Eli T. Photo
BridgeUP GiddyUP: Empowering Youth Through Horsemanship and Equestrian Education
Eli Thompson
By
Interviewee
McKrell Baier
and Students
March 29, 2025
Date
The front entrance of the Southern Blues Equestrian Center. Amongst the otherwise rustic decor, an LED sign of their logo illuminates the main hall.
Woody the wooden horse helps Christian Baier teach a lesson on running up the stirrups. Shown is the method used if the stirrups slide down.
One student is being taught on the lunge line. Practicing maintaining balance is paramount in horseback riding. This rider is taking it to the next level with no hands.
Each Saturday, the advanced group gets together with Mackrell Baier (Coach Mac) for a brief lesson to apply to their horsemanship. This week is course design in preparation for their upcoming event.
The rider levels in the program are framed on the wall by the arena. There are eight levels in total, each covering or expanding on different topics when it comes to horse care and horsemanship.
Students are watching the remaining lessons that are finishing up for the day. On Saturdays, they are split up into rotating groups based on skill level.
One of the favorite horses in the barn, Sinatra. He had a lesson with Zachary in the morning but still misses the attention.
Students are getting back on the bus after a long day at the barn. Before they go home, the coaches make sure to pass out lunches to all the students and the bus driver.
The rust-red barn doors are pulled open, despite the rain; the Southern Blues Equestrian Center is hard at work. Down the left hall, a group of five or more riding students are in a strength-training class. Straight ahead, two students are being toted around the arena by saintly mounts and under close supervision. Once passing the aisle of horses to the left, outside, there is a white tent that shields students from the rain while they learn basics with Woody the wooden horse.
These students all attend Havenview Middle School or Whitehaven High School, and are a part of the BridgeUP GiddyUP program in which they receive an education in horsemanship and horseback riding.
“They can come as early as sixth grade, and we’ll follow them all the way through high school graduation,” Coach McKrell Baier said, one of the head trainers of the BridgeUP GiddyUP program.
Tuesday through Saturday, students are picked up at school by a school bus to bring them to the farm. This program runs year-round for students, with different attendance rates depending on the students’ levels of riding. The only thing it costs is commitment to the sport.
“While there's no monetary cost to be involved in the program. It's a huge time commitment,” Baier said. “It's also time that our riders have to take away from other things that they might otherwise be doing.”
Aside from riding, students in BridgeUP GiddyUP must complete an online curriculum as well. There are eight levels in the curriculum to complete, all with courses on various topics of equestrianism.
“So, you start at level one, you start with practical skills like grooming the horse and horse anatomy,” Zachary said, one of the advanced students at BridgeUP GiddyUP. “The bronze level will be working the horse in hand, bandaging, horse evolution…”
Among Zachary, there are four other advanced students who have been with the program since its founding in 2021. Motivated by her love for horses, one advanced student, Elena, has completed the course to the gold level.
“It built up to what I should be looking forward to, and everything really is all connected,” she said. “It did make it a lot easier when I did get into working with the horse.”
BridgeUP GiddyUP was founded by the Helen Gurley Brown Foundation, an organization that strives to empower youth, women, and innovation. Horseback riding is an inherently expensive sport, with the average household income of members of the United States Equestrian Federation being $185,000.
The barn got its start from a Request for Proposal (RFP) put out by the HGB, called “Who Gets to be an Equestrian.” There was only one winner of the RFP.
“Christian, my husband, and I had already done about five years of work through the White Haven Community Center in summer programming… And we won out of the whole country,” Baier said.
Christian Baier was a student at the Swedish riding school and a member of the first university for riding instructors in Sweden. He has competed up to the Grand Prix showjumping level in Germany before meeting his wife at the Aachen School of Course Design. McKrell Baier hails from Memphis, growing up the traditional hunter way and later transitioning to jumpers as a teenager. Later on, she began her coaching journey in Wellington, FL, when she turned 18.
The pair moved to Collierville, after graduating from Aachen to begin Southern Blues Equestrian Center. Soon after, COVID struck the U.S., and they adjusted as needed.
“My husband developed the curriculum back during the pandemic because he was asked to do so for riding schools in China,” she said.
Combining his knowledge of the Swedish riding school with his and McKrell Baier’s life experiences, they crafted the curriculum their students use today.
“We don't have a national riding school in the same way as so many other smaller countries do or older countries,” McKrell Baier said.
The goal of BridgeUP GiddyUP is to provide an outlet for youth to broaden their horizons and search for career opportunities within the equine world, while also providing tactile information about riding and horse care.
“There's so many ways to be involved with horses that aren't just riding or being a paid professional,” she said.
From May 9 to 11, BridgeUP GiddyUP will be hosting a Level-Up event at their barn. They’ve invited Meadowthorpe Farm and Wonder Horse Academy to participate with them and have been using the recent cancellation of the ExEL show to prepare for their exhibition.
