The Sights, And Snacks, Of Wellington
The horses have settled into Florida, and we’re up and running. I have four amateur clients with me, with competition ambitions from training level to Grand Prix. Puck is working beautifully, day by day wrapping his head around the fact that my leg ain’t goin’ nowhere and accepting this as his lot in life. Danny is back under saddle, spending a month walking to rebuild muscle, as well as walking 30 minutes, four days a week on the super-cool water treadmill. Life is getting back to normal.
But Wellington is anything but normal. Thousands of horses come to this little town every year. There are a dozen tack shops, half a dozen feed stores. The art everywhere—on the sidewalks, on the walls of the coffee shops and restaurants, even at the gym—is horses. This is the holy land.
And this has also been my winter home for eight of the last 11 years, so I know my way around a bit. Should you find yourself down Wellington way, here’s a few places to make sure you visit.
Read the rest at The Chronicle of the Horse!
There’s a lexicon to dressage. Connection, suspension, swing: These are words that have a very specific horsey, and dressage-y, context that we dressage trainers throw around and make it sound like we’re speaking Swahili, such that a layman might not grasp our meaning.
Jan. 1: It’s 2018! Good riddance 2017, you unmitigated disaster, you complete dumpster fire, you. This is going to be a great year. It’s all turning around from here!
Fall has become wintertime, and wintertime is about to become Florida-time. It’s t-minus four days from my own departure, with the horses to follow a few days behind. This year I have a record number going—10—as well as it being my first year at my own farm, or at least at a farm I’m renting the entirety of. I’m a good sharer, but it does sound nice to have the run of the place.
I hate the process of buying and selling horses. It’s like speed dating but with a marriage proposal at the end; every horse is imperfect in some way; and even when done perfectly right, with adequate trial time, complete honesty on behalf of both buyer and seller and everything above board, you’re still buying a sentient being who is susceptible to change.
Danny, my top horse, had emergency colic surgery at the end of October. To make a long story as short as possible, I learned that, because he’d had a brief hospital stay in August of 2016 for a non-surgical colic, I was ineligible for the colic surgery coverage I’d thought I’d had through my equine insurance; I’d thought coverage was reinstated a year after the incident, but it’s a year after the date of renewal.
A million years ago when I was young and adorable I attended USDF’s Young Rider Graduate Program, a two-day conference on how to be an adult in the horse business. It was a very informative weekend, with speakers on a huge range of subjects from professional liability to marketing to sponsorship, and one of the speakers was Jane Forbes Clark, who is a major player in ownership of team horses across several disciplines.
I started riding at 11. I took lessons on horses that were only vaguely sound, with ill-fitting tack, who received a bute a day to keep them teaching two lessons a day, six days a week. I rode in arenas where motor oil was used to keep the footing from being dusty, and at barns where horses were kept in standing stalls all day long.
The year 2016 and the first few months of 2017 were really professionally, and personally, incredible. Ella and I had a fantastic end to our partnership, culminating in a great relationship with her new owner. Two other significant horse sales let me make a down payment on a house, and put two exciting new young horses in my life. Business is booming.
Get approached to blog about your experience going to the 2009 USEF Festival of Champions, not because you’re all that good a rider, but because you can write well, spell correctly and turn in consistent work.