2011-03-24

How About This?

It turned out, that during her first day of teaching there, the student's mom was studying the nearly imperceptible lameness of one mid-size chesnut animal, while Jill was personally debating and concentrating on the slight flaw in the way of going of another horse all together, ha.  The big grey horse had tripped, almost ditching his rider.  Meanthwile, the other equine's rider, the Dr.'s daughter, was an amazing little athelete, not to mention delightful person, who insisted on delightful conversation throughout the lesson, ha.

And, but,  plus, also, besides, who on earth wants to teach the VET's daughter?

Later, Jill was indeed honored by the stable owner's forwarded reciprocal question about the new teacher:  "Where did you find her?" Enough said, lol, etc.

*
Meanwhile, Jill always said she wanted to ride horses owned by VETS, because then they could make all the hard practicality vs expense logistical decisions, ha.  She loved every animal every time and wanted to keep it alive and comfortable and happy forever.

While, even the drugs we were or weren't using on the human race were effecting the environment.

And then again, Jill was a water watcher. Not so lol, ha.

2011-03-22

A Cold, Beautiful Winter Outing

At the same time as thy called her "not such a handsome woman" they thought she was pretty hot.

What's the biggest challenge about riding her?" Jill asked the Olympian, bringing the woman's giant mare to the extra tall block in order to mount.  She was thrilled but nervous to be joining the icy hack aboard the huge chestnut.  "Her personality." the vet advised, smiling but not joking.
*
The garbage truck was lead by a salter through the curvy, hilly winter rural roads they were out on.  Jill could sense the horse underneath her tensing and tensing as the racaus trucks came nearer.  The horse really started to freak when the trucks turned the corner where the three were walking.  She was in the middle, a good place to be and the working student who was behind her started shouting.  Jill could not hear his suggestions, over the racket that was terrifying her horse.  She turned the mare's head away and sat deep, faking a smile to relax her body.  The mare was doing tiny bucks and trying to dive into the gully at the side of the road but Jill pulled back on the reins and softened her hips and knees to stay glued to the saddle.  She spoke firmly to the mare: Easy mare, whoa. And turned in the same split second towards the leader's hind end asking for calm walk steps onward.

The trucks glided past, using their brakes and still sliding, luckily alongside instead of towards and then the din began to quiet.

Jill shouted back saying, "I couldn't hear you."

"Oh, I was just telling you she doesn't like trucks." ha.

Flashbacks

Jill had pictures of two and four horse teams up on her bulletin board

"If you want to go, we will send you." he'd said, to her shock and amazement.  Could it be true?

Jill just hoped the amazing offer still stood. And wondered, how on earth to get started!

2011-03-18

New Rules

What our horses need to know about ditches is that they are ALLOWED to relax and jump or step as they see fit - they can put their feet right down in it and run across if they want to... 


And sometimes, pony, where you're careening on down a hill in all your racehorse glory, there's something at the bottom that the rider KNOWs about and YOU don't!


(can you spell Gymnastics?")

* * *
Jill had never even shown Training. 


One time, on a hack with her coach, she did the entire Training course at Caledon. They just kind of came across them, one by one, in prep to show at that level.  They'd trailered over because they were so sick of schooling at home where there was nary a proper cross country jump or water obstacle to be found.
*
So, Jill could still sign up for a horse trial as Pre-training, Snr (instead of having to show "Open," which meant going against the pros/Olympians in the same div ha.

*
First there was all the nonsense about not jumping from a stand still.  Her horse had the scope and she believed in forward f-ing march horse approaches to every obstacle, every time.  Carry on!


*
When the other new rules came out Jill emailed her riding buddy, a sort of fair-weather eventer/non-fox-hunter.


"You can't circle?  if you can't circle then i am NOT going in,  ever again.  You can't walk and you can't circle? What are the too fast horses, like my thoroughbred, supposed to do?  Just keep on moving FORWARD, gaining momentum? (?) (?)    A. C. K.*

2011-03-14

More Anti-Training Methods?

