Penelope Miller and Applause

Team #85

Penny and Applause with trainer Corey DeMala

Born Penelope Hoover on July 10, 1931, in St. Louis, Missouri, Penny got her first horse when she was seven. With Sinbad, she would grab his tail and climb his hocks to mount, or she would swing a leg over his lowered neck, which he would then raise to let her slide onto his back. Later, as a teen she showed hunter/jumper on her second horse, Passport.

Then there was a long non-horsey period when Penny went to college and, immediately after graduation went to Europe. In France she met her husband, had two daughters, and the family lived in Italy. Penny took up riding again and loved the pleasure of riding through the Italian countryside.

After her husband’s death, she returned to the United States, settling in New York City where she started a catering business and a small bed and breakfast in her upper west-side town house near the Museum of Natural History.  

Through friends in the Hudson Valley, she began riding with the Windy Hollow Hunt on her horse, Apple, whom she got in Goshen, New York, when she moved there.

But when she turned seventy-five, she decided the hunt was just too risky and gave it up. Apple became a therapy horse for disabled children.

While she thought her riding days were over, Penny heard her good friend talk about how much she was looking forward to joining the Century Club in three years when her Morgan, Applause, would be 28 and she, 72. Well, thought Penny, Applause may be only 25, but I’m 79, so we could do a Century ride right now!

So, even though she had always ridden hunt seat and disliked riding in an arena, Penny embraced the challenge and trained with Corey DeMala at Amity Equestrian Enterprises in nearby Warwick, New York, where Applause is kept. Their Century ride, a Training Level test, was ridden in June 2011 at the Windy Hollow Hunt Show in Sussex New Jersey.

While she and Applause go on occasional trail rides with old friends from the Hunt, she now loves dressage and riding an arena. Dressage provides her with a safe and healthful way for her to continue her life with horses. Penny notes that dressage has improved her breathing, her posture and her coordination, so she plans to continue doing it for the rest of her life.