In our fun series, “10 Things You Probably Don’t Know About Me”, we are featuring Meredith Landy of Temecula, California. Landy has been competing on the APHA show circuit since 1971. She took a 19-year break while she went to college, law school, got married, and started practicing law.
When Landy made partner, she went out and bought a paint mare and has been showing APHA ever since. “I love the breed, I love the people and I love to show,” she says.
Under the guidance of Empyre Show Horses, Meredith has been showing Certified Stride (Sly), her 17-year-old, all-around gelding in the Masters All-Around classes.
“Sly is my long-time show horse. We’ve been showing together since 2012. Before Sly, I never showed a horse longer than two years, but now we are eight years down the road, and I still love to show him.”
Find out more about Meredith below.
10 Things You Might Not Know About Me
1. I am addicted to organic dark chocolate. I’m addicted to all chocolate, but if I buy the dark organic variety, I can rationalize it. My favorite candy bars are the Trader Joe’s Organic Dark Chocolate Truffle bars. If you haven’t tried them, you should.
2. I love Impressionist paintings. I saw Renoir’s Moulin de la Galette and Van Gogh’s Starry Night at the Tuilleries in Paris during my college days. If you haven’t seen them, Starry Night has these big chunks of paint lifting right off the canvas, so it looks 3D. The Moulin de la Galette is 
enormous, covering almost a wall, and the people are so real, and the atmosphere is so vibrant, you feel like you could walk right in and sit down. If you don’t know it, google it. It’s also parodied on a 1970s Rod Stewart album.
3. I was a DJ at KLSU in Baton Rouge in the early 1980s, where we played almost exclusively alt-rock. Most college DJs of that era feel primarily responsible for promoting bands like REM and U2 (among others) as we played them almost non-stop when they were starting out.
4. I was the 3rd president of the American Junior Paint Horse Association. Andrea Simons’ brother, Dan was the 1st, then Julie Dearing, then me. It was an exciting year, and I caused a lot of trouble if memory serves.
5. My dad knew Ellie Mae Clampett of the Beverly Hillbillies (actress Donna Douglas aka Dot Bourgeois) and Johnny Rivers (aka Johnny Ramastella) before they were famous. Both lived in Baton Rouge at various points in their life. I got to meet Ms. Douglas at the airport and Mr. Rivers backstage when he was playing at the state fair.
6. The very best moment I’ve had in the show ring was winning Reserve World Champion in Masters Western Riding with Certified Stride (Sly) at the 2019 APHA World Show. This horse was 16 years old and had never won a world title, so it was a 
big, big deal, and I get chills just thinking about it now.
Honorable Mention goes to the 2008 APHA World Show when Ultimate Bonanza with Karen Qualls and Real Me In with Vicky Holt were World and Reserve World Champions in the Sr. Hunter Under Saddle (Ultimate Bonanza was unanimous). I owned both horses at the time. I’m not going to lie…that was a mike drop moment.
7. My favorite foreign city is a tie between Florence and Hong Kong.
8. I am just now completing the building of a ranch from the ground up in Southern California. It’s called French Valley Farms, and it is the realization of a lifelong dream to live where my horses are and raise my babies, both equine and human.
9. My 10-year-old daughters, Aidyn and Ashlyn, were born four days apart in two different cities at the opposite ends of California from one another. It was a heck of a week but a blessed one.
10. My brother Flint was named The Most Outstanding Teenager of America in 1968. Literally. I’m not kidding. He is ten years older than me. Try following that!
