Lorie - He's just too, too cute and I love that you are so active with rescues. I would love to do that because it really tears me apart that there are so many unwanted animals out there.
Robin - You're not being nosy at all! We are in the Hudson Valley in a small town called Pine Bush (Orange County...yes, as in Orange County Choppers ;-) ). As far as making a "living"...it's okay. I mean, it pays the mortgage but I certainly won't get rich off of it. Board, lesson and training money keep the farm up and running, you only make money off of sales (and we have A LOT of sale horses right now). If we can sell one or two bigger ticket horses a year (meaning 75k to 125k) the farm is in good shape and I get a little bonus from the owner/boss when we sell something.
I am a barn manager/assistant trainer/rider, although right now I'm pretty much THE trainer because my boss just tore his knee up (torn ACL, MCL, miniscus and fractured tibia). We have jumpers, hunters and ponies and show quite extensively in the northeast during the summer and head south to Palm Beach, FL for the winter circuit starting in January. If you've ever seen show jumping on TV, the Olympics, etc., that's what we do. In fact we had one horse that just missed the long list to the 2000 Olympics and had one that was being pointed toward the 2004 games but had a career ending injury in 2002. We also specialize in "retrains", meaning horses that, for one reason or another, got screwed up by someone and need to be taken back to square one. I have a bunch of these right now.
Most people do it because they have a passion for it...I used to. Right now I wouldn't care if I saw another horse for the rest of my life LOL. I am burned out and I know it. It happens to most people in the business. It's not uncommon for people to take a few years off and then come back to it. It's an incredibly time consuming occupation and I wouldn't wish the hours (especially while showing) on anyone.
I do have my own pony that I picked up a couple of years ago as a project to turn around and resell. She's finally ready to go out the door ASAP...she now has some good show mileage on her, a great show record and is ready for a kid of her own. I'm little, 5'1", 115lbs, so I do all of the ponies at home and set them up for the kids at the shows but I can't show them, though.
Okay, have I bored you to tears yet :+?! I will try to get some pics up on picture trail at some point if you're interested. I do have a webshots account that has a couple pics of my pony (bay pony, Eternal Gold) from Florida 2006 and some scattered pics from other horses and ponies that we've had over the years. The Millbrook's Prestige pic is actually me from about 10 years ago :7 LOL! I hope this works...
http://pets.webshots.com/album/551616716FrtNwB
If the link doesn't work my user name is gerwd and they are in the Horse Show Pics album.
Wendi
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