My Riding Life



Here's how it all started:  Sandy, a Chincoteague gelding, approximately 10 hands.


 
I spent most of my time with Sandy either galloping across the neighbor's corn field or being scraped off under low hanging branches in the nearby apple orchard.  Sandy delighted in breaking out of his pasture and going to visit Kimstead, a Thoroughbred farm down the road.

After Sandy, there was Patches.  Patches was about 13.2 hands, a bay pinto gelding that had been abused and "cowboyed."  All he knew how to do was run.  That was okay with me, until I joined the Hollis Buccaneers, my local 4-H club.  I suddenly realized there was more to riding than just galloping, and that Patches was not going to be the show mount I now wanted.

When I saw an ad in the local free paper for a free horse, 16 hands, buckskin, Quarter Horse Thoroughbred cross, apx. 16 years old, I knew I had found my dream horse.  I went and tried him out and loved him.  He rode English and Western, knew how to jump, and was absolutely beautiful.  Cracker Jack became my next horse.  Together we did everything, barrel racing, trail riding, egg and spoon (won my first blue ribbon in this class,) and started jumping.  By my senior year in high school I knew I wanted to do something with horses.  My parents threat to sell my horse if I went to college sealed my decision to *not* go to college, and I headed off to farrier school in Virginia.  It didn't take very long for me to realize I didn't want to make a career of farriery, and I took a working student position at the Fulmer International School of Equitation, right down the road from me.  Jack was about to learn dressage.  I spent 9 months working in Pepperell, then went to Yorkshire, England for 8 weeks and came home with my British Horse Society Assistant Instructor's certification.

Jack took to dressage like he took to everything else.  He was just a good boy.  This picture was taken in 1981, at Flying Horse Stables, where we were doing our very first 2 phase event, at Pre-training level.  We had a couple of stops in the stadium phase, but I was hooked.  By the way, Jack is 21 years old in this picture.  With Jack, I continued my education, riding in a clinic with Tad Coffin and taking lessons from a local event and dressage instructor.  I started teaching at my parents' farm and adding stalls for boarders.  1981 was the year I started riding in horse trials too, taking my first 3-phase ribbon in Pre-training at Andover Horse Center.  By the summer of 1982 my business had outgrown our location in Hollis and we started looking for something bigger.  We found it in Warner, NH, an established combined training facility called Runaway Farm.  Runaway brought a lot of changes.  I was able to run horse trials and two phase events, I had an indoor to ride in, and I soon had new horses to ride too.  Jack continued to compete with my students, while I moved up to training level on an old campaigner named Tecumseh Chief in 1983.  In 1984 I partnered with a little mare named Happy Appy and started traveling up to Huntington Farm to ride with a new instructor.  Jane Savoie taught me a lot, and I still use many of the imaging techniques she used.  Happy cleaned up at training level, and I moved her up to Preliminary at Stoneleigh Burnham.  She strained a tendon going cross country, and that was it for her for the season. 


Happy Appy - Training level, Doornhof, 1985


By that time though, I had a new horse to bring along.  Dovekey was a silly young thoroughbred I thought would be easy to resell because she was so cute.  We started out at local schooling shows, where she bucked every time I asked her to canter.  She had some jumping talent though, and by the fall we were foxhunting with the North Country Hounds.  The following spring had me competing Dee at Novice and Happy at training level until she was sold to a younger rider.  This year also brought a big change in instruction.  I really wanted to ride with someone who could help me with my jumping, so I loaded my silly little mare in the trailer and drove 2 hours to Dover Massachusetts to ride with Mike Plumb.  The first lesson left me in tears, but convinced that this guy knew what he was talking about and wasn't afraid to tell me what I was doing wrong.  Under Mike's tutelage I brought Dovekey up to training level that summer and rode another little horse at novice. 


