As much as I love the work I do, I love training horses, I love the farm and I love being outdoors. There is no denying its a job, I have to make money, balance the cheque book, make sure I earn enough to feed my horses over winter, get there feet done, and cover any vet bills that pop up. It's stressful, and I work incredibly hard, and mostly completely alone on the farm day after day, year after year.
Even training horses becomes a job, especially clients, or ones that are destined for sale. You have a limited amount of time to get a set amount of results and this becomes priority. Sometimes there is so much work, so little time, and a lot of stress in making sure money keeps comings in and bills keep getting payed, your own horses sometimes get extended vacations, as you just run out of time to twirl with them. This often happens, the horses that earn the cash get worked first everything else second, is the reality of the job.
You also forget and run out of time to enjoy the thing that's most important, the horses themselves.
Luckily for me I get to have the occasional day like today and it makes all the stress seem inconsequential.
It's winter and I spent a Sunday afternoon at the beach with freinds and my favourite wild horse, the amazing Fern, wakebaording up & down the waves. Bliss. Actually I didn't do the wakeboarding I rode Fern and she towed the wakeboard with my friends taking turns surfing along behind us.
Heaven to me is something like this, galloping down the beach on a horse in one of the most beautiful places on earth with good freinds.
This makes everything worth it.
This was Ferns first time as the tow horse and she excelled, no stress pulling the person on the board with the first try. She is the perfect horse for this job never faltering steady rythm she just casually galloping down the beach easily towing a person.
To be clear there is actually very little pulling required once the person is standing up surfing the horses basically just gallops along with almost no tension in the tow rope.
A fun afternoon like this is also a good reminder, that all the hours spent on training and producing a happy, well behaved horse is worth it. I never take shortcuts training, and it always pays off down the road, or today the beach. I had a horse that happily and confidently allowed me to combine some of my greatest loves horses, freinds and the beach.
Check out the video and see for exactly what I'm talking about
