Standing O: Jennifer Miko shares the trail to happiness with community

Jennifer Miko, owner of Equestrian Adventures of Florida, has overcome obstacles to inspire others.

  • By Michele Meyers
  • | 11:00 a.m. January 4, 2023
  • Ormond Beach Observer
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In the second grade, Jennifer Miko found a cat. Frisky became the first pet her parents, Gabriella and Ernest Miko, allowed her to keep.

“I had to beg for a cat when I was growing up,” she said. “I think I’ve overcompensated now.”

Now, she surrounds herself with a menagerie of 21 horses, four donkeys, two goats, 11 dogs, who knows how many chickens and guinea hens, three cats, two rabbits and a beehive on a 52-acre farm on the outskirts of Ormond Beach. This is home base for her business: Equestrian Adventures of Florida.

Her latest additions are two rescue dogs —a Pomeranian mix named Pippin (Bear) and a miniature golden retriever-collie mix renamed Dusty. All of Miko’s dogs, cats and rabbits are rescues. Since their arrival, she has learned how to say “no” to a variety of pleas requesting her assistance sheltering and caring for abused, abandoned and surrendered animals.

Building a business

Miko was born in Hempstead, New York, and raised in Nazareth, Pennsylvania.

Jenny Zimmet, one of our 2022 Standing Os, nominated Jennifer Miko for the recognition this year. Photo by Michele Meyers

 

"Jennifer has created beautiful horseback riding tours.  Many riders, of all levels, come to her to celebrate life’s special moments--birthdays, anniversaries, family vacations and more.  Her beautifully crafted tours create memories that last a lifetime."

Jenny Zimmet

She earned her bachelor’s degree in mass communications at Temple University in Philadelphia, then moved to Miami for two years. In 1995, she moved to Ormond Beach, went back to school, and within two years graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in elementary education from Stetson University.

She began teaching science and language arts in 1997 at Ormond Beach Middle School, where she was part of a group of four highly sought-after teachers called “team 60”.

“I liked teaching,” Miko said. “I was one of those teachers that put a ton into it. When you’re grading papers, you do the positive first and then you give the criticism, but you do it in a positive way or you do different learning styles to figure out how to reach that child. I also had them write a lot, which meant I had to read and grade a lot.”

In 2004, she was offered a position as a pharmaceutical representative for Merck & Company. Miko was given 12 hours to make a decision, and she opted to take the job.

She also bought Lucky, her first horse, and learned how to ride from her friend Vicky Kessler.

Once she understood how to work with horses, she began giving rides on holidays and weekends.

After she’d survived many rounds of layoffs, Miko was laid off from Merck in January 2018 and began to focus on her business.

“I always wanted to do this full time,” she said. “But, I was always too afraid not to have a paycheck.”

Beating cancer

By 2018, Miko had 12 horses and was successfully operating the business and maintaining the farm by herself.

She realized that access to Mala Compra Beach for her horses was a priority, so she began attending the Flagler County Commission meetings and helped the successful initiative to push Flagler County to pass beach equestrian permitting, which established regulations for riders and equestrian businesses.

Before Miko celebrated her 50th birthday in November 2018, she went in for a 3D mammogram.

Doctors found a spot on one of her breasts. She grabbed her dog Sophie and drove to the Georgia mountains for her birthday, and, when she returned, she had a biopsy and was diagnosed with breast cancer on Dec. 8.

“I cried my eyes out,” she said. “I still remember that day. I was at Disney when I found out. It was right before my niece was coming out to march in the band at Disney. But I don’t remember the next few days.”

“It’s the most physically demanding job I’ve ever had but it’s the best job I’ve ever had.”

Jennifer Miko, owner Equestrian Adventures of Florida

Two weeks before her first surgery, she was giving a tour at the Tiger Bay State Forest when she met Terry Marr, who was on vacation and had brought two of his horses.

She told him she needed to shut down her business.

He asked about her beach rides. For two weeks, he went on the rides with Miko and learned the business.

Then he ran the tours while Miko fought breast cancer for a year and a half. Because of her family’s history with cancer, she opted for a double mastectomy and had eight surgeries. She is now cancer-free.

Miko, Marr and her horses are changing people’s lives for the better every time they hit the trail.

Clients tell her on a regular basis that they needed to hear her story or that the horses have had a calming effect on them.

“I love to make people happy,” she said. “People have written back a year or two years later and said they still think about that ride and are still going because of it. It makes my heart happy to see other people happy.”

 

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