In his book HOW GOOD RIDERS GET GOOD, author Denny Emerson details the success stories of 23 top riders. And it is perhaps no surprise that when asked to name some of the reasons they “got good,” many of these equestrians listed “Mom” way up near the top.
“My mom was my first teacher,” says Reining Freestyle Champion Stacy Westfall, “but she didn’t just tell me what to do. She wanted me to figure it out. If my pony did something wrong, like stopping at one of the tiny jumps we had set up, Mom would say, ‘Why do you think Misty did that?’ Her approach got me thinking like a horse, which has really influenced my life. When you can figure out what the horse is thinking and how to communicate with the horse and mold that, you can do almost anything.”
Co-founder of the American Hunter Jumper Foundation Louise Serio agrees that moms can be the best riding teachers. “My mother taught riding for a living,” she says. “She didn’t make us kids ride, it just happened…Whenever we were ‘just riding,’ though, my mother was always teaching someone. I can hear her and her instruction in my mind, from all those years.”
Cowgirl Hall of Fame Inductee Sandy Collier says, “When my mother realized I was absolutely a horse person, she made sure I got lessons with quality trainers and helped me get involved with Pony Club and eventing (because that was available in our area). That was my foundation; the seat I developed for dressage contributed to my success as a reiner.”
“My mom had been a serious rider as a junior and there were horses in our backyard in Ocala from the time I was two,” champion hunter rider Havens Schatt chimes in. “We had a really good pony I could sit on in the paddock, in front of the kitchen window where my mom would watch me…Having a parent who was so into horses made riding feel natural and easy from the start.”
On the opposite side of the horse-family spectrum, gold-medal-winning British event rider Mary King says, “Although my mother wasn’t interested in horses herself, she liked to help me; she made the picnic and drove the lorry to competitions, as she still does today! My dreams seemed farfetched, from a starting point of a non-horsey family with no money, but I have been able to do what I dreamed of doing.”
And at least partly because of Mom.
Thanks to all the supportive horse moms out there.
Happy Mother’s Day from Trafalgar Square Books.
Trafalgar Square Books, the leading publisher of horse books and DVDs, is a small, privately owned company based on a farm in rural Vermont.
CLICK HERE to read more from Denny Emerson’s HOW GOOD RIDERS GET GOOD