Elisa Wallace might not have left Road to the Horse with the World Champion of Colt Starting title, but she absolutely left with a lot to be proud of.
Elisa’s well-versed in working with all types of horses — many fans will be familiar with her production of Mustangs, both for eventing and general purpose riding. She’s won competitions like the Extreme Mustang Makeover and the Mustang Classic, and frequently travels the country to do demonstrations with her team of former wild horses.
But Road to the Horse is an entirely different competition.
If you’re not super familiar with Road to the Horse, the format is its own beast. Competitors choose an unstarted horse from the remuda (a selection of horses bred by Pitchfork Ranch in Texas), then have three days with 90 minutes each day in a round pen to build a partnership from the ground up in front of a crowd and a panel of judges, including eventing Olympian David O’Connor. They’re scored throughout on everything from groundwork and saddling to riding, obstacle work, communication, and overall horsemanship. It’s not just about getting the job done, it’s about how you get there.
Working with Tuff Twister, the 3-year-old unstarted Quarter Horse filly she dubbed “Windy,” Elisa finished Reserve Champion at the 2026 edition of the competition after a week that felt equal parts intense, emotional, and, at times, a little bit meant to be. She also took home the AQHA Fan Favorite Colt Award, which will surprise absolutely no one who watched the pair come together over the course of the weekend.
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From the start, Elisa knew exactly who she wanted to work with.
“I really wanted my pick,” she told me afterward. “I had picked Windy from the beginning when we sat down and went through all the videos…she was the biggest mover. I guess if you’re going to have a type…!”
Once the remuda was in front of her in person, that feeling only got stronger. “My eye was always drawn to her, like every time,” Elisa said. “There was a weird ‘meant to be’ feeling for me.”
That connection ended up becoming one of the biggest storylines of her week.
While Elisa and Windy looked increasingly in sync as the competition went on, it wasn’t as though the week was one smooth uphill climb. Elisa said she came away from the first round feeling like she might have gotten dinged by the judges for moving “too quickly”.
“The rumor on the block was that first round I was going too fast, because I got on her, bareback, fast,” she said. “But that’s just kind of a little bit of me. That’s how I build my relationship. I get a feel for them.”
With Windy, that feel mattered. “You couldn’t stay with one thing for too long because she would get over it, she would get bored, and then she’d get upset,” Elisa said. “So I had to keep changing things around.”
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That read on the mare — smart, sensitive, opinionated, and definitely not interested in drilling for drilling’s sake — seemed to shape the rest of Elisa’s week. Rather than trying to force a formula, she adjusted to the horse she had. She’d spent time studying up, watching previous years’ competitions and even going to visit Tik Maynard’s 2024 winner and 2025 winner, who is now owned by Chelsea Canedy.
By the time the obstacle work came around, Windy looked like she was very much in on the plan. “She was the happiest when the obstacles got to come in,” Elisa said. “Once she started to understand what I asked her, she literally enjoyed herself and had fun. She really was eating it up.”
That’s where Elisa looked especially strong, too. Even in a format as pressure-cooked as this one, Windy’s final-day obstacle work helped solidify Elisa’s Reserve Champion finish (and made this writer cry ugly tears), with the pair ultimately ending the week on a cumulative score of 1016. Nick Dowers won the championship on a 1099.
And really, what stood out most about Elisa’s week wasn’t just the placing. It was the way she talked about the horse.
“I’m the most proud of how I was able to do it,” she said. “She came out, she was a relaxed, happy horse, and she was willing, and I didn’t have to put a ton of pressure on her to do some tough obstacles.”
That, in a competition like this, feels like it matters. And it’s what, reading the comments on social media, it seems attracted the general public to Elisa’s corner — even if they knew nothing about her before, or even doubted her after day one.
Especially because Elisa wasn’t exactly coming in on a perfect prep run. She shared that she’s still been dealing with the effects of a fall last November that left her with broken ribs, and that she’d also had an MRI on her knee just before the competition. Oh and also, she’s prepping to ride Lissavorra Quality in the CCI4*-S at Kentucky next month, so, you know, it’s fine. So, to come into a physically demanding format like this -— one that asks a lot of competitors in a very short period of time -— and still turn in the kind of performance she did makes the result feel all the more impressive.
Windy had presence from the start. Elisa knew it. The fans definitely knew it. And by the end of the week, Reserve Champion felt like a pretty fitting reward for a partnership that looked genuine from the word go.
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“I’m the most proud of how I was able to do it, and how my horse was through the entirety of it, and how I finished,” Elisa said. “She came out, she was a relaxed, happy horse, and she was willing, and I didn’t have to put a ton of pressure on her to do some tough obstacles, and to me, that was my pat on the back to myself.”
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As icing on the cake, Elisa had the opportunity to bring Windy home to her Ocala, FL base (not an automatic opportunity for every horse!). “My first thought as we were finishing was, ‘I’m going to miss her! I’m going to miss training her and working with her.'” Luckily, she was able to bring the mare home with her, reporting on social media that she loaded and hauled like a champion, settling in easily at her new home.
Elisa says she’d happily go back to compete at Road to the Horse again if she’s invited, and in the meantime she says she might try out “Extreme Cowboy Racing” which she describes as “a western jump-off with obstacles”. I had to YouTube it myself, so here’s a look at what it entails:
