Julie teaching clinic at Oskie Rice Event Center, Maui
Summer has finally arrived here in the Rocky Mountains. It’s the favorite time of year for our horses, when they finally get turned out to the pasture to eat green grass. We only let them out for a couple hours a day the first week, to give their digestive systems time to adapt. Some horses, like my mare Annie, will gorge themselves until they are bloated, if we don’t break them in slowly.
About an hour before the turnout time, they all line up at the gate, staring intently at it, as if willing it to open. Once it opens, they can hardly make it past the gate, before burying their noses in the grass. But in a few weeks, as the days get hot and the bugs come out, they’ll be less obsessed with grazing and start coming into the paddock early, for some shade and hay.
I’ve been on the road doing clinics for three out of the last four weeks, first at the C Lazy U Ranch in Colorado, where I co-taught the Women’s Riding & Wholeness Retreat, with my dear friend and esteemed colleague, Barbra Schulte. We had an amazing group of women join us, and a fabulous time was had by all. Everyone rides one of the ranch’s two hundred horses, and it’s always interesting for me to teach people on horses that they are unfamiliar with. It really grows their riding and stretches my instruction!
Right after the C Lazy U clinic, we flew to Maui, Hawaii, for two weeks (two groups) of our signature riding tours. On these trips, we like to go off the beaten path and delve deep into the local horse culture. Each group enjoyed three days of riding clinics, an incredible mountain ride on a private ranch, a community potluck with local horse people, live Hawaiian music, and relaxing mornings and evenings at the beach.
Right in front of our house, giant sea turtles come up on the sand to sleep each night—dozens of them. For all of us, this was a very special treat, knowing that few people on earth will ever see these magnificent creatures up close (we kept our distance so as not to disturb them).
The local horse culture in Maui is amazing. We had well-bred and well-trained performance horses to ride and for some guests, these horses were higher caliber than their horses at home. It’s such a privilege to ride well-trained horses and nothing beats the feeling of learning a new skill—and the certainty that you did it right when the horse performs the maneuver flawlessly. Few things will broaden your horsemanship skills like riding an unfamiliar horse and/or riding a very well-trained horse. Here we did both.
Our local hosts, Maile, the Operations Manager of the Oskie Rice Event Center, and Greg, the manager of the renowned Haleakala Ranch, could not have been more welcoming and accommodating. Our dear friend David Carswell, a talented local horse trainer that I’ve known for decades, was the glue that bound us all together.
In addition to riding their amazing horses and seeing the island, we learned to make a traditional Hawaiian dish called Lau Lau, which is made with taro leaves and pork, then we made some beautiful leis and took them to the local Veteran’s cemetery to adorn a gravestone of our choice. It was quite moving. These were special insights into a unique and beautiful culture.
As I write this report, I am still in Maui, soaking in the Aloha spirit the final few days. My riding tour partner and assistant trainer, T Cody, has done an amazing job of organizing and executing these tours and I don’t know how it possibly could have been better. But as fabulous as this trip has been, as much as I feel the aloha spirit, I am eager to get back home to my own horses, even with their fat grass bellies!
