VideoFive riders in Zone 2 of the Interscholastic Equestrian Association (IEA) have received comprehensive financial support this competition season, thanks to the selfless last wishes of another young equestrian.
Rayas Niccolini-Greenlee, a dedicated and compassionate horsewoman, was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive pediatric brain cancer in 2025, at the age of just 14. Her mother, Keiko Niccolini, a passionate group of barn friends, and Rayas’ beloved Thoroughbred Nikko buoyed her through every stage of her illness.
When she became a Make-A-Wish “wish kid” in 2025, Rayas chose to use the opportunity to pay it forward, establishing the Ride for Rayas Grant through the IEA earlier this year in hopes of increasing young riders’ access to horses and showing.
Just a few weeks before Rayas passed in February of 2026, the group held a dedication ceremony for the grant, setting a goal to help one or two riders this first year. In August, five IEA riders were awarded grants for the 2026-2027 season, honoring the life of a young woman who, in her final months, radiated her light outward to make the equestrian world a more inclusive place.
‘So Much Care and Support’
Rayas was fascinated by horses from the time she was a toddler, Keiko recalled. When Rayas was 9 and the COVID pandemic shut down Brooklyn, the family traveled to Keiko’s godmother’s home on a farm in rural Vermont for what was supposed to be a two-week visit.
They stayed for two years.
One of the first safe activities that Rayas was able to do during the pandemic was ride, and she “devoured the experience,” Keiko said.
Soon she was lessoning four days a week.
“Some of us search for a lifetime for the thing that we love,” Keiko said. “Rayas found her passion for horses very early, and there was just something very deep within her that clicked when she was at the barn. She was very dedicated at a young age, so down the rabbit hole we went!”
When the family returned to New York City, Rayas began riding at Riverdale Stables in the Bronx. There she found an extraordinary group of young women that would become her closest friends.
“There was never any drama,” Keiko said. “Just so much care and support. They are such a hype squad, at shows and at the barn. The way they care for and nurture each other, it’s like the best adult friendships that women search a lifetime for, crammed into a group of girls between 12 and 19.”
“Rayas was always the first one to include anybody,” said friend Luella Pivnick. “She was always aware of who was on the outside of the group, and she was the one who would bring them in. And if someone had a tough ride, or was having a bad day, she was always the first one to go to them and be supportive and try to help.”
Rayas was as dedicated to her horses as she was to her barn family. When she was in eighth grade, for example, she woke at 3:30 a.m. to put a training ride on the horse she was leasing before leaving for a class trip because he thrived on their routine.
“She was always so devoted to her horse’s needs,” Keiko said.
When Rayas was turning 14, the search began for a horse of her own. At the suggestion of a cousin, Keiko contacted Deirdre Hamling, owner and trainer at nearby Raven Hill Farms, for help. After 5,000 miles of driving to look at horses, they found Nikko, a 10-year-old, tall, bay off-track Thoroughbred, just one town over.
“All of her loves have been 17-hand, dark bay Thoroughbreds,” Keiko said with a laugh. “The wilder the better.”
Nikko As Medicine
But shortly after finding Nikko, Rayas began experiencing severe headaches and muscle weakness, and—a rider with impeccable equitation—she complained of not being able to keep her leg on during lessons.
She spent the first three months of 2025 in and out of hospitals before receiving a diagnosis in April: an atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumor (ATRT), a rare and aggressive pediatric cancer affecting the central nervous system.
Her mother, “fiercely protective” of her daughter’s dignity, makes it abundantly clear that Rayas would want to be remembered for who she was as a rider and a friend rather than for her illness.
“But I also don’t want to minimize the tremendous grace and strength with which she endured it all,” Keiko said.
After a weeks-long hospital stay in May—during which Rayas had to relearn how to sit, stand and walk—Keiko pushed her daughter out the hospital doors in a wheelchair.
“But instead of going home,” Hamling remembered, “Rayas insisted on coming to the barn to see Nikko. That first day was a struggle. She was using a walker. But a few days later, there was no more walker, and a few weeks later she was riding. I cannot convey the amount of grit in that girl.”
“By mid-June, she was demanding to ride,” Keiko said. “It took three of us to get her on. But when she got up there, she looked perfect. I don’t know if it was muscle memory, or divinity, or what. And Nikko, he just took the greatest care with her. She just asked, and he just went.”
Several times when Rayas’ illness kept her from the barn, Hamling and another friend, Jane Wiley, trailered the gelding to Rayas’ front yard for visits.
“That horse has been medicine for all of us,” Keiko said. “Rayas especially. He carried her through the unimaginable.”
In the summer of 2025, amid difficult chemotherapy and radiation treatments, Rayas began working with a unique program at Hamling’s Raven Hill Farm: Equi-Power Solutions’ “Medicine and Horsemanship” workshop, a mandatory, credited course for students at two local medical schools. By working with the horses, the med students learn just how important their energy and nonverbal communication are when it comes to patient care. The horses, Hamling explained, teach the medical students how to hear what their patients don’t say.
Rayas approached Hamling and asked if she could speak to the future doctors. She wanted them to know, from a patient’s perspective, just how vital the connections with her doctors was during her illness.
“We hold 20 four-hour sessions every summer,” Hamling said, “and when Rayas wasn’t receiving treatment, she was there, speaking to the students. This was completely her—driven. She was always an old soul, and she made an impact in 15 years that most people don’t make in 100.”
Make-A-Wish to Make a Difference
Also in the summer of 2025, Rayas became eligible for Make-A-Wish.
“She said there wasn’t a thing she wanted or needed,” Keiko said. “But the expense of riding had always been a conversation, especially as we went to more shows and clinics and bought Nikko. She knew that I sometimes took on additional jobs to pay for things, but she also knew that I was happy to do it because I saw the value in the horses.
“Rayas also realized that there is an inequity in riding,” Keiko continued. “She’s a mixed-race and very proud queer kid, often the only one in certain riding environments. We talked about this a lot driving back and forth to palliative radiation treatments in November and December. Who gets to ride? Who has access? And it was on these car rides that the idea of the grant came about.”
Rayas chose to create her grant through the IEA because she’d done much of her showing with them and was aware of the unique access that the organization provides its members. When Keiko reached out about the grant idea, she said the IEA was “fully supportive from the beginning.”
“Rayas wanted to make the IEA a place where people feel like they belong,” said Sophia Houck, another barn friend. “So our goal is to help people feel like they belong in the horse world, no matter their background or what they look like. Rayas just loved the horses and wanted everyone to have that experience. I want to carry that forward, that welcomeness, and coming at people with open arms.”
Make-A-Wish helped to launch the grant, providing seed funding of $5,000.
And those riding friends? They became the Ride for Rayas Youth Advisory Board, shouldering responsibilities like fundraising, advertising, running social media accounts, and eventually, selecting the grant’s first recipients.
In January of 2026, the group announced the creation of the Ride for Rayas grant through the IEA.
“We had a little celebration at home,” Keiko said, “with members of the youth board and their parents, a few representatives from Make-A-Wish, and a few of Rayas’ trainers. Many of her loved ones spoke about Rayas as a rider, teammate and friend, and we left that night with a clear vision of what it is we’re carrying forward. It was a beautiful celebration.”
Rayas passed on Feb. 15, 2026. She was 15 years old.
From One to Five
Ride for Rayas hoped to sponsor one or two Zone 2 riders for the 2026-2027 season. Due to the incredible support from their grass-roots fundraising efforts, grants were awarded to five Zone 2 riders.
“We calculated the costs carefully,” Keiko said, “and tried to make the grant as comprehensive as possible. We cover membership fees, show fees, lessons, barn transportation, coaching fees, possible trips to zones or nationals. We calculated as many scenarios for the season as we could. But another thing that feels really important to us is supporting the kids beyond just finances. Members of our youth board went to one of our grantee’s IEA team tryouts to cheer her on. We’re taking the grantees on a shopping trip to Green Valley Tack, Rayas’ favorite tack shop, which is helping us outfit them for schooling and showing. We want them to feel like they are part of a community. Something bigger.
“One of the biggest things that Rayas got, and gave, from riding was the sense of community,” continued Keiko. “She and her friends were constantly cheering each other on, fixing hair nets, wiping boots. They were always looking out for each other, helping each other out, making sure everyone was OK. That’s the culture of this youth board, and to have our grantees exposed to this kind of community feels equally important. What becomes of you when you’re treated that way, and when you show up for others that way—it defines how you are in the world.”
For Pivnick and other members of the youth advisory board, honoring Rayas means picking up where she had to leave off.
“When we’d go and visit Rayas, especially in those last few months, she talked about how important it was to her to give to the riding community,” Pivnick said. “It became very clear to us that this was what she wanted to be done, and that she really wanted us to carry it forward for her. It’s an incredible task she left for us, and it’s also really fun to give riders this opportunity.
“It’s also a way to stay connected to Rayas, too,” she added. “And that’s really special for all of us.”
This fall, as Ride for Rayas supports their first grantees through the season, Keiko and the youth advisory board will continue fundraising and advertising to help future riders. Also this fall, Hamling plans to dedicate Raven Hill’s indoor arena to Rayas.
“I want everyone riding into that arena to remember her strength, grace, dignity, and devotion to horses,” Hamling said.
Keiko will have another competitor on her radar this show season: Rayas’ beloved Nikko. He moved to Sweet Briar College over the summer and joined their Intercollegiate Horse Shows Association (IHSA) program this fall.
“It feels full circle,” she said. “Rayas would have loved going to an all-girls college like Sweet Briar. And the school was actually founded by a mother who lost her 16-year-old daughter.”
Keiko and Wiley, a Sweet Briar alum and the same friend who trailered Nikko to visit Rayas when she was ill at home, took Nikko to the school together.
“I miss Nikko terribly,” Keiko said, “but this is so great for him. He’s on a gorgeous campus surrounded by adoring, talented young women. And he’s going to get to do all the things that Rayas always wanted to do with him. He’s carrying her dreams forward. She’d be so proud.”
Keiko is beyond grateful for Ride for Rayas, and in particular, the youth board.
“Through all of this, Rayas and I have had these girls,” she said. “They’d sneak into the hospital to see her. They’d visit her at home, and they’d help her at the barn. One made and brought her pumpkin bread when it was the only thing she wanted to eat. Now, they’ve taken Ride for Rayas and launched it full steam ahead.
“We have a very lively group chat!” she continued. “I’m so grateful that Rayas left us with a mission, and a vehicle for staying connected. The youth board’s involvement is critical, and they keep me going, too.”
Learn More:
For more information on the Ride for Rayas grant, visit https://rideforrayasofficial.com/ or follow the group on Instagram @rideforrayasofficial.