US Equestrian member Kate Grom may be one of the music world’s budding talents, but even in her musical career you can spot her passion for horses. Her new music video, “Whistle Cry,” also stars the American Saddlebred Perfect Vengeance, a five-time World Champion that Kate and her sister Tara showed. An Arabian named Beauty Queen and a Quarter Horse called Hancock Grey Bar, or “Blue,” also make appearances. See the “Whistle Cry” video here.

Grom, 29, grew up on her family’s Revelation Farms in Frenchtown, N.J., and followed her parents into riding. She’s gotten a taste of many equestrian sports, including trail riding, hunters, jumpers, Western, dressage, as well as saddle seat. Even when she moved to New York around 2008 to work in the music industry, she still visited the horses on weekends back home, where her parents Robert and Kim Grom have an American Saddlebred breeding program.

Grom’s first album, “Heroine,” came out earlier this year, and we caught up with her immediately before the “Whistle Cry” video release to talk horses, music, and how competing in equestrian sport contributed to her success as a performer.

 

How did you get started with horses?

“I started riding because of my parents. At the time, they really enjoyed going for trail rides, so they had two trail horses, an Arabian and a Quarter Horse. As we kids came along, they began to expand, and now the farm has a whole herd of 35 horses!

“I began riding and showing in the hunters and jumpers, and I did a bit of dressage and 4H as well. When I was seven, I started taking lessons at a saddle seat barn—mostly to try something a little different—and I just fell in love. I found that my experience with dressage and hunters really did help me become a better saddle seat rider. In my experience, the more I could learn, in any discipline, the better I became as a rider in whatever discipline I chose to pursue. Those lessons really began my career in the higher levels of showing. From then until the end of college, so for 15 years, I dedicated my life to horses. I gave up a lot of other things that I was interested in, like soccer and volleyball, and spent five days a week at the barn taking lessons, mucking stalls, taking care of horses, all of that.”

 

How has your background in showing horses, and particularly American Saddlebreds, influenced you as a performer on the stage?

“That is something that I think about all the time! Horses just teach us so much. When you are showing, you spend endless hours training and practicing and memorizing courses or tests for that one moment in the show ring. It feels very similar to performing with my band on stage and even shooting the music video. You spend so much time preparing for this one perfect moment in the ring or on the stage or shooting the video.”

 

Did showing horses growing up help shape who you are today? Did it give you the confidence to become a performer?

“Definitely! Horses have pushed me to be the person I am now. The discipline involved makes you work hard and focus on all the details that you might normally miss. The sportsmanship I learned from competing is so valuable to me. I learned that you make more friends and have a better experience when you can look your opponent in the eye and respect them. It’s not about who has won more; it’s about being there for one another, even though you are competing, because you both share the experience together.

“Showing did also increase my confidence, because sometimes things don’t go just as we want them to, but you have to keep going forward anyway. So now, if I get up to perform and my guitar isn’t working, or I have a mic with terrible feedback—the type of thing that would normally shake your confidence—I can shake it off and keep going because of my experience with horses.”

 

Do you have a favorite horse?

“That’s a hard question! But there is one, an American Saddlebred gelding we’ve had for a while now. His name is Perfect Vengeance, and he has won five World Championships, four National Championships, and a number of reserve championships. We got him when he was four, so he was practically a baby when I first showed him.

“Ace, as we call him, is just so majestic and confident, and we have this amazing chemistry with him. From the first time I showed him to the last time I showed him, even with my sister showing him, he has always been so attentive to us.

“Now he is 15 and in what we call semi-retirement. We wanted to reward him for everything he has done for us over the years, but he doesn’t really want to be retired. Every time you go in the barn, he is right at the door of his stall, wanting to come out and get worked. So we still ride him, because he just wouldn’t be happy without the work. I knew right from the beginning that I wanted to use him in the music video.”

 

How did you decide to shoot the “Whistle Cry” video at Revelation Farms?

“I knew I wanted to shoot there pretty much from the beginning. The chorus line talks about freedom, and all I can hear when I think of it is the thundering hoof beats of horses galloping in the distance. So I just knew that horses needed to be a part of that video, and the farm is so beautiful that it worked out really well.”

 

Can you tell us a little bit about the other two horses in the video?

“The Quarter Horse we used is named Hancock Grey Bar, or Blue, and we used a Polish-bred Arabian named Beauty Queen. Both of them are mainly used for lessons and trail riding at the farm, so they are both just great horses. Blue is the barn love, he is bombproof for anyone. I’ve put my four-year-old niece on him before. We have owned him since he was six.

“Beauty is a little newer, we got her in the fall of last year, and she is just so willing. She makes a great transition horse for someone who is moving up from a horse like Blue but isn’t quite ready for a show horse. She is still very sweet and gentle, but she’ll keep you on your toes a bit more. We actually chose them because we thought they would be sort of our solid citizens, because we weren’t sure how Ace would take the shoot. But Ace handled it wonderfully. He wasn’t scared of the lights or the smoke machine. I actually didn’t have to encourage him to keep going once, he was like, ‘This is great!’”

 

Now that your music career is taking off, do you still find time to ride or show?

“I do find time to get out to the farm, thank God. Since I started focusing on my own music career, I’ve actually had more time to spend with horses. I usually spend the weekend out on the farm riding and helping with the broodmares. I help the vet with breeding and do a lot of bloodline research.

“Right now, it’s foaling season, so even though I’m spending the week in New York, I have the foal cam on and I spend the nights watching our mares. So I get to spend plenty of my time immersed in the horses and the farm! I’m just pinching myself, because this is like a dream for me!”

 

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