United States Eventing Association

For decades, Dr. Lucinda Romero spent her days as a general and vascular surgeon caring for patients, but before dawn and after long shifts, she was raising Irish Draught horses, riding, and quietly building a breeding program at her home base in California.

“While I was a student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, I worked at a plasma donor center, and one of the people there knew I loved horses and said, ‘You should come to the Rolex!’ ” Lucinda recalled. “So I drove up for the weekend and just thought to myself that if I ever had a horse again, I wanted to learn how to event.”

But first, Lucinda had to tackle medical school and residency. It wasn’t until she took a break to do research during her general surgery residency that she finally got that chance.

“There was a nurse that I’d met at the hospital who was very good at dressage, so I started taking dressage lessons and bought an off-the-track Thoroughbred. She had a friend that taught me how to jump, and I did my first event at Pine Hill in Texas sometime in the 90s.”

And from then on, she was hooked.

Life took her to Boulder, Colorado, where she wound up investing in a second horse, a Thoroughbred/Oldenburg mare, before she finally settled down with her wife, Karen Young, in Sonoma County, California. There, the couple purchased the property that would become Kleary Field, a name created by combining their initials, and it was on that farm that another dream began to take shape.

“I thought to myself—shoot, I’ve got two mares, so maybe I’ll think about breeding horses,” she said.

With her medical background, Lucinda felt confident that she could learn the intricacies of breeding sport horses. A friend of her father’s was a big fan of the Irish Draught and Irish Sport Horse lines, so one day during a visit with her dad, that friend brought over The Chronicle of the Horse’s stallion edition of their magazine for Lucinda to flip through.

“Joe Montana had just imported The King Of Hearts, a purebred Irish Draught stallion,” she shared. “She highly recommended I go see this horse, so I did, and it worked out great. They actually let me ride him. I’d looked at another stallion, but his temperament and his scope was just fantastic, so we bred those two mares, and our first colts were born in 2003.”

Those first foals marked the beginning of what would become more than two decades of breeding Irish Draught and Irish Sport Horses at Kleary Field.

“They’re the perfect amateur horse,” she shared. “The true purebred is probably not going to be able to make the time at the upper levels, but they're so balanced and sound. They have really good, strong bones and good brains and their temperament—they’re just so kind.”

Lucinda's first few years of breeding were all about balancing her full-time medical career, the farm, and her family life. She learned how to inseminate her own mares. By her third year in operation, she would use her vet for ultrasound work, but she would do all the breeding and foaling out on her own. She was even able to suture lacerations and perform Caslick’s procedures herself.

Looking back, Lucinda credits much of her success to finding ways to balance her career with her passion for horses. Early in her medical career, long hours and frequent on-call shifts left little time to ride, but an interest in medical acupuncture eventually connected her with physicians in Santa Rosa, leading her to the job where she would spend the remainder of her career.

“I've been really blessed,” she said. “It's so obvious to people that I'm passionate about work and I'm passionate about horses. My patients would even ask me about my horses.”

As her career progressed, Lucinda gradually narrowed her practice, transitioning away from vascular surgery and ultimately specializing in breast surgery. Her experience with vascular ultrasound allowed her to perform many procedures herself, simplifying care for patients and reducing the need for additional appointments.

“I was smart enough to start giving a few pieces up,” she said. “By the end of my career, I was doing a lot of breast cancer work, and because I'd already been doing ultrasound for my vascular work, I could offer so much of that care myself. It spared women a lot because they didn't have to make a separate appointment and meet with a radiologist.”

During the final four years of her career, Lucinda was able to go part-time. She would take two mornings a week off and made time to ride before going into the office each day.

Lucinda has kept great track of the foals to have come off of her farm, with many having successful careers in eventing and the jumpers. As her program grew, she imported her first Irish Draught mare, Moorpark Girl, in 2004. Moorpark Girl foaled seven foals at Kleary Field, and her last is Lucinda’s first and only stallion— Kleary’s M&M.

“He had a bit of a rough start,” Lucinda said of the now 11-year-old Irish Draught stallion by Mountain Pearl who she calls Mike. “He had a meconium impaction and was colicking on the second day of life, but now he is great. He is the only purebred Irish Draught stallion competing at the Training level in North America. He hasn’t had a single cross-country jump penalty.”

Lucinda rides Mike at home and keeps him fit, but he shows with Stephanie Enedy and receives coaching from Andrea Pfeiffer, who has had a monumental impact on the horses in Lucinda's program.

“Andrea welcomed me to Chocolate Horse Farm and has trained me and my horses for over twenty years,” she shared. “She entrusted us to breed and foal out her Advanced mare Ballinakill Glory and her second filly was born the same year as our stallion, so Andrea has seen Mike grow up and now coaches him every week.”

Under the guidance of Pfeiffer and Enedy, Mike is continuing a steady progression through the levels of eventing.

“I’m pretty sure Mike will be moving up to Modified at the end of the year, and we will probably let him run Preliminary, but he’s probably a 1,500 pound horse, and it’s all muscle, and you have to be mindful of his weight and the consistent jumping and galloping," she said. "If he were to move up to Prelim, we would probably only do three shows that year and just do a lot of walking the hills to stay fit without overstressing him.”

Mike has become so special to Lucinda that her final foal was a daughter by him, a now 2-year-old filly by the name of Klearys Odyssey.

“I’m 67, and I am retired now, so I am enjoying life!” Lucinda said, although she will continue to sell Mike’s semen to keep the Kleary bloodlines going.

Lucinda enjoys getting out and about with her horses, and while she does still show at the Novice level and aspires to work her way up to Preliminary in the coming years, she finds great joy in following along with her homebreds as well.

“I have not ridden a horse that I didn’t breed in 20 years,” she said. “I spend a lot of time with my horses. That’s why they’re home, that’s why we bred them. I’m not super competitive, so I don’t have to win. I just ideally finish on my dressage score, and then I just keep chipping away so I can have better dressage scores, but ultimately, I love the partnership with my horses.”

Though she doesn’t ride regularly herself, Lucinda's wife has been her biggest supporter through it all.

“She loves the horses and certainly helps take care of them,” she said. “We’ve had a few horses along the years that she has enjoyed riding the trails with me. She loves to work outside, so she’s really happy helping. She keeps the barns and pastures and paddocks and everything moving, and she can actually buck hay, which is quite impressive. And not only that, but she’s quite the photographer! She has totally embraced social media and making reels for our Kleary Field page.”

Now that her career has come full circle, she looks back at her first trip to Kentucky when she fell in love with eventing, and one memory sticks out to her.

“I was so very impressed because that year there was a rider in her 60s who came in 12th place, and I thought to myself, ‘Well, I’ve got time!’ I was 23 at the time, and my love for it has just evolved since. I think that’s what it comes down to—just taking the time. People are in such a hurry to accomplish everything and move up the levels. I think it’s important to just be patient and enjoy your horse.”

Looking back, Lucinda says she wouldn't change the path she took. Between a career in medicine, decades of breeding, and a lifetime spent with horses she raised from birth, she's grateful for every step of the journey.

"I'm glad it worked out the way it did. I've loved my babies."