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24 M AY/J U N E 2 017 U N TAC K E D EDITOR'S LETTER What Do You Love? Like most other humans on this planet, I spent the last year obsessed with Hamilton: An American Musical and its creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda. is might not seem relevant to life with horses (though Alexander Hamilton of course did ride) or this magazine, but as we worked on this issue, a quote from Miranda kept popping into my head. "I think an artist's only responsibility is to chase their inspiration and to fall in love," he said. "If it happens to make the world a better place, that's great, but if you're trying to do that consciously, it feels like homework. We can smell when an artist is doing something out of obligation versus, 'Something in me demands that I write this.' " e six equestrians featured as young and unsung influencers (p. 62) are from different areas of the country, two of them from other countries, and they have different backgrounds. ey're all doing completely different things; for example, Jessica Rattner is running a camp for grassroots dressage riders while Diarmuid Byrne and Sam Watson are making eventing safer through statistics. None of them started their journeys with preconceived notions of what it means to make a difference. But they've all found their niches—the ways they can best contribute based on their talents and interests. Change "artist" to "horseman" in that quote, and I think it's a perfect description of how they're living and working. e same idea surfaced in several of our other stories from this issue. Our cover feature Michael Tang (p. 44), who is an artist in addition to his work as a priest and a professor, often paints horses for a simple reason—it's what he knows and loves. Similarly, show jumper Georgina Bloomberg, who's worked with several Humane Society of the United States programs, including one involving wild horses in Puerto Rico (p. 92), focuses on helping animals because she loves them. And even though a human relations job might sound mundane to some, it's not at all to Holly White, who's featured on page 74. Her efforts led her to work at the United Nations Population Fund in Senegal. "I think—and this is HR geeky of me—but I do believe if you have human capital, it is an asset, and even though I wanted to work with horses, I do really believe in human potential and capability," she said. All their stories are perfect examples of people who help, who create, who give and who work from a place of passion and not a place of obligation. So it's really no coincidence that they're all helping make the horse world, and in many cases the world at large, a better place. —Lisa Slade ANDREW HOCK PHOTO

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