Local teen honored as national reserve champion by US Equestrian Foundation

When Lily Allen’s family bought Beyond Time, a horse also known as Finn, two years ago, the teen was unaware of how much the 19-year-old horse would change her life.

This month, Lily was recognized at a Kentucky event as a national reserve champion after a successful season of shows – much of which she credits to her partnership with a horse whose trust she had to earn.

Lily’s love for horses started when she was very young, explained mother Bevan Allen, who said her daughter, now 15, always preferred horse toys as a young girl. When she got older, she began riding leased and shared horses.

Finn, a Dutch warmblood imported from the Netherlands with a storied history of competitions, was previously a schoolmaster horse at Miami University in Ohio, where he suffered a mismounting injury. Even after healing, he had trouble trusting riders due to the trauma. When he ended up at Serenity Farm in Bernville, farm owner Erika Kurtz reached out to Bevan to see if she would be interested.

“She reached out and said, ‘Hey, there’s this horse, he had a little bit of a trauma,'” said Bevan. “Someone had mismounted him and landed on his hind end, and people weren’t able to mount him again after that long career. His human trust had just really been broken.”

For the first year after his adoption, Lily focused on rebuilding his trust. Eventually, he accepted Lily as a rider.

“The first year was really Lily working with him to rebuild that trust so that he could take a rider again, and return to what he loves, which really is jumping,” said Bevan. “He’s a really magnificent jumper, and he clearly has missed it, because sometimes when she’s riding him and jumping, I swear he’s smiling, he just looks so joyful.”

The pair quickly formed a close bond. Bevan said Finn gets excited when he hears their car pull up to the barn, and follows Lily “like a puppy” while she’s there.

“Finn’s trust is the most valuable thing I’ve ever earned,” said Lily. “When he began to believe in me, everything changed and I started to believe in myself in a whole new way. This remarkable horse was once nearly counted out, but now he chooses me every day. I am honored and grateful for that responsibility. It’s one I’ll never take lightly.”

In 2025, Lily and Finn began to compete in rated shows. At first, Bevan said, they competed very casually, not expecting to rank nationally. However, as the season went on and they checked rankings, they realized that Lily was ranking quite high.

Throughout the year, they competed nine times, receiving champion and reserve champion titles for most shows.

Bevan said that, due to Finn’s age, they competed in fewer competitions than most contestants. However, high placements garnered the duo 548.75 points over the season, earning them second place in the 2716 Low Children’s Hunter section of the US Equestrian’s national rankings.

Jan. 17, Lily and Bevan traveled to Louisville, Kentucky, for a US Equestrian Foundation year-end gala, at which Lily was recognized as a national reserve champion.

Now, Lily plans to keep monitoring Finn to see what level of competition he is comfortable with. Lily has moved up a level in show age, Bevan explained, which means tougher competition.

“We’ve talked about, he does have limitations because he’s getting older, and I think the real important thing out of those conversations for me, as her mom and her cheerleader, is that I see her heart through it,” said Bevan. “When we talk about, what if you want to progress and Finn can’t jump at the upcoming level, what do we do? She really doesn’t feel like she would want to necessarily jump into another horse, she would almost hold herself back in order to stay with him because they love each other so much.”

Finn, due both to his age and past injury, sees a chiropractor and a massage therapist, and Bevan says Lily can see a change in him after he receives treatment. Lily is a member of the Lebanon County Youth Advisory Board and shadows surgeries at Animal Health Care of Myerstown.

Lily and Finn will likely keep showing for the rest of the sophomore’s time in high school, Bevan said. Then, Lily hopes to be accepted into the University of Pennsylvania’s veterinary program, and then study to be an equine chiropractor.

“Winning is incredible, but just having Finn to call my own is a dream come true,” said Lily.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article misstated Erika Kurtz’s last name and conflated it with that of trainer Scott Burkhart. LebTown sincerely regrets the error.