Michele Davis Macfarlane - EQUESTRIAN
(From left to right) sister Roxanne, father Everett Conley, Michele, mother Ellen Browning. 1962 Rose Parade.
Michele Davis Macfarlane
Saddle Seat equitation
Michele Davis Macfarlane is one of the most important figures in the history of Saddle Seat competition. Saddle seat is a style of horse riding within the category of English riding that is designed to show off the power, grace and extravagant gaits of certain horse breeds.
Michele is the winner of multiple World's Grand Championship titles for five-gaited Saddlebreds, and the first woman to do so. She won an unprecedented five (5) championships at the Kentucky State Fair - the largest horse show in the world.
In 2020 she was awarded the Pegasus Medal of Honor, the highest award for lifetime achievement in the equestrian world. The Pegasus Award is determined by votes of U.S. Equestrian Federation members.
Her skills in standard gaits of walk, trot, and canter, won her fans worldwide. After her career in competition, she turned to exhibition, and performed before the Royal Families in Japan and Britain.
In her retirement, Michele is an exhibitor of classic stage coaches, a tradition begun by her 3rd great-uncle John Conley, a wheelwright and manufacturer of stage coaches in Huntsville, Alabama in the 1840s. Each New Year’s Day, she leads the equestrian procession of the Rose Parade. Her beautifully restored carriages and stage coaches are often featured. Each year parade audiences are treated to a different cultural theme for her carriages, riding costumes, and horse tack.
Michele is the daughter of Everett Conley Davis, and great-granddaughter of Quartermaster Pascal Conley, aide to General John J. Pershing (who served with Teddy Roosevelt in the Spanish-American War). Through this bloodline, she is 2x-great-granddaughter of Pascal Conley Sr., and 3x-great-granddaughter of James Conley, the stable master who managed horses for U.S. Presidents Polk, Jackson and Monroe while Head Groom at the Green Bottom Inn Equestrian Resort in the early 1800s and Antebellum Era.
Michele Davis Macfarlane has presented for two U.S. Presidents and the royal families of Britain and Japan.
The subject of countless articles in horse publications, Michele Davis Macfarlane is a legendary figure in the Saddle Seat category. For more than 60 years, she has thrilled audiences worldwide as a breeder, rider, and carriage driver.
For two centuries, the Conley Family equestrian legacy has touched nearly every aspect of the equestrian world since 1815. The 3rd-great uncle of Michele Davis Macfarlane, James Conley Jr., was but one example. Trained as a wheelwright, he became a manufacturer of horse carriages, coaches, and buggies in Madison County, Alabama of the 1800s. The Family’s success in riding and competition spanned the gamut from Flat Racing and Steeple Chase to Carriage Driving and Endurance, and most famously, Saddlebred Pleasure. Various Conleys have quietly pursued a single standard of excellence in equestrian pursuits recognized by a number of U.S. Presidents from Andrew Jackson to Ronald Reagan.