On one hand Jill was glad the property owners were addressing the things around the facility that needed attention -- but on the other hand, she'd enjoyed having the student send her pony right through the snow drift at the about-to-be-repaired end of the arena. What a great training exercise!
*
Every time Jill tried to sell a brood mare in her lesson pony herd, the owners of the place shut her down. If they weren't for sale, why were they working up the ponies? For the show ring? For the beginner lesson program? ha. She recognized that they were talented, sweet, sensible athletes, capable of show ring performances. And, she only wanted the best for the ponies too. She thought they were all to be in the family! Jill thought of herself as a trustworthy match maker, teacher and horse trainer, but they wouldn't allow it...

Therefore she wondered for what purpose that she was putting in about 2 hours work, plus cell phone expenses and mileage for every $15 earned in lesson fees. She'd thought it was at least toward the cause of developing part boarders. Why did the head coach pay less for the use of ponies, while she charged more and supervised less?

Jill had single-handedly done a lot of work to clean up the urine-smelling barn, to make it more presentable, more business like and safer. She had done a lot of work creating an Emergency Plan, organizing both a human and equine first aid kit, planning/giving stable tours, following up to ensure waiver signing, invoicing, filing, cell phone calls back and forth, in order to do all the work of catching the ponies, switching the stirrup leathers, clearing the ring of jumps.... only in order to get started on the real stuff, the stable management and riding parts of the lesson. Whew.

The ponies did not like to be seperated, so private lessons did not add the usual level of additional security, unless she had extra volunteers to lead companion animals! She celebrated all the challenges in the months it took to get a few animals reliably independent and to get two beginners ready to matching levels! She knew it was easier to teach in the lesson factories, where you could shoot a cannon in the arena and a horse wouldn't even blink. But Jill was doing the work here with every one's best interest at heart.

Once things were ready to really get rolling, the owners said they had decided to keep only one coach on the property, the other one, that had been coming and going with them for about a decade. Ouch. It was actually painful how much she would miss the place, specifically, the ponies, not to mention the students in the tiny lesson practice. It was so unfair!

Now that she had ridden all the ponies and pulled the manes, trained all the students and parents about farm rules and organized the payments and schedules to maximize efficiency the boarder/head coach who had recruited her to ride in the first place was squeezing her out, and authorized to take over her students.
*
Jill had experienced it before though and what goes around comes around. She knew eventually she'd be getting calls from those riders who would have had quit from that teacher, and would want to find where Jill was teaching by then!
*
"Why do you think the Sport Office shows her name as a Level 2 but no contact info for her?" her rider pal was asking. Jill was pretty sure that there were complaints lodged against the coach in question, and felt somehow justified to benefit thus, as the only certified teacher listed in the area. Was the "superior" credential flawed?
*
Its true this all came down as Jill dated one of her ex-boyfriends. "So her name is Jill?" It was only a text message but it was still shrill. They'd been spotted together out for a burger and a beer and his current girlfriend was clearly (also) livid. Jill could see why. Behind her back he said he wasn't into her but he was afraid to mess with his professional success by dumping her. "What you feel comes out in what you do," Jill was forever a teacher, always one for doling out advice. "You may as well be consciously truthful. For sure I am getting nothing romantic going with you, though I value our friendship."

At least once after that she'd tried to help professionally. With another opportunity to attend an amazing competition that he declined. The event would in fact make the cover of the magazine he was hoping to sell to, and he would send them a complaint letter about their priorities. In a way she agreed with his point that their choice of the big show cover shot alienates the all-important grassroots members of the sport but on the other hand, did he see the irony?
*
The expert and heavily invested farrier said the academics and executives often didn't know their horses and Jill kept an eye out to see if his theory would hold up. She noticed the new colour photograph at the big Agricultural expo showed this same coach lunging a horse and rider, with three points of contact. There were side reins attached, the rider had reins and the teacher had the lunge line attached. Instead of trashing them in public, Jill wrote the Education Centre, after the fact, trying to stress her interest in being helpful (about the esteemed-in-error-coach's inaccurate display, which she thought was accidentally being heralded by a not-quite-knowledgable-enough Equine Studies program as a model). Jill had sometimes found the scientific types at the healm of the certain programs quite ignorant about actual day to day horse interaction. "By the way, there was a display at this year that showed a picture of a student being lunged. It is not quite a perfect example of the lunging process that would be suitable for a certified instructor to model." and she attached feedback from a Sport Office trainer to support the reasons it was incorrect, to her note.

