Not Horsin' Around

It’s a parental expectation that when a child shows interest in something, they should indulge that topic for the child’s development. Only a fraction of kids who choose a sport end up doing it professionally, a box of legos does not create an engineer, and it’s a safe bet that buying a goldfish at the pet store will not result in a career in marine biology. For parents  Ernie and Sharlie Hansen, indulging their daughter Lexi’s interest in horses went from a charming (and expensive) hobby to a blossoming business that has taken Lexi all over the country. “My mom was into horses when she was younger,” Lexi explained, “and she got me started on that. Little did my parents know that this would become such a big adventure, they thought that I was going to lose interest.”

Needless to say, Lexi did not lose interest in horses. 

While some young adults leave 4-H when they graduate high school, many take the experience and create a career from the experience. After graduating from Maple River in 2019, Lexi Hansen kept her eye on the prize and attended University of Wisconsin River Falls, where she got a degree in animal science with an emphasis on equine management. After graduating, she headed off to Texas for even more learning opportunities. “I've paid my dues. I've worked for the horse trainers cleaning stalls, feeding, caring for the horses and doing all the stuff that no one really wants to do, but it's kind of one of those stepping stones to get better. You just have to pay your dues. I put myself in every position in the industry to grow.” 

Her experiences in college broadened her network, which allowed her to bring “my hands-on career to the next level. So I was riding horses, I was showing, I was doing everything with horses that you can imagine.” In 2023, a shattered foot threatened to derail her career and forced Hansen to return home, but rather than losing focus, Hansen took it to the next level with the support of her parents. Today, she owns nine horses, and while she is still busy showing her horses nationally, she’s expanded into a diverse, thriving equine career. “I came back here, and I absolutely love it. I have all the horse facilities. My parents are super supportive, and I get to run my business out of my home.”

During her early years in 4-H, Hansen not only discovered that she had quite a competitive streak but her experience also showed she had an eye for horses. “So I would go into the show ring ring with just the normal, average horse, and I'd be so frustrated because I wouldn't do that well, because they were not show horses.  Eventually I would look online and find a horse that I was absolutely in love with, and I had to tell my parents. I said, ‘we have to go get this one.’ One time they listened to me. So we went to Winona. We looked at a horse. We ended up buying that horse. That was my first show horse. That was the one who took me through my 4-H career and then also through my open show career.”

His name was Mikey, and as a team, Hansen learned that she not only had the skill for showing and picking horses, but that she also had a knack for training horses as well. Driven by a competitive fire and a few years of experience, Hansen continued to expand her interests. “And then one day, I went to a sale in Cannon Falls, and I fell in love with this horse. His name's Slammer. His registered name is Sierra Slammer. I've owned him for nine and a half years, and I've been showing him all that time. He earned me my first buckle, my first world championship. He basically put my name on the map, and I owe everything to him. Slammer was the first horse I got on that had never been ridden before. I started him, and then I started getting the itch for something more to work on. I love having a horse to work on. I bought a two year old and I started that one, showed him, then sold him. I think I showed him in the 4-H, open shows, and breed shows.”

From the relative obscurity of the Blue Earth County Fair to APHA and AQHA World Shows, Hansen took a screenplay page from Rocky Balboa’s rise to fame as she went from just an anonymous kid to one of the top competitors in the nation. With Sierra Slammer, she won three buckles in one show, and at the time of interview, had 13 reserve world and world championships. Always with her eye on the prize, Hansen doubled-down again and next invested in other horses. Sure enough, more acclaim and hardware followed. “I actually won a saddle recently on my two year old gelding, Malone. Each of my horses has their own place in the show pen. My stallion, for example, he's a bronze world champion. With my all around horse, Mani, I don't want to sound pretentious, but he's got at least 10 world and reserve World Championships.” 

As Rocky Balboa illustrated in the movies, winning doesn’t always mean a person can live happily ever after on prize money. Despite her massive success showing horses, it was only a stepping stone for Hansen. “So ideally, we would love to make an abundance of money but that doesn't really happen the way we always want. (We don't talk about that, though). However, there are several opportunities at horse shows to win cash prizes, jackpot money, scholarships, coupons, and awards. What I do a lot of–it's called a futurity. A futurity consists of young horses, yearlings, two year olds, three year olds, that you show to win money. The purpose of the futurity is to demonstrate the hopeful successful future of those horses as they learn more events. I'm showing them in the western pleasure class, or the hunter under saddle class, which is an English discipline. Those classes can offer very large payouts. You pay a certain amount, a percentage, to get in, then you show, and you hope to win that money back. It depends on where you go. The larger the show, the more payback you're going to have. So that's an additional incentive to show horses.”

Earning trophies, jackets, and saddles certainly helped Hansen make a name for herself, and as she worked on the academic side of horses during her college years, she accumulated a thick resume to once again take her career to the next level. While everything is bigger in Texas, the accident that brought her back to Minnesota actually allowed her career to blossom in other directions: breeding horses. “I recently got into the breeding industry. I've always wanted to create my future show horses. However, breeding isn't an easy avenue to take. They're more valuable than a lot of animals, and if something goes wrong, it's really heartbreaking because they're not just a stock animal, they're pets. A couple years ago, I picked out the sire, the stallion, for one of my horses. My mare, Cookie, had a baby, and it was everything I could dream of. And ever since then, I breed my two broodmares every year. They'll foal in January, February, March, April, somewhere in there. And then my goal is to take that baby that I bred, train it, show it, and sell it. It is a cool thing to put my name on the papers as not only as the breeder, but as the showman or the seller. They announce the breeder at the horse shows. It's just one of those things where it's my product, and I get to show off the quality of my horses and what I chose to breed for. So the breeding is, it's one of those things where it's kind of fickle. I'm really lucky to have mares that get pregnant right away. Some of them, it takes a long time, and that becomes a really costly thing.”

