By Marshall Campbell

Photo courtesy of Virginia Living Magazine.

You may have seen a large dump truck with a wooden bed and tailgate in the Collegiate parking lot. This truck is not part of the Collegiate maintenance staff’s fleet but belongs to Matthew Richardson (‘07). While he is a 7th grade history teacher, three-season running distance coach, and director of a summer camp, he also has a passion for riding horses and farming. His horseback riding has taken him from farrier school in Oklahoma to getting chased by elephants while on horseback in Africa and encountering lions.

Richardson started Collegiate in kindergarten and grew up on a farm west of Robins Campus in Goochland County. Out on his family’s farm, he learned how to ride horses when he was six years old. He was taught by his grandparents and his uncle, who both raised and rode horses. From a very early age, he was challenging himself in riding through lessons and always riding his grandmother’s old pony, who would frequently try and buck riders off. After consistently riding the pony and not being thrown off, Mathew was gifted the pony by his grandmother. Once he had his pony, he and his uncle would go on long trail rides all across Goochland County.

Once he got to Upper School, he not only outgrew his pony but also became involved in activities at Collegiate, such as sports and being a part of the Honor Council. Looking to save money to buy a new horse, he used his only free time, weekends, to cut and sell firewood in the Richmond area. He ended up selling 10-15 truckloads of firewood every fall. Finally, in 10th grade, he was able to buy his first horse, Shorty. He was only able to ride on the weekends, but he would normally ride with friends on trails in Goochland for 2-5 hours when he could. During the summer, he would even bring his horse to Camp Virginia in Goshen, Virginia. He was a longtime camper and counselor there, supervising horseback riding activities at the camp, so having his horse there was a great experience. 

Photo courtesy of Camp River’s Bend.

After getting adjusted to athletic and academic life in college at Elon University in North Carolina, during his sophomore year in college Richardson decided that he wanted to bring his horse with him. He couldn’t keep his horse on campus, so he found a man on Craigslist who would let him keep his horse in a pasture. In return, Richardson would spend his remaining three years in college repairing the fencing and the barn on the man’s property. Because he wanted to ride with his college friends, he ended up buying another horse so friends who hadn’t ridden before could ride with him. He spent most of his weekends trailering his horses to the trails around Elon in north-central North Carolina and teaching his friends.

Photo credit: Anna Richardson.

After college, Richardson didn’t know what he wanted to do, because he wasn’t sure if he wanted to go into the business world or be a teacher. He felt as though all his friends had jobs or internships, so decided to go to farrier school in Oklahoma, a school designed to teach people how to make and attach horseshoes. The farrier school, located in a barn, was extremely hot due to the forge used for making horseshoes, and with the heat of Oklahoma during the summer time, most days were around 115 degrees. Many of the horses that were brought into farrier school normally weren’t well-mannered, so many would kick and bite him while he was tending to them. Once, a fellow farrier’s elbow was broken by a horse kick, and the instructor made Richardson jump in to finish the job. He also got attacked once by a miniature pony. When reminiscing about farrier school, Richardson claimed that, “compared to all the hiking, running, and school I’ve done, farrier school is the hardest thing I have ever done.”

Richardson came back to Collegiate in 2011 as a coach and then became a substitute in 2012. In the fall of 2013, he became a full-time teacher and adviser at Collegiate in the Middle School. Will Robins (‘21) says Richardson “was a very relaxed and excellent teacher who enjoyed the material he studied.”

Richardson’s love for riding at camp was also one of the many reasons he helped open Camp River’s Bend in 2015. Camp River’s Bend is a popular summer camp for boys in Millboro, Virginia that instills the values of sportsmanship, service, and gratitude while allowing boys to participate in many outdoor activities. Richardson serves as the director at the camp, which comes with many different responsibilities, but Richardson also helps out in the stables. He puts shoes on horses, takes care of horses’ medical issues, and helps by being a more experienced counselor on rides. Lead stable counselor Clay Coleman (‘19) says Richardson, “has an abundance of knowledge related to horseback riding activity, and often when he comes down to riding activity, we end up learning a lot from him.” Richardson makes it interesting and informative for the campers and counselors when he joins a ride. 

Working on the Richardson farm. Photo credit: Anna Richardson.

Richardson still loves farming and riding horses in his daily life, despite how busy he is. He spends most of his weekends building his farm in Goochland from scratch. He has been cutting and selling hay for the past two years to help finance the farm. So far, he has built a barn and most of the fences. In the next two years, he plans on building his house out on the property for his wife and future family. He also plans to raise cattle out on the farm and keep both his horses on this land as well.