But, Jill was not surprised there was no reply, no effort for any clarification offered.

One of the key learnings Jill had taken away from that esteemed trainer's teachings was never to SHOW the WRONG way, only to clearly demonstrate correct method.  Because of people's way to retaining visual info, the trainer said it was important not to plant WRONG pictures in anyone's mind...

2011-03-08

Everywhere You Go, There You Are

Every time Jill moved, it included a walk down memory lane.  She had come across some old diary notes:

I love the smell of the tack room. And I miss those moments with the bridle hanging on the hook above the table with the bucket and the sponges in it. I miss driving up the laneway and seeing Stoner out in the paddock with the other horses. For a while, he was ostrasized and it was hard to see him shunned nastily like that in the herd, but eventually, he always finds himself some rabble rousing buddy to hurt himself with. What a goof.

I love Stoney Pony. Remember how I had to kick his butt to pull his mane without tranquing him?  Was that cruel or kind? 

Jill would spend a whole day riding him in tiny intervals to loosen and warm him up and then she would hop off and pull some more. It worked. along with a few good whacks with a broom now and then, along with a shout to "STAND" (instead of kicking out with young students in the barn).

But really, she thought the whole human invention of a specific mane length and the pull vs cut tradition a bit barbaric and unnecessary!


2011-03-07

The Early Days at JDM Equestrian



Jill was insisting to a coworker she was too sick to stay at work. "What am i gonna do PUKE in the outhouse???  I ALREADY don't feel well.  And, it is raining and our teacher is sick and I'm sick and, the horse is sick so what is the point of riding? And since the other student and my later student both cancelled and I'm not teaching, can't I please take my churny stomach, gags, shakes and headaches and drippy sinuses home to where there is gingerale and crackers?"  

The other instructor was insisting that they have a mentoring meeting, to discuss student progress and horse selection and such. "I know its a bad day to BE sick (i.e. today's meeting), but I AM sick and have to take a sick rest of the day."




There were, by her third visit, three horses that instantly perked their heads up, essentially smiling when Jill came in the barn, and said something to anybody. It was obvious how they recognized her voice and gleefully anticipated her attention.  Two of them had learned the new teacher lady's voice (by then), and one of them Jill had been grooming a lot. Jill could see he loved it as affection, and that he was such a friendly pony...

Jill was motivated to ride for the horse's needed conditioning or training.  She was not the kind of person who would go to a gym for her own fitness, sad but true.  So, the fact that her mentor had her sharing this horse combined with the fact that she had no competitive goals, meant she wasn't riding enough.

"Luckily, yesterday my teacher said something in my presence, about how chasing rider jump approach habits create horses with rushing habits/fears," Jill's words seemed out of context to her barn mates, but she meant that she had since been wondering if perhaps her handsomeness had been being rushed by other girls.  His other riders. And she was pondering if perhaps he might NEED her to ride him and just relax and wait (while HE rushed, of his own free will).
* *
The whole barn rang the tiny note of jealousy in the teenage barn help voice that announced "he's licking her face!" 


Jill had never had a horse do that before, had never really seen it there before that's for sure and was honestly just as surprised at the teenager.  "Horses don't lick people!" she agreed, thinking, even if they do, it certainly would not be for a sign of love. That's ridiculous. Obviously he's craving salt or something." 
And yet she heard the envy, and felt the love.

2011-03-05

Red

"Have you ever switched to driving a big truck after having grown accustomed to whipping around in a compact car?

Jill was gleefully surveying rider friends as she cleaned tack.  "Today I rode that big red horse, and I felt like I owned the highway."  It wasn't so much the size it was the power, and mode of movement.

It was the time she ever did a flying lead change!  Not counting about the 10 accidental ones, the athletic horse did in friskiness, counting only the ONE flying lead change she'd asked for, and that they did to correct one of the others...


did someone say

"we put good riders on good horses around here." ??


*
The horses at the high levels that she would come to ride afterwards had that same floaty feeling.  


Oddly, were also Chestnut, on BOTH Olympians teams, both winter seasons, making her High Performance Horse History her least favourite horse colour.
*
Jill was lamenting her pet history too.  "Why am I the one nursing the almost dead runt barn kitty with an eye dropper so as to keep it alive long enough to become MY weak less than healthy charge for life? DUH.