48 • THE PLAID HORSE
BELOW: LEDGES SPORTING HORSES HOSTS SHOWPLACE PRODUCTIONS HORSE SHOWS ALL YEAR. RIGHT: MOLLY STRUVE ACCEPTS HER BLUE RIBBON ON BLUERIDGE FROM TAPESTRY FARM’S TRAINERS’ DAUGHTER, ELLI GENTRY. BELOW, RIGHT: THE STRUVES BOUGHT A SECOND TAPESTRY FARM LOCATION IN OCALA, FLA., LAST SUMMER.
Elek is impressed with the facility. “They do a great job on upkeep,” she continued. “The footing is great, the bathrooms are clean, and they have nice wash racks.” While the Struves aren’t necessarily hands on as owners of Ledges, they are both riders. Neither one of them came from horse families, but Donna, who grew up in Ireland, was exposed to horses at a young age. “I had a little horse background in Ireland,” she said. “We weren’t very wealthy. I worked weekends and summers at the International League for Protection of Horses, learning to care and fend for them.”
The Struves bought a 116-acre property in Bristol, Wisc., not long after they invested in Ledges. Tapestry Farm is named after a mare of Donna’s, Tapestry, or “Dora.” Scott and Josey Gentry, the Struves’ trainers, run the day-to-day operations there. They have their own client base, but their focus is on the Struve family’s horses. Donna has been training with Scott for 30 years. Clay, on the other hand, has only been under the Gentrys’ tutelage for a few years. A securities trader who has been an active athlete most of his life, Clay started riding four years ago. “He decided, ‘since I go to the farm with you almost every day, I might as well learn to ride,’” Donna recalled. “For a while, he rode and was happy walk, trot, and cantering. But then thought it was boring. He had to learn to jump.”
But it wasn’t until Donna and Clay married that she became as involved as she is now. The couple met in the London airport more than 30 years ago, and after So the Gentrys found Clay a Warmblood gelding named [Gallatin] “Dude,” and a short engagement, got married. Through a friend of now the pair competes in the jumpers. Clay’s, Donna got back into the barn. Adding to the family aspect, the Struves’ daughter-in-law, Molly—who is “It snowballed from there. In the beginning, I had married to their son Owen—also rides at the farm. She competes in the one or two horses, and I did the adults and amateur- amateur-owner jumper divisions. Donna and Clay have a daughter, Ashling, owners hunters,” she said. who lives in Denver.