Pat Buls has spent her life learning from and training horses. She “grew up in the cavalry,” since her father was in the military. Having gotten a good start in Pony Club of America, she got her first horse while her father was stationed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. She stabled her horse at the two-hundred year-old stables at the Fort, and took lessons from an old cavalry officer. With seventy horses stabled at this facility, she got a real education in safety-first horse handling. She hunted to hounds and logged a lot of miles in the back country. During her high-school years, she lived in Bolivia, where they still have an active cavalry. She boarded her horse at the Bolivian Military Academy, and rode with the cavalry cadets. The military riding team was composed of the top five cavalry cadets, and one civilian. After some grueling jump courses, and hair-raising rides in the Andes at 13,000 feet elevation, Pat earned a berth on the military equestrian team, and was eventually selected for the Bolivian National Equestrian Team. She rode a 22 year-old Argentine Thoroughbred to a national championship in jumping, going over six foot fences.

Since then, Pat has never been without a horse for long, and after getting a college education and working as a nurse for awhile, she decided to dedicate her life to training horses, and equestrians. She has competed in English and Western events on a variety of breeds and has been breeding Arabian horses for over twenty years. Her focus is now on packing into the wilderness with the Back Country Horsemen of America to do volunteer work for the Forest Service and BLM. She still trains horses and people at her Shining Heart Farm at Radium Springs, NM, just north of Las Cruces. She writes poetry and can sometimes be heard around a campfire, strumming a guitar and singing some original cowgirl songs.