I can't remember my last ride on Clairvoya. It would have been winter 2009-2010, but beyond that, I don't recall. I know that the last person to ride her (at any other gait than the walk - she's spending her retirement being a haughty, but fairly civilized trail horse for my brave aunt Jane!) was my mother, and I remember that ride, the heartbreaking realization that the injury she sustained just after the Brentina Cup (where we won the Young Rider Grand Prix) made her such that she couldn't continue to work even at the lower levels, and that retirement was the only option. 

The PVDA Ride for Life is a special little show. It's a weird show, a funny, dusty venue with funky stabling; it's not far away but does seem to be in the middle of nowhere, with accommodations far away. And it always seems to be on the first hot-as-hell weekend of the year. 

When Ella and Fender and Midgey were all kids, they went to their first horse shows when I felt they were ready, when they could balance reasonably well around turns, when they could make reasonably prompt transitions, maintain an age-appropriate degree of self-carriage, and largely go where they were told. With Ella and Midgey, this was doable because I was a working student, and with Fender it was possible because my business was so young, and I didn't have many clients at horse shows.

Ask any horseman what it takes to be a good teacher or a good trainer, and you'll get the usual soundbites: patience, creativity, a strong work ethic, great passion. Yeah yeah, sure sure. I'm coming up on my seventh year running my farm and teaching lessons for a living, and before that I rode with lots of great people, so I come from a place of experience when I say that, while yes, all that deep, profound stuff is true, what you really need to be good at this job is less like a Hallmark greeting card and more like Larry the Cable Guy. For example:

A few weeks ago I was invited to ride in the PVDA Ride For Life's Dancing Horse Challenge. This will be my third trip to the DHC, a fantastically fun freestyle extravaganza at the Price Georges Equestrian Center in Maryland that raises money for breast cancer research AND gives us all an excuse to wear a lot of pink and embarrass our horses, so it's really a win-win.