To be a working student, means that a rider and horse would go to a farm to train under a famous rider that is currently competing in international shows and work there horses. Famous riders have around ten to even fifteen horses going at the same time in competitions, so daily exercise is a task all in itself. So, these riders then offer working student positions, in which a rider can move to the barn and ride their horses and exercise them, along with daily barn chores the famous riders are too busy to complete. This is a job, and pay is free lessons on one of their world class horses or one of your own. The point of doing this is to get better training from someone who has been there and done that, and can teach you the true ways of eventing from a professionals point of view and experience. After college I plan to become a working student for any of the following professionals I have listed in the website earlier. I would love to have this experience because through being a working student this is how one becomes a better rider that can hop on any horse and make the most out of the ride. Since I want to become a rider that is internationally competing, the best way to learn is through the training of a current international rider. This would be a truly great experience and I plan to graduate early so that I can have this experience sooner.
What is The Young Rider Society?
The Young Rider Program is an association that was created by the United States Eventing Association. It is for up and coming riders to make a name for themselves who are twenty one or younger. The Young Riders Program is there to help riders who are trying to get more involved in the sport of eventing have that opportunity by helping them financially and then being noticed nationally of their talent and skills. In order to become a young rider, one has to go through a series of shows, and place in the top five, or first in some of them. The riders have to be at the level of preliminary in which true talent will shine. Also this program helps the rider and horse as a team develop certain morals and work ethics through dedication and the creation of the love of the sport. Young rider program is currently what I am striving to become in our area five. There are only fifty five young riders in the United States, and this is an overall goal in life to become.
Rebecca Mullet
Judy Hartman – Austin Horse Trainer As Seen Thru the Eyes of Her Student
Judy Hartman is the most influential person in my life, she opened my eyes to enlightenment and helped me find out who I am today through her teaching of eventing. She would not have guessed that by teaching eventing she was teaching me life lessons in the making. My belief of eventing gives meaning to my life, is the same as hers. Eventing to Judy or how I call her Judith (just to bug her) and I is an escape, an escape and experience not many people have the courage or the opportunity to have, that is true freedom.
The feeling of being in control but not being controlled, and organized but forward, feeling truly free with nothing to stop you, thats how Judy puts it. She was the person I interviewed for my senior project because I knew her and I shared the same beliefs and she has shown me the light, brought me out of the cave, and even though this doesnt come close to thanking her for what shes done, it gives everyone a taste about how powerful eventing truly is.
Judy Hartman started riding when she was four, and started riding with a very famous dressage rider and trainer, Lucy Parker. I have ridden with her a couple times and it is unbelievable how the littlest advice from Lucy fixes all your problems. Judy still rides with Lucy today, and after taking horses up through the fourth level dressage (the level right before international competition) she was introduced to eventing. She has competed up through training level, and was mostly interested in training the horses that most people gave up on. She is known for her kind spirit, and outgoing personality, she leaves no rock unturned and has shown that her personality has been therapeutic for some students at her barn, Milestone Farm.
She continued to show up until she joined the marine corp. in 1995. She then was stationed in Okinawa, Japan. After a year of being one of ten women in a sea of over five hundred men, she was relocated to Lejeune NC, where she taught lessons and trained horses on her free time. After that she went to England in 1998, to represent the United States Marine Corp Equestrian Team, she rode the queen of Englands horses and competed against them in show jumping. She was the first women to ever represent the Marine Corp in such a way. In 1999 she retired and moved to southern pines NC, and she worked as a working student at a barn there, the barn that Will Faudree later owned when it burned down and he lost all of his belongings. She then moved around, making her own barn and running it for two years in Nevada, and then coming to Texas, starting Milestone Farm.
The important thing about Judy is that she bases every aspect of eventing around balance and knowing ones mind and body, being sensibly aware of oneself and being forward. When I had my interview with her I asked her how eventing brought meaning into her life, and as quoted before it brought her uncontrolled freedom, she also said that it brings balance to her life. Dressage gives me balance and peace in my mind; it centers me and reminds of who I am and why I am here, as she puts it. She then goes into each phase of eventing, show jumping gives me technicality, it shows me how I do things and the technical aspects of not only the jumping itself but the how, why, when and where; it makes me think about what I am doing and their outcomes. Cross country is for the adrenalin rush, she says, its the drive that keeps life exciting and unpredictable. She tells me about how eventing has made her life, her beliefs and her soul all centered around eventing and the ultimate rule to always follow, go forward and make that commitment to be forward, to be truly free and keep moving and have the freedom to do so.
