Kaitlyn Hoyt

Before the age of 10, KMH Associates LLC owner and founder Kaitlyn Hoyt knew two things: she was horse-crazy and she wanted to move to Montana.

She fell in love with horses when she started taking English riding lessons at age 5, and Montana captured her heart on her first visit. After growing up riding English, in 2003 a great friend introduced Kaitlyn to the world of rodeos, barrel racing, and reining. After competing on a big bay gelding named Goose in a reining pattern for the Nevada County Horseman's Rodeo Queen Pageant, Kaitlyn was amazed by Goose's reining training and athletic ability. That's when she knew she would be a reiner.

Kaitlyn's career and education has been focused on deepening her knowledge and experience in different elements of horsemanship and ranching. During her college years, she worked in Yellowstone National Park as a horse wrangler. Kaitlyn earned her Bachelor and Masters Degrees in Animal Science at Montana State University, completing a graduate thesis focused on cattle nutrition and reproduction. Meanwhile Kaitlyn rode and exercised horses for numerous horse owners and trainers throughout Gallatin Valley.

After finishing grad school, Kaitlyn moved to Silver Star, Montana to manage a 13,000 acre ranch. Kaitlyn had diverse responsibilities on the ranch, including managing a 650 head herd of commercial Black Angus cattle, producing hay, developing a sheep breeding program, and developing a performance ranch horse training and breeding program.

Kaitlyn's sheep program started as a personal hobby and became a community partnership with the local 4H program. She bred Wether Dam sheep to supply lambs to local 4H kids, teaching them how to feed, groom, and care for lambs before showing them in the 4H competitions.

As Kaitlyn joined the ranch team, she realized that the starting group of trail horses would need significant development to enable the team to manage the cattle program on challenging terrain that couldn't be worked with four-wheelers. Kaitlyn purchased performance horses who had proven their intelligence, stamina, and athleticism, and trained them in ranch horse skills.

As the ranch horse program grew, Kaitlyn bred their herd with other performance horses to raise the next generation of high performance ranch horses. She worked with professional NHRA trainers to develop these young horses' reining skills and rode them on the ranch to develop their physical and mental fitness, with a firm belief that exposure to different circumstances at a young age builds versatility and resilience.

As part of developing these gorgeous ranch horses, Kaitlyn began training with reining experts Cameron Meisner and then JD Anderson, competing all over the Mountain West and earning over $2,000 in winnings. She qualified for National Reining Horse Rookie finals in Oklahoma and placed in top 10 for non-pro on a Palomino stud called Wimpy Sparkles. And in 2023, Kaitlyn qualified for Run for the Million on her mare CriminalIntentions (out of HF Mobster, a million dollar sire).

Kaitlyn has been teaching riding lessons in both English and Western disciplines for over 15 years. Her forte is teaching beginners to intermediate riders to build a confident and safe rider in the arena, on the trails, and at work on the ranch.