Before she was “Chloe Kim, three-time Olympic medalist and snowboarding superstar,” she was Chloe Kim, a horse-obsessed preschooler who aspired to one day be a famous equestrian.
“I said I wanted to be a ‘horsey racer’ like a jockey,” Kim laughed, recounting the moment at her preschool graduation when every kid took the stage to announce their big dreams. “I was obsessed [with horses] since I was a little girl.”
It’s a passion that may surprise casual fans of the 24 –year old who has dominated snowboarding’s halfpipe since she was a teenager. Kim became the first woman to land back-to-back 1080s in Olympic competition, and the first woman to ever land a 1260 in the U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix. She won gold at the Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, in 2018 at just 17 years old, and again in Beijing, China in 2022. Kim returned to the halfpipe at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Cortina, Italy, to claim the silver medal.
But for Kim, her love of horses is as important as her other achievements. Horses came first, long before she was on a snowboard.
Spirit, Horse Camps, and a Serious Obsession
Growing up in Torrance, Calif., Kim’s parents regularly took her to a local park that had pony rides, set up like a merry-go-round for children to safely ride along in a circle. Most of the kids were satisfied with one or two laps. But for Kim? She would ride 10 to 15 times per visit.
“God bless my parents,” she said, “just watching me go in circles on these little ponies.”
At home, she watched “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron” on repeat — by her on estimation, over a thousand times. “It was like every day after school, I put it on,” Kim said.
When she was old enough, her parents enrolled her in horse camp where she finally got to do take real riding lessons. Kim briefly lived in Switzerland when she was in third-and-fourth grade so she could learn French (she’s now fluent and also speaks Korean.) In-between training on the slopes, her aunt, who also lived in Switzerland, signed her up for horse camp. At the camp, she slept in tents and woke up early every morning to go for a ride. “That one was really fun,” she recalled warmly.
The dream of becoming an equestrian never quite faded. As Kim got older, dressage captured her imagination. “I always thought dressage was really cool,” she explained. “Obviously, at the time, the lessons were a little too expensive.” life, and snowboarding, eventually took her elsewhere. But horses were always there, waiting for her when she was ready.
Finding Herself Again After Beijing
When Kim crossed the timers at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games, she was already a two-time Olympic medalist. Having also added a World Championship title, she cemented her place as the most dominant halfpipe snowboarder of her generation. By any measure, she was at the top of the world.
But the years between Pyeongchang and Beijing had taken a quiet toll. Kim has spoken publicly about the mental health struggles that came with early, sudden fame. The anxiety, isolation, and the pressure of being a teenage prodigy in the global spotlight had begun to get to her. Coming out of Beijing, she was ready to take a breath.
Enter a little horse named Mochi.
“After the Beijing Olympics, I thought, ‘you know what, I would love to just get a horse,’” she said. “It’s been a dream of mine since I was little.” Kim wasn’t thinking about competition, discipline, or working with a trainer toward any goal. She just wanted a horse to ride so she could clear her head. “I find riding very therapeutic,” she said.
She started taking lessons again at a stable near her home in California. After about a year, her instructor told her she was ready for horse ownership, should she want to pursue it. That’s when the search began.
Searching for “The One”
There were a few near-misses before Mochi came along. Kim fell for a gorgeous horse early in her search. She’d always wanted a palomino, she admitted, “like a Barbie Dream Horse.” But a pre-purchase vet exam revealed cataracts and lameness. “I realized that buying horses isn’t straight forward sometimes,” she said, which is something all horse people can relate to.
Kim was discouraged but kept looking. A few months went by, and her trainer pointed her towards a horse in Arizona; a 10–year old with experience and a settled temperament, exactly what she was looking for in theory. But when she traveled to the farm to try him out, something felt off. He was too sensitive and too reactive. “I always got kind of iffy about a super wiggly and sensitive horse,” she explained. It simply wasn’t a match.
Then, almost as an aside, the sellers showed her another horse. This time, a four-year-old chestnut Arabian. He was a little lazy, goofy, and very curious.
“Even as we were walking him out to the arena, he kept looking at me,” Kim recalled about the fateful day. “He just had this curiosity about him.”
So, she took a test ride on him. He was the opposite of nervous energy, the kind of horse that communicates with great clarity that he would rather be doing anything else than working too hard. He was kind and calm. Kim describes him as having “the most ridiculous lopsided face she had ever seen.”
“He has one human-like eye,” she said with the specific delight of someone describing their favorite person in the world. “When he’s looking out, it’s so goofy. His other eye is totally normal and even his little strip of his blaze, it goes off to one side.” She paused to giggle. “He just looks so special and he’s so cute.”
Needless to say, she brought Mochi home to California.
Living Her Best Life with Mochi
Mochi is now eight-years-old and living at a facility in San Marcos, Calif., with trainer and 2024 USEF Equestrian of Honor, Kirsten McKillop, and her team. McKillop is the same person that Chloe originally purchased Mochi from when she was based in Arizona. The distance is a few hours away, but Chloe makes the trip as many times as she can.
Like fine wine, Mochi has gotten better with age, but no less goofy than he was when they first met. At Kim’s request, an animal psychic consulted her about Mochi. (Yes, really. And no, she’s not embarrassed about it.) The reading was alarmingly accurate: he’s still quite lazy, the psychic said. Mochi would rather play and laze around. His favorite toy? An orange traffic cone.
“I put a cone in his stall and he loves it,” Kim said, still delighted by the positive result of the consultation. “It’s almost like he’s saying, ‘Yes, this is exactly what I wanted. How did you know?’”
Mochi and Kim have had some interesting adventures together over the years. In the early days, before Mochi settled in at his current home, he was going through a rough patch. Much like the first horse Chloe met on her search that ended up not being a match, the same could be said for Mochi and the previous coach. Mochi let Kim know that he wasn’t keen on his training regimen in his own way by bucking her off in a lesson, more than once. At one point, after a fall, Kim scraped her leg up badly and could not walk comfortably for a couple of weeks. Her snowboarding coach, understandably, banned her from riding in the lead-up to the Milan-Cortina Olympics.
Getting bucked off, she notes, is something of a rite of passage. Anyone who has ridden a horse and taken serious lessons has experienced it at least once. But she was not deterred. Kim waited until Mochi was ready and until he was somewhere where he was happy.
Now, she rides when she can. He still requires a little convincing to get going and communicates with confidence that he is ready to stop, something that Kim doesn’t mind at all.
“Every time I go to see him, I’m just so happy that I brought him home,” she said.
What Horses Give Back to Us
There's a version of the Chloe Kim story that focuses only on the athletic career: the jaw-dropping tricks, historic firsts, and of course, the medals. But Kim has always been refreshingly open about the complete picture —like the loneliness of being so good at something so young, and the difficulty of figuring out who you are when you've been a public figure since you were a teenager.
Mochi arrived just on time at a moment in her life when she needed him the most. Post-Beijing, post-spotlight, post-the-relentless-machine-of-elite-sport. She welcomed Mochi into her life when she needed something that had no expectations attached to it. Horses don't know about Olympic medals. They don't care about halfpipe scores. They read you in real time — your tension, your calm, your honesty — and they respond accordingly.
"It's been so therapeutic," Kim stressed. She mentioned that an hour in the saddle leaves her genuinely sore in a way that reminds her that riding is, in fact, a serious athletic endeavor. But more than the physical workout, it's the quality of presence required. You can't be somewhere else when you're on a horse. Arabians especially, known for being tuned-in and responsive, demand your full attention.
There's a delivery truck story that illustrates this perfectly.
Chloe was riding Mochi recently when a truck came by, and she felt the change move through him immediately. "I could feel his nerves and the shift in focus," she explained. "So, I had to turn him around and refocus." That kind of mindfulness and anticipation is hard to practice anywhere else.
What Comes Next for Chloe and Mochi
With the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in the rearview mirror, Kim has her eye on the future. The big dream is land. She’d love to have her own property with Mochi in the backyard. She even aspires to add to her herd for the pleasure rides she loves. And ideally, she says, a horse for her boyfriend, Myles Garrett, who plays defensive end for the Cleveland Browns. "I need a bigger horse for him, so I'm thinking maybe a Friesian of some sort."
As for Mochi himself, the trainers at his current facility have mentioned that he has real talent to compete someday. The idea of Mochi competing is both hilarious and completely plausible. Kim has already made peace with the role she'll play: enthusiastic owner on the sidelines.
"My approach in life is always — I would rather have somebody that's really good do that. I'll give them the best shot."
So, competing on Mochi isn’t necessarily a goal for Kim, however, as just having a horse to ride for the fun of it is enough for her.
“To have my own horse is such a surreal experience,” she said. “People often ask if I have accomplished my dreams —like going to the Olympics, and winning medals —and I have. But this has been a personal dream of mine since before I even was aware that the Olympics were happening.”
Just like with the other huge goals she has achieved throughout her life, the unstoppable Chloe Kim was determined to make her dream of horse ownership a reality — and she did.