From Jenny:
I can’t believe it has already been two weeks since I first arrived here in Kentucky! I am having the time of my life, and I am already dreading having to leave here (even though I am several months away from that time!) Team CEO is everything it says it is– a team! Everyone is incredibly welcoming, and I already feel like family. In the past two weeks I have been familiarizing myself with all 47 horses, the wonderful clients, and all of the farm routines. Megan also found me a friend (another working student…yay!) named Andrea, and the three of us spend every day together riding and doing barn chores.
As far as working student positions go, I am about 100% positive Andrea and I have the best one in the country, maybe even the world! Not only are we treated like family, but our daily routine consists of feeding, turnout, riding, riding, riding, and riding! Did I mention we get to ride A LOT? Of course we have other barn chores, but we are extremely lucky to have a very riding-oriented program where the emphasis is on improving our riding as well as schooling future event horses and learning from Megan’s talented upper level horses. Every day is different, and Megan is always keeping things interesting and giving us new things to do, whether it’s traveling to look at a clients potential new horse, taking some horses x-c schooling off property, going on trot or gallop sets on her upper level horses, or working with our vet Chris Newton, who is one of the selected DVM’s for WEG. We have lessons every day, and I am happy to say that Molson is surviving Kentucky boot camp! I am even more surprised that I am surviving boot camp– with the number of horses we ride per day as well as the torturous stirrup-less lessons, I certainly have the stirrup-bar bruises to prove it! I can already feel us becoming stronger both in our dressage lessons and our jumping lessons. Last weekend we shipped out to do some x-c schooling and Moo was a superstar, we even mastered a Prelim sunken road! I am having almost too much fun, to the point where I am sad on Sunday nights when I realize that Monday is our day off and we don’t get to play with the horses!
This evening we drove over to Keeneland to watch the yearling sales, and that is a whole different world from us eventers! Megan started quizzing us on conformation and teaching us how to look for a good eventer, since most of her horses are OTTB. Let me tell you, it is a lot harder than it seems! I did take two judging classes in college, however we were mostly judging pleasantly-plump Morgans, instead of world-class, million dollar thoroughbreds! While there is no chance I would ever actually bid on one of these horses, it was still fun to get dressed up and experience the racing hype that Lexington is famous for!
This coming weekend we will be leaving Kentucky and traveling to Illinois for the Dunnabeck HT. I am a little nervous, but Megan is so positive and has so much confidence in Molson and myself, that I can’t help but feel excited for our USEA debut! This week we will really have to buckle down and practice because I don’t want to disappoint Megan or Molson! Next weekend we will be going up to Wisconsin for Otter Creek, and then it is WEG…eek! I just bought my x-c ticket last week, so now I am counting down the days until October 2nd! Until next time.
xo, Jenny
