Starting in the Middle: How Horses, Those Who Study Them, and 265 Minutes with One Colt Helped Me Find Myself at Midlife

Tik Maynard spent much of his twenties competing full time in the sport of Modern Pentathlon (running, swimming, shooting, fencing, show jumping). He was on the Canadian National Team and won the National Championships twice, and he competed at multiple World Cups, World Championships, and at the 2007 Pan-Am Games in Rio de Janeiro. Maynard has evented at the Advanced level and been Long-Listed and Short-Listed for the Canadian National Three-Day Event Team. He won the Freestyle twice at the Thoroughbred Makeover (2015, 2018) and judged it once (2017). Maynard won the Road to the Horse 2024 World Championship of Colt Starting and has been invited to compete for the title again in 2025. Maynard travels year-round, teaching clinics in the United States, Canada, England, and Scotland, and is an online instructor for The Horseman's University and the Noelle Floyd Equestrian Masterclass. He is a regular guest on podcasts and a contributor to many equestrian magazines and online news sources. He is the author of In the Middle Are the Horsemen, published by Trafalgar Square Books (2018). Maynard lives with his wife Sinead, a top American eventer, and their two children in Citra, Florida, where they run Copperline Farm (copperlineequestrian.com).