Everybody needs friends, and I have certainly learned alot from all my friends, as well as got their support and tried to support them as best as I could/can. Florence Riley and I met when she was looking to buy a draft horse, and bought her first one from us, a grey gelding named Turk. We became fast friends and I learned so much from her as well as had the pleasure/honor to travel across the country to many mule shows. She had a very succesful quarter horse hunter show history, but mules are her first love. She has many mules on her property who are living out their lives on her farm because she feels that they deserve it after long, sometimes hard lives. She also still has a couple show mules and still shows when money allows. I learned so much from her, she found me my first AQHA hunter, Elliott, you’ve all heard of him from me. She took me and lead me by the hand to my first big hunter and AQHA shows and I owe her alot. thanks, Florence!
Okay, then we move to Kristina Sherwood-Dresser. She came here to board her horse for the winter and we became great buddies. We helped each other out, she travelled to some draft horse shows with us, what one of us didn’t know, the other one did, and we had fun at alot of shows. Kristina showed “Almost a Dreamer” in english flat events and some over fences and learned from me to show western. I showed “A Penny Investment” at the time, and the mares were great buddies as well. Something I will never forget from our show days was Barq’s Rootbeer and the commercials at the time had a byline of “Gotta Barq’s Momma?” and that was said alot by us. Thanks for the good times, Kristina! (Kristina is currently raising children and on hiatus!)
Dave Phillips, what can I say, a great friend and mentor. He travelled here many times and gave lots of lessons to Jaimee since mother/daughter lessons DON’T WORK. Kristina and I took lessons to to make it worth his while to drive from the metropolis of Penn Yan. We are known to talk on the phone for hours and he taught me the meaning of professionalism, and if you are not going to put your best into an endeavor, then don’t waste your time. His attention to detail and wanting to instill professionalism in everybody is hard to miss. Thanks Dave! Oh, and he was even brave enough to go to a couple horse shows with Kristina and I and Jaimee! YIKES!
Two other great horse influences of my life who helped me get to the Quarter Horse Congress twice, whom I don’t have pictures of; Tim Jedra and Pat Coakley. Tim helped Florence with my first and second year of bigger AQHA shows and I appreciate the good times we had. He is a fun guy, yet knowledgeable and tough when he needs to be. Pat, oh my god, what fun we had at Lake Placid on those silly treasure hunts (devised by Florence to drive us crazy)! Linda Wendt, Lisa Williams, Pat and I, crammed into somebody’s truck and wildly driving around Lake Placid, getting sidetracked at times, laughing so hard the entire time we could hardly breathe. However, Pat insisted on doing your best in the showring, no excuses, you get what you give out and I enjoyed every minute!
Jane Marie Law, I don’t think she knows how much she helped me out. Gave me confidence in being able to teach and train and do it full time. She taught me little nuances of dressage. Let me ride her wonderful Lucio, an Andalusuian gelding. Taught me so much about religion, life, feelings, dressage, dragged me to dressage shows, helped ALOT, she has no idea the influence she has on me. Thanks!
I can’t possibly do any posting about friends without adding/mentioning my number one friend, my husband, Ed. Without Ed none of this would be possible, I would have never met these other friends I mentioned. I would never, ever been able to do all this horse stuff without his support and encouragement. Who else would buy old tractors and trailers and fix them up so we could haul 6 draft horses all over the place to show? Who else would drive me to those shows and make sure we had a hitch wagon? He had a great time showing the drafts too, we both did, and that will always be a big horse memory. We even had some great wins! Even with some of my stupid ideas, he’s still here supporting me. I never thought I would own a real farm, much less with an indoor, nice horse trailer, nice truck, nice horses and nice barn help (LOL)! He complains about fixing stuff that I break, but it gets done. His handyman skills save alot of time and money on our part and I owe him everything. So, here’s to my number one friend!!! Thanks, I love you!
Want to come join in the fun? Learn, travel, experience the horse world, whether showing, trail riding, or just hanging out? Give me a call, always looking for new friends!!!!
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