It’s the embodiment of a family tradition and values. John and Suzellen Holt founded the Club in 2002. A Tucson native, John grew up with horses in the back yard of his family home. Suzellen moved from her family’s Illinois farm to work as a trainer in Arizona, showing Western Pleasure and dabbling in the rodeo circuit. John demonstrated his smart business sense in 1979 when he hired Suzellen to h
elp run his family’s cattle ranch north of the Tortolita Mountains. Working the ranch together, riding, training and providing practical veterinary care on the ranch didn’t just enhance John and Suzellen’s equine experience and love of horses. Their relationship also deepened, and they married in 1980 and continued raising not just horses but also their daughter Michele. After working successfully together for a decade, John traded ranch life for a new professional pursuit. The family moved closer to Tucson, where John turned to teaching at Mountain View High School. He later served as vice-principal at Emily Grey Junior High School and taught English and history at the Catalina Boys Correctional Facility. During this time, Suzellen kept her equine skills sharp. She ran the horse facility at Sierra Tucson until 1993, when she was recruited to develop and lead the riding program for guests at Miraval Resort. She and John knew that one day they would work together with horses again, and that dream came true when they created The Milagro Riding Club in Oro Valley in 2002. For the next six years, John and Suzellen put their hearts as well as their combined experience and knowledge into owning and operating what quickly became a top-of-the-line boarding and training facility. Their ability to understand and support the relationships between horses and riders allowed them to create a supportive, caring environment where club members set their own goals and progress at their own pace. Following John’s death in 2008, Suzellen used her unmatched expertise to run Milagro on her own until her daughter, Michele, moved with her family to Oro Valley in 2014. Shortly after, Suzellen asked Michele to come aboard as a partner, making Milagro a family-run riding club once again. An active partner, Suzellen hustles to the barn in the early hours to feed, train, and learn from her four-legged friends. She knows there is always more to learn and experience when you work around horses, and she relished the knowledge that her legacy lives on every day through The Milagro Riding Club. Michele Jaffe:
Michele’s return to the family business is proof of the old adage that says: you can take the girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the girl. Growing up on the ranch she learned from John and Suzellen’s loving example a strong work ethic and an affinity for horses. Michele’s natural abilities developed daily as she helped her parents round up cattle and feed doggied calves. With 50 head of horses to choose from, Michele often would go to the pasture, choose a ranch horse and teach him to lope on the correct lead for Western Pleasure classes or jump fences for Hunter/Jumper. Michele left Arizona in 1989 to attend Blackhawk College in Illinois, studying agriculture with an emphasis on equine science. Returning after college to Arizona, she landed a job at El Conquistador, booking trail rides through the beautiful foothills of the Catalina Mountains. In two years at El Con, Michele became office manager, gave private lessons on her horse Bo and ran summer camps for kids. That experience led Michele to her lifelong passion, teaching children and beginners of all ages the joys of the horse world. In 1995 Michele met a New York stock trader. Once Bo gave his approval — the New Yorker was the only suitor that the savvy horse didn’t try to buck off — the couple married, and it was time for Michele to say goodbye to the desert and hello to a new life in New England. Michele found work at Salko Farm in Connecticut, riding horses and teaching children, until her own family began to grow. With Bo’s help, Michele taught her three children the same lessons of hard work and responsibility that Michele learned from her own parents in Arizona. With her husband’s retirement from Wall Street in 2014, the Jaffe family brought their young family to Tucson. Coming home has meant coming full circle for Michele, as she finds herself again working side by side with her mother — and her children: Jordan, JohnAlan, and Joshua — in the family business at Milagro Riding Club.
