Week 1
Monday February 1st, 9am, from the feed room, typed (slowly) on the iPhone.
Il sitting on a bale of hay trying to stay warm. It's a little under 50 degrees but I've already adjusted to the warmth. This week I'll try to describe the life up to now.
I'm living in a house with Elizabeth and her other help Manuel and Georgette. I've got the den all to myself, with a sheet across the opening to the kitchen. Other than being the coldest part of the house it's really great, lots of space and a large bed. We get a food allowance from Elizabeth, and since I don't have a car down here I've stocked up on groceries. Maybe too much? We've got 7 more weeks so I guess we'll find out. Oh yeah and there's Payton, elizabeths year old Australian shepard who thinks he's the size of a jack russell. Friendly and not really concerned with personal space. Great situation, since were a 5 minute walk from the show grounds.
Show grounds are about 30 minutes outaide Ocala, Florida, at an old race training faciity. The training track is still used as a walk (or annoyingly as an exercise way) and amny of the rings are inside it. There are a few hunter rings and a few jumper rings, including a grand prix ring. Ive been in our stabling area most of the time so I haven't seen much of it.
We arrived tuesday evening and spent Wednesday, thursday and part of Friday setting up. By we, I mean Elizabeth, myself and one of the riders, Melanie. Set up meant moving some stall partitions to make four 10x10 stalls into 3 stall-and-a-third stalls to give some extra space to large horses, and making a better feed and tack room. Then we put up drapes, hooks, shelves, tack trunks, brush boxes, extension cords galore, fans, lights, set up shavings in stalls, and made multiple trips per day into home depo and wal mart for bungees, snaps, hooks and everyhing else under the sun. Pretty relaxed, overall. We changed things around sometimes when Elizabeth changed her mind but overall it was mostly as she envisioned.
10:30
Horses came in Friday with Manuel and Georgette. Or at least 5 of them: chique (Stella Cadente), freddie (Blues Brother), artie (Overachiever), Anton (Antolin) and Shine (Pin-Up). Lennon, galan and Lou (Triloussa) come about 6 today, so between tacking up we've been getting their stalls ready.
1pm, from the restaurant at my computer now, so maybe I can do a better job.
Duties:
I'm basically the most under groom, because I have the least experience working for elizabeth. We feed, do stalls and scrub buckets in the am, then horses start getting turned out. They get fully groomed including showsheening tails and boots. Horses get vacuumed daily and legs scrubbed after being ridden. Tack gets cleaned after the horses get ridden. Everything stays clean, and organized. Most horses are on special supplements. It's a real production. I expected this, so it's not so much of a surprise as a hope that I can anticipate or know when to ask if I would do things differently. They don't seem to mind me asking questions, and I'm allowed to make suggestions on design issues (such as when we were hanging the drapes and setting up the tack area). Elizabeth treats her help well, and her head groom Manuel has a lot of sway over her in terms of running and setting up the barn. I've learned to say "Manuel said" or "Elizabeth said" if I'm questioned or told conflicting orders.
Free time is sort of frequent now, in the evenings. Once the show starts (9 days) it'll be crazier. I was just told that I'm grooming for Anton (dubbed Wonton by Melanie), Lennon (who I have yet to meet) and helping Melanie with her horse Artie when she's at the ring. Anton's owner is 14 and does the hunters, and is only coming for the first 2 weeks. Lennon's owners aren't coming for a few weeks, and Melanie's here, so I probably won't be overrun and be able to help the other grooms with their horses. It will get crazier in a week though...
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Intro
This blog will be updated weekly (at least) and provide the things I've done and learned and observed while working at the Ocala Winter Horse Show. The introduction here was written for my internship, and may provide some more information!
Winter at the HITS Ocala Winter Show Grounds
This winter I will be traveling to Ocala, Florida to work at the Horse Shows in the Sun (HITS) Winter Festival for trainer Elizabeth Solter. I got this internship through my trainer Annette Traband, who is a friend and student of Elizabeth. Elizabeth is an internationally known World Champion hunter rider, and formerly a USET and World Cup team member. She owns Amberly Farm in Berlin, MD, where she trains and shows hunter-jumpers (Equinity Performance, 2009). She is most well-known as the rider of Roxdene, the USEF horse of the year from 1991-1995, and was named Chronicle of the Horse’s “Hunter of the Century” (Sainthouse, 2009).
I will be traveling to Florida Monday to Tuesday, Jan. 25th-26th, with Elizabeth to look for a horse for a client of hers. The horses will arrive on Jan. 30th and we will work them for half a week before 6 weeks of showing begin on Feb. 10th. The shows run Wednesday to Sunday, with professionals showing the horses on the weekdays and clients coming on the weekends to show in the amateur divisions. I will be working as groom and possibly exercise rider every day of the week, feeding and cleaning stalls. Monday the horses are rested, while Tuesday they are lightly worked.
