49.0°,
Fog/Mist Riding her way to the top
How an EMHS grad — with the help of her twin — became a national finalist
Michelle Arenella’s first horse ride did not go well. She was 12, at a summer camp with her twin sister, Danielle, and the horse underneath her was not in a cooperative mood. She was thrown off.
What might have been a traumatizing experience, however, had the opposite effect on Michelle, who is now 21. “I loved it,” she said. “But since I had a rough experience with it, my parents were like, ‘Don’t do it anymore,’ because they didn’t want us to get hurt.”
She still rode occasionally on trails and at ranches over the years, but at East Meadow High School she focused on swimming, track and bowling on her way to graduating in 2011.
But the joy of being on a horse always stuck with Michelle, and her discovery of an extensive equestrian program at LIU Post was a significant factor in her deciding to enroll there. Danielle, who is 13 minutes older, joined her.
The school’s North Shore Equestrian Center, on its Greenvale campus, has an indoor arena, four outdoor rings and three barns. Its co-ed club team, a member of the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association — which has more than 9,000 riders on 412 teams nationwide — welcomes those of all skill levels. It was perfect for the twins, who were still novices when their collegiate careers began.
Michelle recalls wanting to join the team simply for the fun of it, and that’s why, after just two years of competing, it came as a shock to her when she became a national finalist in 2014, and represented LIU Post against top riders from across the country.
A year later, she says she still has a hard time believing what she did. “For a beginner like me, it’s still surreal,” she said. “If you told me two years ago that I’d be competing on the national level in horseback riding, I’d be like, ‘No way.’”
A friendly sibling rivalry
Michelle and Danielle are fraternal twins. They both say that they differ in personality — Michelle joked that Danielle is “the nicer one” — but they look pretty much alike, aside from the fact that Danielle wears glasses and Michelle doesn’t.
