age twelve, and that partnership would prove to be the foundation of everything that followed. What distinguished Eleanor throughout her junior career was not just talent but an extraordinary ability to catch ride — to get on a horse she had barely met and produce a performance that looked like years of partnership. Many of the horses she rode were new to either the equitation or hunter ring, and she fell in love early with the experience of feeling their progression and growth. That versatility produced results across the country at the highest levels of junior competition. In 2019, she won the THIS National Children's Medal Final, and that same year emerged victorious in the Hamel Foundation National Horse Show 3'3" Equitation Championship — impressively, during her first year competing in the equitation ranks and her first indoors season, on a horse she had ridden for the first time only one week prior. She went on to win the ASPCA Maclay at the Kentucky Summer Horse Show and captured the Overall Grand Championship in the 3'6" Junior Hunter National Championship — West in 2023, earning scores of 90 across all three phases on a catch ride. The crowning achievement of her junior career came at the 2025 Platinum Performance/USEF Show Jumping Talent Search Finals — East, where she and Qwantreau, a 2016 Belgian Warmblood gelding, were crowned champions after navigating a technical 1.15m course featuring bending lines, unrelated distances, and an open water jump. The win made her the top finisher in one of the most coveted equitation-to-jumper transition competitions in the country and confirmed what the industry had known for years — that Eleanor Rudnicki was ready for whatever came next. Now competing as a professional, she manages horses, clients, and staff while transitioning into the open jumper ranks, with her sights set on five-star shows and ultimately the U.S. Equestrian Team. The cart pony from Texas has taken her a very long way, and she is just getting started. theplaidhorse.com Thank you so much for joining us today on the Plaidcast. This podcast is a labor of love, and every single episode exists because of this incredible community of riders, trainers, barn managers, parents, and horse lovers who show up in the barn, in the ring, and right here with us. At The Plaid Horse , our commitment goes far beyond the show ring. We believe deeply in the power of literacy and education and that every rider, at every level, deserves access to knowledge, stories, and ideas that make them a better horseperson and a better human being. Reading matters. Learning matters. And the stories we tell each other in this sport matter more than we sometimes realize. Whether you are a junior rider picking up your first copy of The Plaid Horse Magazine, a professional trainer looking for inspiration, or someone who simply loves horses and everything this world stands for then this community is for you. You belong here. We build this together. Every article, every episode, every conversation is an opportunity to learn something new, to feel less alone in the challenges of this sport, and to be reminded of why we fell in love with horses in the first place. Until next time, keep reading, keep learning, keep riding, and remember that the horse world is better when we build it together. I will see you at the ring!