I hope to do three things while at the show grounds. First, I wish to learn training techniques and better riding skills from Elizabeth. Being able to observe and listen to top trainers can teach a person much about a skill, and since I have a fair background in the hunter-jumper world, I at least know what to look for and can see whether or not it’s being done correctly. I can also watch classes and observe the horses, so I can better judge a horse’s movement and form. I feel that I still am lacking in this skill, and watching top performers will be hard. Horses at this level are all good, compared to local schooling shows that I’m used to watching, where there is a wide spread of talent and it is usually easy to pick out a good mover or three. Also, while I am there, I may have an opportunity to ride and exercise horses on the Tuesdays. I would be ecstatic if I am qualified to do this, because these are expensive, well-trained horses and I would need to be a good rider to not create problems with the horses when there are none (i.e. riding too much with hand and giving them a hard mouth, etc.). If I do get to exercise the horses, it could almost be like a lesson, since I’m sure Elizabeth will be watching and correcting, or telling me what to do to exercise the horse in an efficient and correct manner.
The second thing I hope to do is learn show grooming skills. I know a fair bit already, including little bits such as how to use baby oil to make a nose shine, use rubbing alcohol to take up dirt without making a horse look wet, and other bits. But since the level of show-cleanliness here is above what I’ve prepared before, I’m looking forward to learning a new standard from the other grooms and successfully turning out gorgeous show-ring ready horses. Upon return to University Park, I will also host a show-grooming clinic/demo for all interested participants to demonstrate and share what I have learned.
Lastly, I think it will be interesting to observe and study the culture of high-end showing. For the hunter-jumpers, showing in Florida for the winter is a very upper-class thing to do, and the people who come have a lot of money. Studying how they interact with their horses, trainers, grooms, and fellow riders will be interesting, since it is a very different attitude than I am used to. I wish to learn more about the people who show at the southern winter circuits and the culture and atmosphere of this sub-culture.
Works Cited
Equinity Performance. (2009). Sponsored Riders. Retrieved Jan 2010, from http://equinityperformance.com/aboutus.html
Sainthouse, P. (2009, Sept). Great Grey Horses of Dressage and Show Jumping. Retrieved Jan 2010, from Suite101.com: http://horses.suite101.com/article.cfm/great_grey_horses_part_1
Winter at the HITS Ocala Winter Show Grounds
This winter I will be traveling to Ocala, Florida to work at the Horse Shows in the Sun (HITS) Winter Festival for trainer Elizabeth Solter. I got this internship through my trainer Annette Traband, who is a friend and student of Elizabeth. Elizabeth is an internationally known World Champion hunter rider, and formerly a USET and World Cup team member. She owns Amberly Farm in Berlin, MD, where she trains and shows hunter-jumpers (Equinity Performance, 2009). She is most well-known as the rider of Roxdene, the USEF horse of the year from 1991-1995, and was named Chronicle of the Horse’s “Hunter of the Century” (Sainthouse, 2009).
I will be traveling to Florida Monday to Tuesday, Jan. 25th-26th, with Elizabeth to look for a horse for a client of hers. The horses will arrive on Jan. 30th and we will work them for half a week before 6 weeks of showing begin on Feb. 10th. The shows run Wednesday to Sunday, with professionals showing the horses on the weekdays and clients coming on the weekends to show in the amateur divisions. I will be working as groom and possibly exercise rider every day of the week, feeding and cleaning stalls. Monday the horses are rested, while Tuesday they are lightly worked.
I hope to do three things while at the show grounds. First, I wish to learn training techniques and better riding skills from Elizabeth. Being able to observe and listen to top trainers can teach a person much about a skill, and since I have a fair background in the hunter-jumper world, I at least know what to look for and can see whether or not it’s being done correctly. I can also watch classes and observe the horses, so I can better judge a horse’s movement and form. I feel that I still am lacking in this skill, and watching top performers will be hard. Horses at this level are all good, compared to local schooling shows that I’m used to watching, where there is a wide spread of talent and it is usually easy to pick out a good mover or three. Also, while I am there, I may have an opportunity to ride and exercise horses on the Tuesdays. I would be ecstatic if I am qualified to do this, because these are expensive, well-trained horses and I would need to be a good rider to not create problems with the horses when there are none (i.e. riding too much with hand and giving them a hard mouth, etc.). If I do get to exercise the horses, it could almost be like a lesson, since I’m sure Elizabeth will be watching and correcting, or telling me what to do to exercise the horse in an efficient and correct manner.
The second thing I hope to do is learn show grooming skills. I know a fair bit already, including little bits such as how to use baby oil to make a nose shine, use rubbing alcohol to take up dirt without making a horse look wet, and other bits. But since the level of show-cleanliness here is above what I’ve prepared before, I’m looking forward to learning a new standard from the other grooms and successfully turning out gorgeous show-ring ready horses. Upon return to University Park, I will also host a show-grooming clinic/demo for all interested participants to demonstrate and share what I have learned.
Lastly, I think it will be interesting to observe and study the culture of high-end showing. For the hunter-jumpers, showing in Florida for the winter is a very upper-class thing to do, and the people who come have a lot of money. Studying how they interact with their horses, trainers, grooms, and fellow riders will be interesting, since it is a very different attitude than I am used to. I wish to learn more about the people who show at the southern winter circuits and the culture and atmosphere of this sub-culture.
Works Cited
Equinity Performance. (2009). Sponsored Riders. Retrieved Jan 2010, from http://equinityperformance.com/aboutus.html
Sainthouse, P. (2009, Sept). Great Grey Horses of Dressage and Show Jumping. Retrieved Jan 2010, from Suite101.com: http://horses.suite101.com/article.cfm/great_grey_horses_part_1
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