Today we’d like to introduce you to Jasmine Beckstead.
Jasmine, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Some of my earliest memories are in the High Uintas of Utah: spongy mountain grass, cold spring water running over the rocks, the smell of pine and horses grazing a few feet away. My grandpa was an avid outdoorsman who took the family into the Uinta Mountains from the time we were little. Backpacking turned into packing with horses, and those mountains are where the farm gets its name. Our family still makes those trips several times a year.
As a kid I was insatiable for anything horse-related. I started riding lessons, got interested in the sport side, and then got hooked on dressage. Dressage is incredibly technical, and it gets to the heart of what it means to have a real partnership with a horse. There’s always something more to learn.
My dad has been breeding horses since the ’90s, so I grew up with foals on the ground every spring. We started with Arabians, and as my dressage journey continued we began breeding warmbloods with Titan, a warmblood stallion standing right here in Salem, Utah. I went on to earn regional championships and national awards with our homebred horses. We fell for those Arabian-warmblood crosses, the brains and heart of one with the movement and size of the other, and they’re still a big part of the herd, along with some purebreds of both. Thirty years later it is still a family farm and now my own kids are growing up with foals in the backyard, the same way I did,
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The biggest obstacle isn’t money or the market, though both are hard. It’s losing horses. With animals, loss is inevitable, and losing foals is the worst of it. You can do everything right and sometimes things still go wrong. I am responsible for bringing them into the world, so even when it isn’t my fault, it feels like it is. There is no part of breeding that prepares you for that, and it doesn’t get easier you just learn that it’s part of the price.
The slower struggle was burnout. For a few years my passion had turned into work and I stopped finding joy in it. I was spread too thin, chasing perfection, and worrying about money, and I quietly stepped away from competing and teaching. It is a strange thing to have no desire to do something you know you love. What brought me back was going back to the beginning: young horses and focusing on just the partnership.
What makes it worth it is the bond. I know these horses from the day they hit the ground. There is nothing like watching one leave for a new home and then hearing, a year later, that she has become somebody’s heart horse.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Uinta Sport Horses?
Uinta Sport Horses is a small family breeding farm in Salem, Utah. We breed Hanoverian, Rhineland, and Oldenburg horses, with a few Arabians and warmblood sport horse crosses as well. We breed to stallions we believe in. Ones with a performance record, a reputation for soundness and longevity, and a stellar temperament.
The goal is to produce the kind of horse we want to ride, and it takes the whole family. My dad, my sisters and I each bring a different ride to it: dressage, jumpers and the trail. Between us we know what a rider needs: a good brain, correct movement, sound conformation, and a temperament you can live with on a bad day. We breed the horse we’d want in our own barn, and then we hand it to someone who will love it the way we do. Our horses have gone on to dressage, hunter/jumper, eventing, and trail riding homes across the country.
The program has grown up with us. This fall Rhapsody US earned her Hanoverian brand as our first fourth-generation foal. Thirty years of breeding, standing in one filly. We were also honored to be one of the first recipients of the American Hanoverian Society’s Breeder of Excellence award.
If you’re looking we usually have weanlings, a two or three year old ready to start, and occasionally, something going under saddle.
Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
Growing up, the horses were my best friends. Every book I picked up by choice was a horse book, and I spent hours on the floor with my model horses. I was lucky enough to have the real ones out the back door too, and most summers there were foals in our backyard. I would just hang out with them. I brushed them, led them around, and sat on the ground with them while they napped with their heads in my lap. Not to mention countless hours exploring mountain trails and meadows on horseback. Horses gave me purpose, and they still do.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.uintasporthorses.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uintasporthorses
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/usasporthorsefarms
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasmine-beckstead-0aa357b9/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@redhotjaz
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@jasminebeckstead
