2002- present
The ultimate experiment is my own horse. At 17, I purchased Sprite as an unbroken 3-year-old. I had very little understanding of what I was doing or how to effectively train a horse. I thank her every day for her patience and stubbornness and unwavering talent that help build the horsewoman that I am today. Through countless mistakes and a lot of trial and error, together we developed an understanding of each other. I learned how to be patient. I learned that there are 50,000 ways to get to the end of the alphabet. I learned that training is about helping the horse understand your expectations and helping find ways to tell your horse; good job. Sometimes that is going 3 steps backward in order to find something they can easily do to help them build confidence. Training is about the journey – with the hope of getting to a specific destination. But if you don’t love the journey, it will be a very tiresome road.
Ultimately Sprite and I wiggled and waggled and found our way to 4th level. I can say I am a better trainer for the messy winding road we took to get there. I have gained so many tools to help other horses in their journey. I have learned things that work and don’t work. And when I put all the pieces together for other horses I can achieve similar results in much less time given everything she taught me. She’s now 24, and I still ride her regularly – and she teaches me new things – all the time.