Dovekey - Preliminary, UNH 1986

That winter Mike told me to find a new horse, one with some milage.  In late winter of 1985 Denny Emerson told me he knew of a horse, up in Canada with Peter Gray.  Big old horse, in his teens, had just been doing young riders, could be what I was looking for, but he only had one eye.  Sinnerman turned out to be the best horse I ever owned, probably the best horse I ever will own.  He had done the alternate Olympics in 1980 and the world championships in 1982 with Nick Holmes-Smith.  He was some kind of Canadian thoroughbred cross, bay, with one eye and a huge abcessed tooth that couldn't be pulled.  His nickname was Goat (probably because he liked to eat his blankets.)  He was hard to ride on the flat, but would jump anything if I pointed him right, and by the end of the summer I had ridden him around almost every Preliminary course in Area 1. Going Open Preliminary at Stoneleigh Burnham, we placed 5th, and the first four spots went to current members of the USET, Torrance and Bruce and Mike and those kind of people. 


Sinnerman - Open Preliminary, Stoneleigh Burnham, 1986 (In the pouring rain!)



Dovekey - Preliminary, Stoneleigh Burnham, 1986


Sinnerman - Preliminary, Millbrook, 1986 (Raining again!)

Dovekey had moved up to Preliminary as well, but was really difficult in dressage, keeping us out of the ribbons at that level.  She did well enough to place consistently at training level, and in the fall of 1986 we represented area 1 in the Adult Team Championships at training level, winning the competition with only three riders.  All three of us placed in the top six.  Also that fall I rode Goat at Chesterland, and got eliminated.  It was the biggest event I had ever been entered in, and even though he had pulled a back muscle I wanted to go.  I never should have asked him to do that, and I regret it to this day.  I remember crying in his mane after cross country, and Charlie Plumb yelling at me for being such a baby.  "I got eliminated here last year, and I didn't cry about it," he said.  "I'm not crying because I got eliminated," I responded, "I'm upset because I shouldn't have pushed my wonderful horse to do this when he was in pain.  I just wanted to ride at Chesterland and I didn't care about his back."



Sinnerman - Preliminary, Chesterland, 1986

Fall of 1986 found me searching for another new horse, something a little younger now that I had my milage on Goat.  This time I found a big chestnut named Here's Hoping, nicknamed Moss.  His dressage was awful, but he had been a show jumper and was good at that.  I spent the winter working on dressage with him and started out at training level in the spring.  He stopped every time out, but I could see the problem, I felt I was dropping him, and I went ahead with my plans to move him up anyway.  Mike was away, but I really thought I could do this, so in May of 1987 we started at Preliminary at Hitching Post.  I was also riding Dee Preliminary and we drove up that morning, and I was exhausted by the time I started around the course on Moss.  Moss fell at a small bank, and when he got up, he stepped on me.  I was wearing a Tipperary vest, one I had picked out at Chesterland the previous year.  Still, I ended up with six ribs broken in 9 places and spent 11 days at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center.  It was a long road back, but by August I was competing again, doing dressage with Dee and Moss at GMHA.  Moss did well enough at First Level to qualify for the New England regional championships, quite a change from the jumper who couldn't do dressage a year earlier.  By the fall I was going Preliminary again, on Dee at Ledyard and Moss at UNH (1st place after cross country, 4th after a terrible stadium round in a freak snow squall.)  I took Moss down to Maryland to do Preliminary at Waredaca, where he got eliminated.  That would be the last time I would ride him in a horse trial. 


Here's Hoping - Preliminary, Waredaca 1987

<>I felt I needed a change, and moved to Oklahoma in the spring of 1988 to take a job at a ranch, teaching and training.  It lasted two weeks.  I moved back to New England and worked at a summer camp, sold Moss and then moved to central NH to work at a ski area.  The following year I tried to come back with Dee, competing at training level and moving back up to Preliminary at Stoneleigh Burnham again, but an allergic reaction left her with pneumonia, diagnosed by the on-site vet, and forced our withdrawal after dressage.  I took her up to the Attitash Equine Festival to do some 3'9" jumpers, and found someone to lease her while I went to college.

  I managed to hold onto Dee through the years, sending her out on lease several times but always getting her back.  We put Dee down in the spring of 2005.  She's buried in the paddock.  I did a dressage test on Murphy in 2003, my first time competing since 1989.  I sold Murph in 2005, and found Spud.

With Spud, I did a dressage test at Green Acres (1st place!) and a two phase at Appletree Farm (1st after dressage and third after jumping with one silly stop.)  I'm looking forward to doing more with Spuddy next year.  Back in the saddle again!