Kendall & Nicole Bourgeois Divide and Conquer at Imagination Lane

For Kendall and Nicole Bourgeois, Thunderbird Show Park is their home away from home.

The sisters, who together run Imagination Lane out of West Linn, OR, have been competing in Langley since they were in grade school. With both girls exhibiting talent in the saddle from an early age, family and friends planted the seed and encouraged the idea of a sister-sister show stable.

“I went to college and graduated and everyone had told us all along to do it,” Nicole recalled. “I had a real job for a little bit, and then we decided to give it a go and navigated our way to starting a business.”

Over the years, Nicole has become known as the hunter rider, while Kendall has come to focus on the jumpers in the stable—though from time to time, they’re known to make a switch. While part of the specialization is personal preference, the separation has coincided with the growth of their stable. Nicole and Kendall may have their strengths, but logistically, dividing and conquering the horse show has helped their business thrive.

“There are so many rings to cover. It’s hard to show in the hunters, and jumpers and make all the course walks and under saddles. Logistically, it can’t be done,” Kendall explained. “That’s more where we divided and conquered.”

Even still, Imagination Lane has three additional assistant trainers on its staff to allow Kendall and Nicole to make the ultimate juggle as professional riders and trainers for their stable of 30-plus. And in 2022, Kendall’s daughter Alison added two more important roles to the equation: motherhood and aunthood.

“Being an aunt is the best!” Nicole exclaimed. “My sister and I stay in the RV together [at tbird], so Ali is with us a lot. I hang out with her quite a bit, and our mom is at the show and watches her. It’s super fun. We’re all very close.”

It’s been a particularly successful summer for the Bourgeois sisters, as Kendall finished second in the CSI3* JustWorld International Winning Round competition at the Summer Fort Welcome, while Nicole won both sections of the Amy Brettebo Real Estate Derby. Over the last few years, Kendall has jumped her first five-star classes, and while she was pregnant, Nicole took the ride aboard her sister’s top mount Flinton M for her own debut Grand Prix start.

“The nice thing is, at the end of the day, we have the same idea, the same style of coaching and riding, and we like the same [type of] horses. We’re not on different pages, so it makes everything easier,” Nicole said. “[The messaging] is consistent. It might be said in a different way, but we usually have same eye for things. It helps our horses a lot.”