I’m sure many of you are wondering about how Hamilton is progressing. Brady took him to the GMHA Junior Horsemanship Camp. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it is a multi-day camp at Green Mountain Horse Association in Vermont that specializes in eventing but accommodates all levels. The coaches and barn managers are wonderfully good with the kids ranging from around eight to seventeen years old. The parents aren’t allowed to help at all and the kids have to do all the work of taking care of their horses. They do have plenty of positive support and guidance.
Although I knew it was a risk to send them, Brady, Rick and I discussed it at length and decided, even if Brady and Hammie couldn’t do all the things that Brady had done with Punky, it would still be fun to be in that environment. So, off they went. The day we got there, Brady and I walked Hammie all over the place to see how he would be and he was wonderfully quiet. Actually, he was quite well behaved almost every day. He only had one brief incident of difficulty with the bridle that was quickly overcome and he proceeded to adapt to life with Brady. Their focus at camp was on the flat for many reasons, although they did go about in the open fields away from others and they did some “grid” work over poles and crossrails. The kids worked primarily with one coach in the morning and worked with all of the others in the afternoon on different days.
Every day I expected to get a call from GMHA telling me to take them home but I was pleasantly surprised and relieved not to get the call and to hear they were doing fine. Hammie, I was told could get a bit herd bound, so to speak, but overall, was vastly improved from where he started. I can’t thank the instructors enough, particularly Ann Geoghegan, Brady’s morning coach and Brady’s barn manager Emma Heald for their patience and enthusiasm. All of the instructors were great. The week culminated with a horse show and Brady, although immensely disappointed that he couldn’t do the horse trial yet with Hamilton, did do a very decent walk trot test. The canter still needs work. What a wonderful experience.
After camp was over. we went for a lesson with Sue and Brady jumped around a little course, doing a great job. As one of our customers said, paraphrasing, “It isn’t so much Over the Rainbow as it is following the Yellow Brick Road, brick by brick. I feel as though a couple of more bricks have been laid.