With a good 4-H horse going for $10-20,000, simply owning a horse is a serious investment, as Hansen explained. To get someone to train a horse for you, expect to pay upwards of $2,000 a month with an expectation that it’ll take a few years of training before taking the horse to serious shows. All this time and good fortune results in a hefty prize tag, as Hansen added, “A finished horse that has not only shown but succeeded, can be anywhere from $10,000 but they go up to half a million, a million dollars. And it's absolutely crazy to me, but I do know a couple horses that have sold for a million and it's insane that these horses can cost so much. I have never been in the million dollar range, but I've been really lucky to put limited financials in my horses and get a lot back.”

Her eye for horses, and her success in training those horses, has made her efforts a commodity of sorts. “I've sold a couple that have really gone on to be spectacular horses. I'm that person that starts them. I'll bring the horse to the first horse show and deal with all their nerves and baby behavior. But then I'll either keep them and show them myself to be a champion, or they'll go on to become a champion with someone else. I'm very thankful for what I have bought. I am kind of a bargain buyer. I will find a diamond in the rough, and it'll turn into a show horse, which is what I've done with a lot of mine.”

Just as Hansen has had personal success, the success of her horses is also in demand now. One facet of her business is selling horse semen from one of her “diamond” stallions that caught her eye. “He bred a couple outside horses this past breeding season, and coming up for ‘26, we're actually talking about shipping semen to Canada. He'll be available in the US and Canada, which is so cool, because he's desired. So again, it's one of those things where I developed him, I showed him, and now I get to create future show horses by him.” 

In past decades, high school graduates often left home for the workplace or college and never came back except for holidays and special occasions. In recent years, Millennials and Gen-Z graduates struggle to find that niche in life (or never leave the basement at all), but for Hansen, returning home from Texas allowed her to not only branch out into new areas but also provided her with the support to get her businesses thriving. “I don't have to pay rent here, which is really nice. But as far as sustaining myself, I sell horses. So when I get them to the point where they're marketable or marketable enough, I'll sell them, and that'll cover me for a while.”

Her family often helps out when she is away, which Hansen admits caused her a little anxiety at first since she is so particular.  “My dad's not a horse guy. My mom is. She did the local 4H and open shows when she was younger. But I have brought it to a whole new level, just because I'm competitive and I never settle. If something's great–like I had some great horses–i say they can always get better. So that's always my goal every day: I say 1% better per day, in 100 days, you'll be 100% better. That's kind of my philosophy as far as training horses.” While her home near Good Thunder provides the home field advantage for training and breeding, she still travels to national horse shows with her mother Sharlie at her side.  “We'll go to a horse show. It takes us about an hour to unpack, get everything set up. We have almost perfected our system. She always goes with me. Everything is so particular, and we have this routine. After that, we park the trailer that has a living quarters. We'll hook up the trailer to the electrical, get some air conditioning, heat, whatever the case may be, and then I will go start working the horses. I'll start exercising. I'll start riding them, I'll start lunging them, which is exercising them in a circle.” 

While the two Hansens go through the routines of a show, Lexi fills her daily schedule, but ever-the-business woman, she’d rather keep working than catch a few hours of sleep. “Tthen comes the banding manes or braiding manes. I have to do that. And a lot of times, I'm hired to do those. The nights before the horse show start are very, very long for me, and then the mornings are very, very early. A typical first day at the horse show is unpacking, getting the horses prepared, banding them and braiding them for the next day. And it doesn't sound like a lot, but it is it. I mean, I usually am lucky if I get to bed by 1 AM. It's a long day. I love it, but it's a long day. I hopefully get dinner, and then I get to start all over the next day.” 

While it doesn’t seem like she’d ever have time to dream, Hansen nevertheless sees another facet of her career opening up to her in the years to come. When she turns 25 (next summer), she’ll be able to begin working on getting her judging cards in order to be considered a professional. Already, she volunteered her time at the Minnesota State 4-H show, where she worked 12 hour days taking scores, double-checking numbers, and organizing everything for the classes. “I'll do whatever it takes to get there. And people see that, and they recognize that, and I've just really been so lucky and fortunate for the opportunities.” Hansen admits that in an industry dominated by folks decades older than her, she is a bit of a rarity, but she’s also not taking anything for granted or skipping any steps along the way. “I've just worked my butt off. I really have, and I just have so much passion.”

Her passion has taken her from a precocious 4-H youngster to a thriving businesswoman, but she remembers a time when she kept her passion hidden away lest she become one of those “crazy horse girls” stigmatized by teen peers. “It was always funny, because in high school, I've never really talked about it, so I just kept it to my horse people. In college, you find your people, and it becomes a very respected thing. I got to work with several professors and help them with many horse related things because I have a lot of knowledge. Now, just being out in the real world, I have so many of my classmates that really respect what I do, and it's been eye opening to see how many people support me through comments on my Facebook. I have so many supporters that I don't even know, but it's like this community has really brought me up, and I've had so much support. And it's no longer like a crazy horse girl thing. This is my profession. I take it seriously. Image is everything. These horses are absolutely my life. So it's become a very respected profession rather than a hobby.”

All photos submitted by Lexi: