Mary is pictured with one of the homebreds she competes in eventing.
Teaching an "Old Dog" new tricks ...
Producing horse "training" videos turns out to be Mary's third
career. While teaching Chemistry at Mount Holyoke College her students
talked her into taking riding lessons. Of course, she loved it and within
a year had bought that special, first horse. After an enjoyable 23 years
together, "Rimmy Jims" is buried on her breeding farm.
Second Career
After marriage and relocation Mary became a photographic scientist at
Eastman Kodak Company. She bought a second horse, a TB mare, and competed
her for several years, before building a barn and starting a small, breeding
business. Working full time was wonderful in that it paid for the barn
and indoor riding arena (a must in western NY winters) but left too little
time for the horses. Breeding and starting young foals was certainly a
new experience and relying completely on common sense wasn't quite enough.
Fast forward to 1995
This is where Bob Dickinson, the horse trainer/teacher comes in. Mary
had bought a 4 yr old horse that had been turned out in a field with a
run-in shed and basically left alone for 3 years. He was out by himself
so didn't get horse-socialized and also (presumed by his actions) if he
saw or heard something he was afraid of, he simply bolted away from it
(he was in a big field so he could really get away from it!). This is
a natural reaction but it was very ingrained in this horse and a tough
thing to deal with when riding him. In any event, he was a sweet and talented
horse but he had this fear problem and also had never been taught to trailer
load.
Mary sought Bob's help, liked what he did and how he did it. After teaching
the horse to trailer load, Bob also taught him to have less of a fear
and run away response. Again, the philosophy of how Bob worked with the
horse made total and logical sense and he explained things exceptionally
well. Bob also worked with the young horses Mary had bred. He was gentle,
yet firm and the horses always were calmer and happier after one of Bob's
lessons. And they remembered what they were taught! And they were easier
to handle! And the transition from ground work to under saddle work was
so straight-forward!
EquiHorse is born!
Mary's recognized Bob's skills as a teacher and with her own teaching
background thought they would make a good team so she asked Bob if he
would be interested in working together on a horse training program. He
thought that was a great idea especially since so many of his students
had been asking him to write a book or make a video. So we started planning
and organizing the topics we felt needed to be covered and then in 1998,
Mary lost her job through down-sizing (some of you surely identify with
this!). But with the re-training allowance Mary received, she was able
to start learning the skills for her third career….digital video
editing.
Mary's last 3 homebreds were started using Bob's methods from the time
they were first born. You will see some of them in the videos we've produced.
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