Anna Bjoraker might be one of the most passionate equestrians you could ever encounter. Born and raised in Traverse City, Bjoraker now is a horse riding instructor near Suttons Bay.
Since childhood, Bjoraker has had a deep love of horses and competition. She pinpointed watching horse races with her grandfather as a child and visiting the Kentucky Derby Park with him as the first big spark of her passion.
“I liked being on one of those motorized game horses, (at the race track), with my brother and thought it was so cool,” she said. “ I didn’t know then that I wouldn’t be a jockey but I knew I wanted to be on a horse in front of people.”
Neither of her parents grew up riding or around horses, with the exception of her grandfather on her mom’s side putting a Shetland pony in the back of his truck one day and bringing it home. Despite their lack of experience, Anna’s parents were unrelentingly supportive of her equestrian dreams from a young age.
Bjoraker describes her parents by saying, “anything I wanted to do horse wise they were all for! They were always accepting and were like, yeah if you want to do it and you’re going to show us that you can put in the time and effort into this then we’re one hundred percent supportive.”
She began learning to ride around the age of 5 with pony rides and horse camps and by the time she was 12, Bjoraker was competing in both English and Western events in local horse shows. Around that same time she also became involved with 4-H and her middle school equestrian team. Once in highschool, Anna actually ended up transferring schools just so that she could continue being on an equestrian team. In high-school her talent and commitment grew exponentially as she spent four to five hours at the barn six days a week. Anna skipped homecomings, and proms, and other school events in order to be competing in horse shows.
“If there was an option for me to be showing or an option for me to be at the barn, I was there. I lived and breathed horses, and showing, and did everything I could to be better,” Bjoraker said.
In 2013 Bjoraker got her beloved quarter horse, Maks. She describes Maks as her “ride or die” and a horse that will do absolutely anything for her. Anna and Maks have competed in a multitude of different events at shows but quarter horse specific events are where they have really shined.
Out of high school, Bjoraker attended Liberty University, earned a degree in crisis and trauma counseling, and is now working towards a master’s degree, through Liberty, in school counseling.
In order to keep her amateur status in the showing world she couldn’t be an official trainer, so Bjoraker has been unofficially giving riding lessons since high school to friends and family. That all changed this year when she started formally offering lessons. While Anna still loves riding she’s discovered that teaching and watching young riders discover their passion for horses is just as fulfilling if not more so.
“I love it! I could probably teach lessons all the time and never ride again, and I probably would not be complaining at all,” she said.
Her students not only benefit from her vast experience and knowledge but her kind understanding as well. She just wants people to be around horses, whether that means learning to ride or just enjoying grooming them and feeding them hay, as long as her students are enjoying the horse experience.
“I love it if one of the kids is just having fun, it makes my day and that’s what I’m looking for. Other places you see kids in classes with so much pressure and I don’t think horses should be about that.”
For now, Bjoraker mainly gives lessons out of Black Star Farms using her own horses but hopes to move to a farm of her own in the near future. No experience is needed to start and whatever equestrian goals you have in mind, Anna Bjoraker is the trainer to get you there.
