A School Horse Legacy, Volume 1: ...As Tails Go By

Anne Wade-Hornsby

Description

This is volume one of a series, a collection of the first 17 stories of school horses and the pivotal lessons they taught to Anne Wade-Hornsby as she developed her riding school and became a noted trainer in Riverside, California, from 1971 until the present. It includes an introduction, a personalized glossary, an 18th chapter that extends the activities of the riding school, and finally, emails and reminiscences by former students who rode these particular school horses.

Sujets

• Animal Sports
• Sports
• Equestrian
• Recreation
• Sport équestre
• Sports équestres
• Sports équestres
• Sports équestres

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 19 octobre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456605766
• Langue: English

Extrait

A School Horse Legacy
Volume 1
...As Tails Go By
 
 
 
by
Anne C. Wade-Hornsby


Copyright 2011 Anne Wade-Hornsby,
All rights reserved.
 
 
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
http://www.eBookIt.com
 
 
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0576-6
 
 
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
 
FOREWORD

In the course of teaching and training both horses and people, I worked with all kinds of personalities and characters. The experience was usually mutually successful. I learned from my failures, as well. A few of the relationships were as grand as life is likely to allow. I viewed the riding school as a place where I got to interact with people whose love of horses led them to me – a person who could teach them to develop their riding skills to a level that made riding safe, enjoyable and rewarding. The sense of achievement one feels, in any discipline or subject, when an idea becomes understandable, attainable, and can be implemented with positive results, reverberates from the inside out –emotionally, physically, and mentally. When a rider made the head, hands, legs, and seat connection to his or her mount and was able to accomplish, say, an extension or a lead change or could gracefully jump an obstacle, I was the only person happier or more rewarded than the student. Over the years, I have been challenged by riders and horses to be really inventive about my approach, to make them think about what they were doing.
 
My classes may well remember how stubborn I could be when problems arose. “I don’t care if we practice past dark!” usually did the trick. “The reason you are on a horse is to go forward. Why are you standing there? Walking at a snail’s pace? Going in the wrong direction?” “Tears are not an aide your horse understands.” “ Crying doesn’t help your horse accomplish anything.” But, finally, “Wow, that is so much better. How nice was that!”
 
I woke up every morning, knowing I was going to have the privilege of using my hard won knowledge to help make the world more understandable and enjoyable for someone. My public school experiences grounded me in the ways of human interaction, and my horses showed me and related to me the endless wonder of the natural world. To be able to share this has been my greatest pleasure.
 
INTRODUCTION

The beginning. I still feel mildly guilty about talking my dad into taking me horseback riding instead of my sister, that July, 1953, in Texas. After all, it was her fifth birthday, her day. But she had a bad cold, was in bed, and my dad had made the reservations. Wheedle I did, and somehow, I ended up on the back of a huge, gentle brown horse in a hard Western saddle with stirrups still out of reach for my freaky long, skinny seven-year old legs. I don’t remember the ride at that dusty, cowboy-owned rental stable at the bottom of the hills off-base, near our barracks. I don’t remember if it was hot at Lackland Air Force Base, near San Antonio, that July 5th. I never forgot the feeling of complete love and the rightness I felt, on the back of a horse, the realizing of my passion, fueled by Fury, Champion, Trigger, and Blaze, at that exact, shameless moment. Over 50 years later, I am still fortunate enough to feel that same connection with my friends-my horses-beings that have seen me through dangers, trials, and triumphs with a consistency that I can only appreciate, with wonder, time after time.
 
With my dad in the Air Force, my family moved a lot – I went to 23 schools between kindergarten and high school graduation. Every base had some access to horses, which I used every chance I got. When I started lessons and rode in Japan, in 1957, my first riding habit and my first pair of boots were handmade. No local tack shops to be found in Tokyo in 1957. My mother, who had ridden English, mainly in New York’s Central Park, had her own idea of a proper riding habit. A bright red and green plaid blazer, and really poufy-hipped jodhpurs were probably a bit much, but I felt so “correct” when I wore them. My handmade leather boots scented my closet for years when we returned to the States, reminding me of my good fortune to have parents who put up with horse crazy me.
 
