Rough and Tumble

I don't know that the beginnings of my riding were any different from anyone else's.  I do know exactly how it all started, and I know who I can thank for giving me a foundation once I settled on truly making this my "thing".

When I was 11, I found a barn across the road from my middle school and convinced my mother I needed lessons, since my pony was off for training.  The farm was owned by Lisa Williamson.  This is the woman who gave me my beginning, and she must be 85 or so now. Last I heard, she was still training students in the Gainesville area.  And she looks exactly the same.

At the time, she leased a large piece of land across from the middle school, fenced with barbed wire.  There was a hay barn, but other than that, she was not allowed to put fixed buildings on the property.  The horses were all turned out together.  At meal times, they came to the center of the property where she had a series of open stalls, kind of like tiny corrals under a copse of trees, and filed into their respective places.

The tack was housed in the trunks of two broken down cars.  The car keys were stashed in the hay barn.

This place was the definition of "rough and tumble".

And it was the place that gave me a foundation and a sense of fearlessness.

Lessons consisted of all the things that all kids do:  Around the World, working without stirrups, tons of half-seat work.  This was quite literally riding by the seat of our pants.  No one cared about stirrup length.  You set your stirrups to where you felt comfortable and that's where it went.  After we went in circles for 20 minutes in the ring, those that were advanced enough would do the fences that were set up around the OUTside of the ring.  There was no ring jumping.  It was all in the field, and all the fences had developed craters under them, because the fences never moved.  The poles may have been set up or down, but the fences themselves didn't move.

Me (left) on Tharp (TB), my friend on Hunter (TB).

If you were good, Lisa would let you follow her out to the field where she would "breeze" one of her many thoroughbred's.  We didn't know what this really meant or why she was doing it, because she certainly didn't race.  Turns out that she was doing gallop sets with her eventer.

Me and Tharp in an Equitation class.

In that group I went from walk-trot-canter to jumping 2'6" quite successfully in the local show series we had. We did tandem hunter classes when we could, because how much fun is that!  I won Novice Equitation the first time I entered, on one of her thoroughbred horses.  I don't remember braiding, and I wore gum rubber boots.  But we had fun.

Tandem hunter, me in front.

Tandem hunter after the switch at halfway.

We made fun of her mercilessly.  She was built a lot like me back then.  Short and round.  But she didn't let it stop her.  She always had her hair meticulessly curled, and a full face of makeup.  She gave not one shit about what anyone else thought about her situation.  She had her horses who were healthy, well cared for, and her students knew how to actually ride.

I rode with her for about two years before the call of the expensive show barn came to me, but there were no hard feelings from Lisa.  She knew her part was to get you started and send you on your way.

When I started riding again as an adult, I went to a show in the Gainesville area.  That night I called my mom and told her I could have sworn I saw Lisa.  She said that couldn't be, the woman would be like 80.  She was right.  And so was I.

My first lesson at the barn in Gainesville in 2008 with Denna, I was shocked to look over and see Lisa giving up-down lessons in the next ring.  It turns out that my worlds had collided a bit when I was gone in that she started working with the trainer of the shiny show barn that I left her for when I was 13.

Denna tells a story of going to Lisa's to try a horse.  She had a bad fall over fences in which she actually broke both clavicles.  Lisa told her to suck it up and that she wasn't driving her to the hospital.  So Denna had to get herself in the truck, drive to the end of the property, get out and open the gate, drive through, get back out and close the gate.  Lisa was the definition of rough and tumble.

She knew who I was.  She had not forgotten me.  When she saw me in a walk-trot class with Violet a couple of years later, she stood on the rail and told me to get out of the ring, I was a way better rider than that.  That is just Lisa's way.

I would have to say I am so grateful I got to ride at that rough and tumble place.  It had no name, it was just Lisa Williamson's place.  But it was there that I developed a seat and a sense of balance.  It was there that I would run to after school with my girlfriends.  It was there that I jumped my first fence, and who I went to my first jumping show with.   It was there that I grew up a little bit.