By Liam Gambon, The MetroWest Daily News

MENDON, Mass. -- Max. It’s a common name for a not so common horse.

While Max now belongs to Nipmuc Regional High School alum and current Bridgewater State University junior Katherine Ryan and her mother, Christina, the Irish Sport Horse is originally from, well, Ireland. First, he traveled from Europe to Martha’s Vineyard, then made his way back to Ireland before finding a home with the Ryan family.

At 18 years old, Max has lived a long life but isn’t slowing down.

“He’s getting along in years but he’s still active and a lot of fun,” said Christina, who lives in Mendon. “I got Max five years ago and it was the best thing I ever did. He’s like one of the kids.”

While Christina takes Max out more frequently than her daughter, once Katherine is back from school, she’ll go with her mother to take the old horse out for a ride.

“Either she’ll hop on first or I’ll hop on and we’ll jump him around,” Christina said. “We just have fun with him.”

While equestrian is her sport at BSU, Katherine’s original sporting passion was softball. During her time at Nipmuc, she was a member of the 2015 Division 2 Central championship team and finished out her senior year on the mound with an 8-3 record posting a 1.78 ERA with 72 strikeouts. Ryan also had a grip on the bat, as she hit for a .429 average with five home runs, 29 RBIs, 20 runs and 11 stolen bases.

The senior captain was named Dual Valley Conference Player of the Year and piled up three DVC All-Star nods before heading to play the game at BSU. But after being on the team for her freshman season with the Bears, she found her way back to equestrian, a sport she had started when she was 10.

“My sister did it before me as an activity but didn’t really like it,” recalled Katherine, now 20. “But I seemed interested when I went to see her ride, so I started taking lessons and just picked it up from there.”

Christina also took on the sport at the same time.

“She started because I did. It was kind of a chain reaction in the family,” Katherine said. “She saw that I liked it, so she started taking lessons about the same time I did and has been doing it ever since.”

“I was like Elizabeth, I didn’t really like it as a kid,” Christina said. “I thought, ‘Oh, I’ll take a few lessons.’”

Those few lessons turned into Max joining the family. After years of being cared for by Katherine and Christina, the 18-year-old horse from Ireland is one of the Ryans.

Despite the connection with Max, Katherine has to ride horses randomly picked in a draw at BSU. Riding other horses, in her first year of college equestrian she improved from two fourth-place and one fifth-place finish at the start of the season to two second-place ribbons by the end.

“She rides very well, she’s very versatile,” Bridgewater State University equestrian coach Christine Murphy said. “We ride different horses that we’ve never ridden before every show and she does very well with adapting to the skills that each individual horse needs. She’s a very good rider.”

And that riding kicked off five years ago when Max came to town. With her second season of equestrian canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Katherine and the team went from lifting one to two times a week, practicing twice, and having shows on the weekend, to practicing only once a week and splitting the team into sections.

But on her own time, Katherine goes with her mother to 385 Chestnut St. in Uxbridge and visits Max at Singing Winds Farm. Just like they did on Thursday, Katherine and Christina take Max out for rides.

“Sometimes we’ll pack around together, we’ll ride just for fun,” Katherine said. “It’s been very different not having a season to say the least.”

With Max not far from their home in Mendon, Katherine will continue to toss on her riding gear and work with her and her mother’s horse as she prepares for the next season.