Susanna Rodell kindly sent us this contribution about Pony Club and the great instructor Kathi Hines. If you have something to share on EN, please send it to [email protected]. Many thanks to Susanna for writing, and thanks for reading. Go Pony Club!
Kathi with the “big kids”
From Susanna:
OK, it’s been way too long since I contributed to the insanity around here. The short explanation is that I got a real job. But I’ve been thinking a lot in the meantime about what really makes Pony Club work. Of course it’s about the kids, but the kids can’t do it by themselves. And yes, it’s about the parents, but a lot of them come into Pony Club knowing nothing much about horses. What keeps the whole organization alive is an assorted group of extraordinary people who are true horsemen and women and just keep giving and giving and never stop. So I want to talk about one of those people.
I first met Kathi Hines many years ago when it became obvious that my 8-year-old REALLY wanted to event and the sweet 12-hand walking sofa we owned would not be able to get her past Maiden. She needed a great pony. A friend told me Kathi knew one. We went and tried out this scrappy 13.2 POA, met Kathi and put the kid on Chevy. He’d been pulled out of the pasture with very little recent work, but he jumped my kid around a little course with joy and did it safely. Trust me, said Kathi. This is a great pony. I did. Best decision I ever made. He made my kid into a rider.
Second encounter. Ruby’s first recognized horse trial, Beginner Novice. Kathi is there with some of her students and we’re there by ourselves. Ruby’s had a great cross-country round, getting ready for the show jumping and a lot of kids are having trouble. Kathi walks over to us, pulls Ruby aside and gives her a little coaching session. My kid is competing against her students but she sees a kid who needs a break and does this anyway. Ruby jumps clean.
Ask anyone in the Carolina Region and they’ll tell you this is typical of Kathi.
Kathi started eventing many years ago and rode with some of the greats, starting with Brian Ross and Nanci Lindroth, doing clinics and lessons with Jimmy Wofford and Denny Emerson. She made it to Intermediate 3-day and second level dressage but she still says her best education came from Pony Club. She’s a graduate A and a National Examiner, meaning she’s one of those scary people who test the kids for their upper-level certifications. She runs a barn in the North Carolina Piedmont that’s not very fancy but full of awesome ponies. Her summer camps are legendary. She has approximately 15 dogs and nearly as many cats, all of them rescues, and I’ve lost track of how many of the horses on her farm owe their comfortable retirement to Kathi. Some of them have been abandoned by boarders. Kathi feeds them and pays their vet bills. Her tractor was born the same year I was. (No, I’m not telling.)
To upper-level Pony Clubbers and her adult students, Kathi can be terrifying. She doesn’t mince words. Schooling in her arena a few weeks ago, I heard a voice behind me: “You’re crooked as hell.” Uh, thanks, Kathi. I think.
But with the little kids, she goes all soft and squishy. Watch her in action with her gang of pigtailed students on her furry school ponies and you can feel the love as they take their first scary-exhilarating canter strides, pop over their first crossrails. Then follow her to an upper-level testing and watch the big kids on their OTTBs and warmbloods, quaking in their stirrups. But if a kid gets injured or a family is in trouble, Kathi’s the first to organize a benefit clinic.
Kathi took a bad fall a few years back and then had a bout of cancer. She doesn’t compete at the upper levels any more — she pretty much lives for her students, her horses and her amazing menagerie of rescued dogs.
Not all eventers end up in the stratosphere of international competition. Stuff happens: a bad fall, kids, other lives — but a lot of those folks love the sport as much as the Serious Competitors and end up being the ones who inspire the next generation. Kathi’s one of those.
My kid, now in college, is planning to go for her Pony Club B certification this summer, and she’s so happy to come home and put herself in Kathi’s hands. Now that she’s big, Kathi will give her hell until she gets it right. And that’s the way she wants it.
Link to Kathi’s farm Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/
