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SIDELINESMAGAZINE | June 2026
how jumper Raleigh Hiler built her
riding career on determination, curiosity
and an inner resilience shaped long
before she ever picked up a pair of reins.
“I was born hearing and then I lost all of it after
I had meningitis,” Raleigh said. “I got my first
cochlear implant when I was about 1 year old.”
Her early life revolved around speech therapy,
audiologists and learning how to interpret a
world she could not completely hear. Yet the
barn quickly became one of the rare places
where communication felt simple.
“It’s definitely difficult to hear in the barn,”
she said. “In the warm-up ring, I don’t have
directional hearing, so if someone is coming up
behind me or if they call a jump, I’m probably
not going to hear it.”
Even so, horses offered a kind of language
she could understand without sound, and that
connection became the anchor to her life.
BUILDING A FOUNDATION
Raleigh grew up in Massachusetts and
discovered the horse world entirely on her own.
A true first-generation rider, she came from a
family with no equestrian background, yet she
found herself drawn toward a life none of them
could have predicted.
One of her closest childhood friends lived
across from a farm, so every visit meant hearing
about the horses in the fields next door, and
before long, her friend’s love of horses became
her own. “I was terrified of them, but I was
obsessed,” Raleigh said. “I begged my parents to
let me ride. I begged for months.”
At 8 years old, she managed to get herself into
a local summer camp, which quickly evolved into
weekly lessons at a barn in Massachusetts. Those
early years were filled with excitement, new
lessons and the kind of determination that would
carry her through the rest of her riding career.
Those early days were also filled with hearing
therapy. “I needed special early-age regulatory
approvals, which made me one of the youngest
children in the United States to benefit from a
cochlear implant,” Raleigh said. “I had to work
really hard when I was younger, trying to figure
out how to navigate the world differently than
everyone else.”
As Raleigh moved into her early teens, the barn
became a second home. She attended summer
camps, formed close friendships and embraced
every opportunity to learn. At 12, she took on her
first half-lease and stepped into the show ring for
the first time, in a Short Stirrup class.
SHOW JUMPING
RALEIGH
HILER
Clear Rounds
and Quiet Strengths
By Laila Edwards • Portraits by Melissa Fuller
Raleigh Hiler and Obora’s Chloe,
owned by Kurt Hiler, Raleigh’s father.