When the polo season was over that year I was feeling the lack of horses in my life. I had to become proactive with my equestrian education. What could I do to be involved with horses? I didn't want my riding career to be over with those couple of rides with Winnie and Ben.
Maybe I could get a job at Ben's upscale tack store. Thought that was a pretty good idea. But I was beginning to become more conscious of my incompetance. Remember stage two? I was thinking I probably didn't know enough about horses and equipment to be even considered as an applicants for a job at his very upscale tack store. This was a new concept for me. If some one were to ask "Where are the martingales?", for instance. I would probably think, "I didn't know there was a bird department here."
So that wouldn't work and I eliminated that idea. I was getting just a bit smarter about things.
Maybe I could take lessons? But I didn't know any place to go. I had no horsie friends who could direct me. But wait, I had heard there was a county stable that offered package deals in riding.
I would try that even though it smacked of The Blue HIlls Riding Stable days. I didn't care. At least it was something. And I was becoming proactive.
Over that first winter I took ten riding lessons and by the end of that season I was promoted from "Beginner I" to "Beginner II" at Lord Stirling Riding Stable! I was on my way and I felt pretty good about my standing and my new proactive state. Even though at the end of all those lessons the group was barely trotting. It was a very enjoyable group of women taking lessons there and they all were yearning to become riders, as I did. But not all of them were as serious as I.
In the spring of the following year I was in Ben's tack store and I very fortuitiuosly bumped into him.
"Are you going to come out and help me with my horses this year?" he asked.
I couldn't believe my ears. I am thinking, "Me? Why me?" I was a real beginner. That was confirmed at the Lord Stirling Riding Stable with my label of a mere "Beginner II", hadn't it? Now I knew it. I felt quite out of place as I looked around his upscale tack store and realized I was not an "A" circuit rider, a foxhunter, nor did I even own a broken down plow horse and keep it in my backyard. I was no one in the horse world.
What could he possibly want with me? But I guess my lack of skill as a rider didn't matter so much, I was willing and quite eager, (I definitely had that going for me) I had time on my hands since I had quit my job as an architect and that's all that really mattered to Ben. So I started to go out to his barn without Winnie. Afterall, Ben asked me! I didn't have to rely on her invitations anymore.
And that is when I began to really ride. I would excercise three or four horses per day and pony one along side, just so they would be in shape for the upcoming polo season. I learned how to clean a stall, to handle and feed a horse and how to really groom. Ben and his barn manager Rhonda were great teachers and I was like a sponge. When Ben was going to one of his polo matches each horse had to be in perfect shape with not a speck of dirt anywhere. I became a groom as well as an exercise rider.
Ben allowed me to ride any horse in the barn. There was Patti, a very pretty dark bay quarter horse and Bagel, a dun quarter horse, and Queenie and Petey and Rodney all bay thoroughbreds. And there was Mary, she was my favorite another bay thoroughbred. He and his partner Bob had ten horses and I secretly thought of them as my own. I was allowed to ride anyone of them nearly at anytime I wanted, I was so lucky! However I knew that my relationship with his horses was tentative because at any time he could sell one of them and where would I be then? What if he sold Mary? It could happen. The thought nagged at me.
That is when I started to think of getting my own horse. I realize now that it was a somewhat crazy thought. And it is something I would advise against now, given what I have learned about horse ownership over the years. I had a small nest egg which I intented to spend on the purchase of my very own horse. I would find out later that the purchase price was only a drop in the bucket compared to what the attending costs would be. Someone should have told me that my pockets needed to be deeper, much deeper than that little nest egg I was willing to splurge on my very own horse.This would be revealed to me in only a matter of time.
