LUTZ, FLA--

All is right in the world when Jennifer Mitchell sits atop her horse.

It’s a busy life, one filled with a lot of activities as her senior year flies by.

“I’m trying to just take it all in and make a lot of fun memories,” Mitchell said.

She’s cramming a lot in to create those memories. Track, cheerleading, seven honor clubs, student government, yearbook staff. There’s not much this Bishop McLaughlin senior doesn’t do.

“I’m really competitive,” she said. “I grew up with a brother who loved sports  and we’d always race around the yard and I had to be competitive to hold my own.”

That competitive nature really comes out any time she climbs on a horse.  While she’s dabbled in a variety of sports, the one constant in her life has been horseback riding.

“If there’s something that’s hard for her, she tries again and again,” Avalon Stables owner and trainer Pam Roush said. “And she not just tries, she makes a plan, comes back and tries, thoughtfully puts it in order and tries to execute it.”

Her partner in horseback riding crime, Taz. The two share similar personalities. And there’s one emotion Mitchell always experiences any time the two are together.

“Excitement because I know we’re going to go out there and tackle new challenges every day and we just work really well together, “ Mitchell said.

Really well. In her 13 years of competitive saddle seat, Mitchell and Taz have combined for multiple high point awards, the highest honor at her level of riding.

“What she’s shown us growing up in this sport bleeds over into her academic career, her other athletic things she does,” Roush said. “I mean, she’s just one of those special kids.”

Special with a mind set on being the best she can possibly be.

“That confidence,” Roush said, “and that I got this attitude bleeds over into life.”