Dreams, Dreams, Dreams

I feel like a princess!" Jill said, as she exited the WEG shuttle bus. "You should!" her new, elderly acquaintance agreed. "This is one of the more expensive hotels in the area." After she'd blurted the p-word, she remembered how she'd told her band-mate on departure, "Of course I'm okay with going alone. And, of course I've got 8 hours to invest investigating what passes are flying, ha. It is after all, a handsome prince who has invited me." She'd had no idea really, at that point, how AMAZING the whole experience would turn out to be.

Her Australian bus-seat neighbour had once shipped a horse from Perth to Japan, when sold for $95,000. His wife was retiring from competition then, and that was a long time ago… One of their travel buddies, then and there, in fact, owned a horse on the team, and traveled to all the shows, but he was getting a bit frail for the next Olympics at 86!




Her traveller friend wanted to know now how the instructor certification process was in her country. Jill enthused that at least there was, at least, basically ONE certifying body in Canada, and not such a confusing array of credentials as in the country they were both visiting for the horse show… "but, in terms of actual horsemanship and riding skills I'd say pony club was the stronger model. Do you have that too?" Jill was glad she had that background to bring to the process, and in common with her new chum. "I have to admit that the whole national certification process in Canada was useful in terms of developing my teaching skills ~ especially in terms of an ability to formalize lesson plans and build progressions etc. But the nonsense about almost failing because I braided with elastics and not wool or because my belt buckle didn't show enough, THAT's a bunch of malarky." Her companion was nodding in agreement! He'd liked the Instructor's Handbook she'd purchased that day at the Pony Club booth on the horse park.




And then he amused her citing verbatim all the pony club rules he did not adhere to on their farm back home where they did still have two horses, ha.
*
She'd asked a lady sitting in the stands beside her, if the little bay stallion was a Conermera too. She shrugged, even though she had in fact been there since the beginning of the demonstration and also had the official literature. "I always thought that being a GREY was part of hailing from the Irish breed" Reading over her shoulder Jill pointed out the phrase about breed colouring and commended her for clarifying, "good work!" The woman gave Jill her brochure ha.

When she passed the driver on the pathway later Jill announced, "What a beautiful horse you have!" The woman in the lovely hat, who had driven in the 4-wheeled combined driving carriage asked, "the bay?" and Jill smiled and nodded. She was a sucker for a bay horse.

She forgot to take pictures at the Natural Horsemanship clinic. And, she had mixed feelings about the suggestion to drop the rope in doubt or trouble, but everything else was fun to watch…

*
"And what sport is that?"

Jill could easily still recall how her respect for him skyrocketed exponentially the day he asked that at a conference meeting, seeking clarification of a board members claim to animal cruelty. She could also remember how she got on the phone immediately trying to rustle up a mount for the hunt the very next day!