Few people know how close Ron and I came to being "horse people" instead of " dog people." After about 4 years of marriage, we looked for something we could do together and decided horse life would be something we would both enjoy. I envisioned some sort of " Big Valley"image of riding horses, cowhands nearby to take the horses from us after a nice ride... so, we investigated a nearby stable and learned that stable cleaning was a prerequistite to learning to ride. Nope. That was the end of that, and we decided to focus on dog ownership and to dog obedience competitions for a number of years. Our first love, really, has been the horse world.
We even agreed that, if we had any children, we would do whatever it took to be sure they could become horse people. It seems so magical to watch small children majestically handling huge horses wtih confidence. We used to talk about how much financial sacrifice it would take to keep the kids in the horse world, knowing that their future would be financially and in every other way well ahead with the ability to work with horses, such a majestic animals.
In the 18 years that we have attended the Hunter Jump Classic in Chagrin Valley, we have still harbored the desire to be part of the horse world. We love knowing that BFF Paulette's daughter, Jennifer, is deeply entrenched in the horse industry and still love to watch young girls leading around big horses at the local Erie County Fair.
Of course, we can't image our life with our our years of dog competitions in which we met such stellar people as Jo Ann and Jean and others that spent time with us at the Cleveland Classic and other competition events. Horse, dogs, great creatures making us humble and happy.
No comments:
Post a Comment