It was in Japan, from 1957 to 1961, that I learned the responsibility associated with horsemanship. Just outside of Yakota Air Force Base, in a wide, grassy, tree-lined break between two rice fields, a man I only remember as Saki-san kept three skinny horses. During the day, they were tied to a tree, for rent by locals and American riding aficionados. I was 11 years old, and had no money, but I had plenty of time. During the summer, and on many week-ends, I groomed and tacked up his horses. I would run, walk, or ride a bicycle beside the horses when they were rented out, as Saki-san did not let people ride out alone. I spoke passable Japanese, and he spoke no English, so I helped him out with the American riders. In return, I got to ride one or the other horse home, bareback, to his yard in the back of a thatched roof farmhouse, quite near our base housing, when the day’s work was done. I was in heaven. His three old horses were always called Ichi, Ni, and San, even when one would be occasionally replaced by another. Saki-san was kind to them, though I don’t think worming was a priority. My rides, bareback, through tree-lined paths between the rice paddies and tea fields (way too small to be called plantations) make up my earliest memories of the golden, sunny, freedom of youth--just me, a horse, the earth, sky, and summer breezes.
 
That ended about two years later when Daddy was transferred to different base housing in Washington Heights in Tokyo (later the Olympic Village). I transferred my allegiance to the horses at the local Yoyogi Stables, near Meiji Shrine, where very wealthy Japanese owners were happy to have a rider exercise their horses for free. Further, I got to take riding lessons for the remainder of our time in Japan at Camp Drake and Camp Fuchinobe on wonderful campaigners from the Olympics, or mounts kept by officers and civilians with the money to board their horses there. I took the train every week-end from Sangubashi Station to whichever Army base the stable was using that year. I volunteered for every duty I could. Cleaning stalls, mixing feed, drying bedding, cleaning tack, walking horses out--I could have lived in the barn.
 
Our instructor was a retired ex-cavalry officer from Emperor Hirohito’s army named Numada-san, who had represented Japan in the Olympics. He was and remains a role model for me, as well as my first instructor, all these years later. He respected his school horses and he was an excellent judge of whom to pair up, horse and rider. The horses in those barns were fully the equal of any I have owned or ridden since. Numada-san followed procedures that simply couldn’t fail: discipline came first, obedience to technique was expected, warm-up and practice were explained, and then we were challenged to look perfect at whatever exercise he asked us to perform. When we were successful, our wonderful schoolmaster mounts did as asked, over fences, on the flat, on trail rides. Through Numada-san’s sponsorship, our riding school participated in horse shows at the palace grounds of Emperor Hirohito in Tokyo. One of those shows featured, among other historical aspects of Japan’s cultural heritage, part of its historical future: Prince Akihito and his then fiancé, Michiko, made a tour around the huge show arena in a gorgeous, ornate carriage and four-in-hand. I was on my horse, not five feet away, waiting to enter a smaller show ring, as they toured the stands. We all got a commemorative bronze dish, which my mother had framed, and which is right above my desk as I write this. So many years later, having had hundreds of students myself, I can only send another heartfelt “arigato gozaimasu” (thank you very much) to Numada-san for giving me so many equestrian experiences, such a solid riding foundation and excellent teaching examples/models upon which to build my school.
 
The written and oral records are full and glorious with the stories of wonderful horses. Pegasus was my favorite. Can you imagine the wonder of riding that magnificent, shining creature around the world, of having such power to control? I drew Phaeton and the Chariot of the Sun, and told his story to every class I taught during my 38+ years in public education, as a lesson in why a student should follow directions. Bucephalus’ story was always explained whenever I trained some green youngster or retrained a problem horse. On a daily basis, though, I was constantly, and consistently taught by my school horses: to keep sharp, flexible, think quickly, be observant, make intelligent decisions (and appear cool and calm doing it) but, above all , to be patient and kind to those I was working with– be they my regular, public school students or my riding students.
 
My teaching career in the Riverside Unified School District lasted 38 years. My riding school is still going, though on a smaller scale than during the ‘70s-‘90s. Due to circumstances beyond my control, the “formal” riding school was “retired” from its original location on Madison Street in Riverside in 1994. HA! I found that former students and new-found riding friends weren’t about to let me put the abilities given to me by all the horses you are about to read about, “out to pasture”! Fellow-boarders, former students, and people who simply found out about me, persuaded me to take up riding instruction again, at the fantastic, welcoming stable where I board. Once again, I have access to the best horses and facilities around, and my students are getting the benefit of all the marvelous experiences