I wanted to share an extraordinary scene I witnessed at the
finish line on Saturday afternoon waiting for my team to come in at the Turkey
Trot.The finish was up on a hill
with this expansive view of the green hills and the last few miles of the
course. It was cold by southern California standards
and most of us were in multiple layers with coats and hats on. The front runner in the fifty, Dabney Fitch (I think that is her name) was on Susan Kelly’s
horse (I think, sorry if I got the names incorrect) way out in front, all alone
and just booking down the trail.Susan, in shorts, was so excited she could not contain herself.When Dabney got
to the bottom of the hill just below the finish line Susan called out to her
horse telling her to come home to mama.The horse momentarily slowed her stride, lifted her head and pricked her
ears forward.She was listening to
Susan.Then with a burst of speed
she flew into a full gallop and up the hill to the finish and to Susan.
Dabney was ecstatic and literally high on her first place
finish.A huge smile filled her
face.Later we chatted about what happened when
Susan called to her horse. Dabney explained she did
not ask the horse to go faster up the hill to the finish, she didn’t need
to. No other 50 miler was in sight.
It was the horses’ idea to
move out when she heard her owner call to her. Dabney
could not praise the horse enough, it was the best
horse she had ever ridden.On hearing
the story Dabney and Susan started to celebrate
again.
When asked how she trained such the horse, Susan could not
give me a list or cookbook answer.She said it was on intuition, gut knowledge that she trained her horse. Although she would like to teach others,
she could not put into words the steps she took to get to the first place
finish at the Turkey Trot.Damn, I
had hoped I was gonna get some inside info and learn
a few training secrets.
But now, after
I had some time to digest it all, I was in fact given a beautiful gem, you do
not really train a winning endurance horse. Nope, together as a team you find a
path and the path carries you.It
is not about a list of dos and don’ts, it is about listening to your
partner and building on the things that work and learning from what does not
work.Susan has lots of tools to
use along the way and what makes her a winning trainer is her ability to listen
to her partner and chose the tool the fits the situation. Well, I guess that is were the term “horse
since” came from.And from
what I saw Susan and Dabney sure have a lot of
it.Congratulations to you both for
the win at the Turkey Trot.Thank
you for letting me watch, Nancy Reed, Lazy J Ranch, Elfin
Forest, CA
