Noel Clay is back in the saddle, and she couldn’t be happier.

The 23-year-old Lawrence woman has been busy most of the past year with her duties as an Army reservist, including a 100-day stint from late October to March when she was stationed at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

Clay has since traded her Army beret and camouflage fatigues for cowboy hats and English riding outfits. Today she will ride in the open horse show at the Douglas County Fair. It will be the first time she has ridden in a horse show in about a year.

“It will be fun,” Clay said a few days ago. “County fair shows are always fun.”

When Clay returned to Lawrence from Afghanistan, she wasted no time getting back to her three Arabian horses, especially the one named Head to the Light. She has owned the 9-year-old mare since it was 2 and she was 15. On her second day home she was out riding, she said.

“I grew up loving horses,” she said.

Easy rider

Clay started riding in horse shows as part of a Girl Scouts program during her junior and senior years in high school.

Noel Clay, Lawrence, 23, brushes down her horse, Head for the Light, before an afternoon workout on a southern Douglas County farm. Clay will be competing in competitions today at the Douglas County Fair.

“I’ve been doing that as much as possible ever since,” she said.

Clay also has two other Arabian horses, but it is chestnut-colored Head to the Light that she usually rides in the shows.

“I’ve trained her since she was a baby, so basically it’s just like reviewing the stuff we’ve already done,” she said.

Clay admits to being partial to Arabians.

“They are more flashy, more versatile, and I like their temperament,” she said. “They have a little more spirit than other horses.”

Head to the Light gets a chance display that spirit when Clay rides her in Western and English pleasure and equestrian riding contests during the horse shows. In the pleasure classes, it is the rider who must demonstrate skill and control of the horse in following certain riding patterns. The horse is the focus of judges in the equestrian class. Western and English riding styles vary.

Clay also is training her third horse, a 5-year-old male named Rio, for a possible show career.

Noel Clay takes her horse, Head for the Light, out for an afternoon workout on a southern Douglas County farm. Clay will be competing in competitions today at the Douglas County Fair.

“He gets some work every day,” she said.

Clay keeps her horses on a horse ranch operated by Gretchen Regnier in southern Douglas County. Regnier has long been impressed with Clay’s handling of the horses. Clay is an example of how youths become interested in horses at a young age and then expand on that interest, Regnier said.

“She is just a wonderful lady,” Regnier said. “She’s very patient.”

Knowing that her horses were in good hands while she was in Afghanistan eased her concerns, Clay said.

“I missed them, but you are kept so busy,” she said.

Joining the military

Clay joined the Reserves about three years ago and is committed for another five years. She joined after graduating in 2000 from Lawrence High School and then attending Kansas State University for a year, where she was a member of K-State’s first equestrian team.

A Specialist E-4 with the 325th Field Hospital based in Independence, Mo., Clay worked as a lab technician at the Bagram hospital. The medical crews not only took care of American military personnel but also Afghan civilians.

“There were a lot of locals injured by land mines,” she said. “We provided a lot of humanitarian aid while we were there.”

That aid consisted of providing clothes and other supplies donated by people from the Independence area and books to a school her unit adopted.

A sign notifies motorists of horse riders along a road near the farm.

The Bagram area, which is about an hour’s drive from Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, was quiet while Clay was there, and she thinks it was because of the community aid the U.S. provided.

Clay not only didn’t get a chance to ride horses while in Afghanistan, she didn’t even see a single one.

‘A few more horses’

Even after Clay returned to Lawrence she continued working at her unit’s headquarters in Independence. That daily commute ended about a week ago. Now she again can concentrate on horse shows and returning to school this fall, this time at Kansas University.

Clay intends to study cytotechnology, which is the study of cells. Once she graduates she hopes to get a job studying and diagnosing cancer cells.

She also intends to be riding and training horses for a long time to come.

“I’d like to always have it as a hobby,” she said. “Then when I get a career and some money I’d like to get a place and maybe have a few more horses.”