As a young teenager, I spent most of my show ring time in the pony and children’s hunter divisions. I’d started riding in a hunter barn as a small child and was never exposed to the other “half” of our hunter/jumper sport until much later. That’s not to say that I didn’t follow show jumping, though. I had posters of my favorite grand prix riders on my bedroom walls and read voraciously about our past great horsemen and studied every equestrian book I could find.

My trainer at the time treated all of her students as working students. If we couldn’t bathe, wrap and braid our own horses, we couldn’t show. One disadvantage of my upbringing was that I rarely had the opportunity to jump higher than 3’6″. And, although I watched the jumpers at the horse shows when I could, my primary responsibilities in caring for my own horse kept me in the barn most of the time when I
wasn’t at the ring.

I was content with this arrangement until one June day after I’d just turned 14. My trainer had taken a contingent of students to a three-day show, but school commitments kept me at home. So, I worked at the barn that weekend, caring for my own horse and a few others, including a sales horse we called “the black horse.”

He was older, maybe in his early teens, and had been a “big time jumper” according to rumors around the barn. He was sent to my trainer to be sold as a junior hunter. On Saturday morning, we turned him out in the front field. Later that afternoon our neighbor called to say the black horse was in her backyard grazing. I retrieved him, walking through the large field and climbing the two four-board fences between the farms. He’d obviously jumped these two fences, but I had to walk him all the way around the perimeter on a well-traveled road to take him back.

The following day he jumped out again. This time I dreaded the long, hot walk back. So, I hopped on him bareback with just the halter and lead rope and intended to ride him home. The traffic worried me, however, so I thought, ‘Why not go back the way he came?’ So I headed to the four-board fences, picked up a canter and grabbed mane. The black horse pricked his ears and never hesitated. The jumps felt effortless, like I was floating on a cloud. It was the most amazing feeling I’d ever experienced. I was hooked. I knew then and there that some day I would have my own jumper and soar over big jumps.

I eventually did make it to the amateur-owner and mini prix levels, and I believe the firm foundation in horsemanship I received growing up was critical to my attaining those goals. Those long hours in the barn were the building blocks to my continuing lifelong education in riding and horsemanship.

Two weeks ago I took my young hunter to a show in Maryland to prepare him for the Upperville Colt & Horse Show (Va.). It was a show I used to attend regularly as a child, and all of those memories came flooding back to me on the drive home. While so much has changed in my life over the past 25 years, a lot has remained the same too. And the most gratifying aspect is that no matter the size of the jumps, it’s the love of that journey with each horse that keeps me coming back—even if it’s at 2’6″.

Tricia Booker