... on riding across country and having a lovely place to sit to reflect upon it afterwards ...

Michelle and I with our "D Rally" team 1978

When I was a child of about 14 years old, I was already a C1 in the local Pony Club in Bennington VT. By that time me and most of the other girls my age had been riding for about eight years and had spent oodles of time jumping all kinds of horses in all types of situations without stirrups, without reins, with eyes closed and whatever other combination of impossible factors that our instructors (Henry and Janet Schurink of Doornhof Farm in Shaftsbury VT) could dream up.


When we kids were about twelve most of us had started acquiring our own personal horses. Some of us shared horses 1/2, 1/2 with other people, some of us were fortunate to have our own horse full-time and I think even in our humble club we had a couple of members with multiple mounts for the various disciplines.

We evented, we went to hunt shows, Pony Club shows (now generally morphed into "English Open Horse Shows" like the one I organize at Fox Valley Saddle Association here near Elgin IL), Rallies, hunter paces and more.