She’s a Carolina Girl…erm, right now anyway.

Tricia’s in NC.  She’s been there a couple of weeks now.  I miss her terribly, but the “getting to there” was a good thing.  My friend Kat, an extremely talented and empathetic horse person and rider (any one in NoVA who wants an amazing woman to work their horses, please let me know!) rode her for me a couple of times in early February.  Of course, because she’s Tricia, she went back to work with grace and sarcasm-her two best features! I was happy that she was backed a bit before I sent her down to Carolina.

As much as I miss her, I am also feeling really blessed to have her with the people she’s with in NC.  We spent a mere 22 months there in our “national travels” (the fun way to say my Dad’s company moved us waaaaaaaaaaay too much!), but those 22 months shaped the rest of my life.  We found Patty there, and then we found the barn where Tricia is currently at.  And that place has set my expectations for horse care and training ever after. I think the best way that I’ve ever heard it said is that, “There are people that love the horses, and there are people that love the sport.”  Terri (Such an odd word for someone that I still look up to, and still see as one of the greatest horsepro I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.) is someone who loves the horse first, and the sport second. We all do this because it’s fun, but at the end of the day it’s horses that matter.  We wouldn’t be able to do any of this without them.  Terri taught me that at the very impressionable age of 15/16.  The horses, their comfort, and their care always came first.  As our national travels took us abroad, finding out that all people who have horse barns do not live up to this same level of excellence was really shocking and disheartening.  Even to today, I’ll pick a good horse manager who loves the animals and tolerates their people over a trainer when it comes to picking a boarding place.  I’d rather travel to the trainer or pay for travel fees of the trainer than leave my baby (or the minis) some place I would worry about her.  So not only was it amazing to have her at Terri’s with Terri once again, but it was also wonderful to see so many familiar faces.  We spent the 20 months there when I was a kid, and I later went back to work a summer-fall for Terri, and when I moved to VA originally, Tricia spent time in training there.  Many of Terri’s clients have been there for well over a decade now.  Seeing people I grew up with, and seeing some of the people I watched grow up–it’s one of the very few places in the world where I actually feel at home.  The young lady who is riding Tricia now was a kid that showed lead-on her when she was there years prior.  Terri let me know that they are seeming to make a good pair, Tricia pushing her just enough, and she not taking any of Tricia’s nonsense.

So I miss my girl.  So very bad.  But I also know that I am blessed to have her in a place that she’s well taken care of and loved.  A place full of people I love too, and one of the very few places in this chaotic life where I feel at home.

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