Holling Family Halloween (2010)
The EN mailbox is like a never-ending Christmas tree. Each day there are new presents from our loyal friends and readers. Sometimes it’s just more socks and underwear, or scooby-snax for the Chinchillas, but more often it’s a shiny new bike, the latest Saddle Club book, or that jumping Breyer horse we always wanted. Recently, Katie Lindsay sent us a link to a fabulous Area IV Newsletter article, with permission to reprint it here. Many thanks to Katie, Area IV, and Jenn Holling.
An Inside Look at Preparing for the Pan American Games
This month, Jenn Holling kindly agreed to write an article about her role(s) in preparing for the upcoming Pan American Games. Jenn is the wife of Jon Holling who is making his debut as a United States Team member at the Games in Mexico on his horse, Downtown Harrison. Jon is also the coach of our Area IV young rider team.
Thank you for writing Jenn. May the best person win!
“So after a request from my good friend and resident black mailer, Katie Lindsay I sat down to try and give insight into the Pam Am path from my perspective. I will add at the onset that we are still 7 days out from the horses actually flying from Ocala, Florida and into Guadalajara, Mexico so I am all too aware of how much can go wrong between now and then. My perspective on this journey is particularly convoluted as I see the path from so many perspectives.
I am a selector for the Canadian team so my job for the past few year has been to follow and analyze an unmentionable number of CCI** horses in an effort to try and give my opinion on who would make a good team member for the Pan Ams. I take this job very seriously. There is a fantastic group of people who make up the Canadian Selection committee. We have very constructive relationships where we respect each other’s opinions and use our varying strengths to hopefully end up choosing the most prepared and competitive horses and riders for each international competition. After this it is up to the riders to make us look like geniuses.
From here I then step into the position of horse “manager” where I am on the other end of the selection process. Jon is the rider and obviously bears the brunt of the stress when it comes to the day to day training and competing of his horses. I organize and maintain control over the day to day activities of Downtown Harrison. I help to make sure that the farrier schedule, the swim schedule, the vet schedule and the supplement schedule are adhered to for fear of death. And anyone who knows me knows that this is not an idle threat. This aspect of my life is the least affected by the “team” influence. We care for all of our horses to the utmost of our ability and so my job now is to check and double check that everything is going as planned and of course to assure Jon multiple times a day that this is actually the case.
I am also a wife. This is the aspect of my job that has changed the most with the Pan Am date quickly approaching. I find that I am doing quite a bit of pseudo psychiatric assessing. Normally Jon is a very stable creature. He has a normal home life to return to at the end of the day. He has a relatively stable business (we ARE talking horses). Even Jon is affected by the magnitude that something that he has worked for since…… before he can remember is within his grasp. His pinque coat is hanging on the wall; the American flags are sewn to the pocket. To Jon it is like being on a roller coaster that has started and he is just being pulled along by the momentum. That momentum is not always smooth and it is my job to work out the rough patches and problem solve where I can. Otherwise I am just an attentive ear whose job is to minimize collateral damage.
Finally there is the conflicting national patriotism that is a part of my house hold on a daily basis but that has become far more intense in the past few weeks. I am a patriotic Canadian. This might seem like a contradiction in terms but I do not see the two conditions as being mutually exclusive. My husband is American. About as apple pie as Apple Pie can be. So we have a healthy competitive nagging that is occurring. It is good for us. It is good for the sport but it could suggest a very conflicted household. Funny enough this is not the case. I am a believer in good sport.
Competition between competitive entities makes for good sport. The fact that my country has started consistently fielding teams that are competitive makes me proud. The fact that my husband is riding for his country on a very competitive team makes me very proud. These two facts are not mutually exclusive and I have no problem reconciling the two emotions. It is often joked about that our house hold is the hot spot for Eventing in the south as we have a little bit of everything going on . Canadian Selection, American team rider, young rider coach, recognized event organizer. Even with all of this it is easy to remain clear when you realize that the best horse and rider will win on the day. This is the nature of our sport and it is the one aspect of eventing that will not ever change.
There are 7 days until the plane flies. I don’t think that anyone other than my husband has asked me who I want to win. This question proves Jon’s bravery. I hope that he brings that bravery and all of his other skill to the Pan Ams. It is going to be a good competition.”
