Begin and Begin Again Part II

In April 2024, I was riding a seven-year-old mare for an old and dear client. The client had been having some issues with the mare and asked me to try and decipher what was going on. I had been riding her for about two weeks. After some initial corrections, she was riding very nicely. While walking through the pasture on her, a leaf fell and precipitated a bucking episode. Problem found! I also found myself with a compound fracture of my right tibia and as well as a fracture in the right fibula.

Thus began three months in a wheelchair and a six-month pause in my riding. During that maddeningly frustrating period, I had plenty of time to re-think my horsemanship and the way I approached training and competition. I realized it might be some time before my leg was strong enough to support the powerful movement of an athletic horse making a barrel turn. When I did begin to-very tentatively-ride again, I realized I needed to re-teach my body to ride.

The concept of re-learning what my body had been doing comfortably for decades had me reminiscing about how I was trained as a young rider. I was blessed to be mentored by Marcie Stimmel, Martina Dyer and Billie Briggs. These great horsewomen all shared the attitude that “If it involves horses-let’s do it!”, but always from a foundation of the suppleness and balance of dressage.

During my recovery time, I literally wept my way through Denny Emerson’s chapter on injury and recovery in his wonderful book, Begin and Begin Again. Emerson discusses the frangible commodity of confidence and I spent a lot of time contemplating not only what confident riding means to me, but to all riders. I concluded that confidence comes from security, and security comes from correct position. Therefore, if I want to help riders gain confidence, and to see horses bloom under confident riders, I first need to make secure riders with strong seats. From that foundation, I want riders to succeed at whatever discipline they want to try with their horses.

From six wretched months of being incapacitated, came the concept of how I wanted to use CrowFeather as a multi-disciplinary barn with a strong focus on fundamental training for horses and riders alike. Begin at the beginning!