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OUR STORY
Some businesses begin with a plan. Ours began with a horse.
Long before Sonny on the Rox became a business, a program, or a community, there were horses shaping the person who would eventually build it.
What began as a childhood passion grew through years of lessons, challenges, unexpected opportunities, remarkable horses, and more than a few changes in direction.
This is the story of the horses who started it, the people who helped build it, and the experiences that turned a love of horses into something much bigger.
01 - THE BEGINNING
It started with riding lessons, two horses, and a childhood that rarely stood still.
For Hailey’s seventh birthday, she was given the opportunity to start horseback riding lessons. She began riding English in Minnesota, and within a year or so, Miss Foxy Roxanne — Roxy — became her first horse, a gift from her Grandpa Jerry.
A few years later came Sonny. Hailey was ten when her grandpa gave her the young, halter-bred Quarter Horse. Sonny had already spent time with several trainers but still lacked a solid foundation, so Hailey took over from there.
Between school, softball, gymnastics, church, 4-H and horses, there was rarely much downtime. Summers often meant twelve-hour days at the farm with Roxy and Sonny — riding, training, caring for them and, without realizing it at the time, building the foundation for everything that would come later.
02 - LEARNING BY DOING
The horses weren't made for the job. Neither was she. They figured it out together.
4-H gave Hailey the freedom to try nearly everything: English and Western pleasure, equitation, horsemanship, showmanship, dressage, gaming and eventually rodeo events. She excelled early in English Equitation and Dressage, but somewhere along the way discovered speed events — and fell in love.
Roxy, an Arabian pony mix, became her partner for everything from gaming to goat tying and breakaway roping. Sonny, a halter-bred Quarter Horse, developed into a top-level barrel and pole horse. Together, they progressed from 4-H to WSCA, high school rodeo and increasingly competitive barrel racing.
There wasn't an abundance of resources — tack was often handed down and Grandpa's truck and old bumper-pull trailer got them where they needed to go. What Hailey did have was time, opportunity and the freedom to figure things out.
03- WHEN EVERYTHING CHANGED
Sometimes the path you planned disappears overnight.
By Hailey's junior year of high school, she and Sonny were in the middle of their best season yet. Just months earlier, they had become 4-H State Senior Games Champions. Hailey planned to attend a university with a rodeo team and pursue equine veterinary science.
On Christmas Eve 2015, Sonny underwent emergency colic surgery at the University of Minnesota. Two days later, at only nine years old, he passed away.
Losing Sonny changed more than Hailey's competition plans. For a while, she lost her heart for the future she had imagined with horses.
Her family helped her begin again with a talented young mare named Stella, and the summer before college she rescued Malibu from a kill pen and trained her from the ground up. But instead of pursuing equine veterinary science, Hailey left Minnesota for Arizona State University — and, initially, left her horses behind.
04- FINDING THE WAY BACK
Walking away from the plan made room for a different one.
It didn't take long for Hailey to realize she couldn't stay away from horses. In Arizona, she began apprenticing with a horse trainer, riding horses for others and eventually helping someone learn to ride. After her freshman year, her own horses made the move from Minnesota to Arizona.
For a while, there was no bigger plan. Hailey competed some, continued developing horses and simply learned to enjoy them again.
She graduated from Arizona State University in 2020 with two business degrees and began a corporate career with PepsiCo–Frito-Lay. She rented a horse property in Queen Creek, brought her horses home, purchased a yearling named Tito and began boarding a few horses to offset the cost.
And then, almost completely by accident, the first student arrived.
05 - AN ACCIDENTAL BEGINNING
Sonny on the Rox didn't begin with a business plan. It began with an invitation.
While moving out of her college home, Hailey sold a dresser to a mother who mentioned it was being transformed into a horse-themed birthday gift for her daughter. Hailey asked if her daughter liked horses and offered to have her come out and ride.
That daughter became Hailey's first student — and her mom became a close friend.
One student became another. Families told other families. All while Hailey continued working in corporate leadership, a small riding program quietly grew through word of mouth.
In July 2022, Hailey purchased the property Sonny on the Rox calls home today. At the time, it was little more than a house, land and a blank slate — no arena, no horse facilities and a large wash running through the middle.
06 - BECOMING SONNY ON THE ROX
The business grew. More importantly, it found its purpose.
Only months after purchasing the property, an unexpected health setback forced Hailey away from her corporate career for six months. What followed was a season of uncertainty: return to the career she had built, or take the terrifying leap into the business that had never really been planned.
Ultimately, Hailey felt God making the direction increasingly
clear, and Sonny on the Rox became her full-time focus.
Since then, both the property and the purpose behind it have continued to evolve. Today, the facility is home to nearly 30 horses, expanded riding and training facilities, educational programs, mentorship opportunities and a Learning Center in development.
What began with two unlikely horses has become something much bigger — but the foundation remains remarkably similar: give horses and people the opportunity, responsibility and support to discover what they're capable of.
WHY “SONNY ON THE ROX”?
There’s more to the name than meets the eye.
The name Sonny on the Rox began with the two horses who shaped Hailey’s earliest years: Sonny and Roxy. But the name took on a few additional layers along the way.
Knowing she would likely own a lot of horses throughout her life, Hailey wanted a naming theme with plenty of possibilities and landed on alcohol — despite not being much of a drinker herself. “On the Rox” fit the theme perfectly and inspired the tradition of alcohol-related names that continues throughout the herd today.
There’s also a fitting bit of symbolism hidden in the name. Sonny evokes the sun, while “Rox” evokes rocks on ice — an accidental reflection of Hailey’s own journey from the frozen winters of Minnesota to the desert heat of Arizona.
At its heart, though, the name will always come back to where it started: Sonny and Roxy, the two horses behind it all.
