Greetings! Four lucky Oliverian students recently spent their mornings traveling to a horse farm in northern Vermont to learn more about riding and driving horses. A special thank you goes out to Greenbank Hollow Farm, and to Patty and Bruce, for their amazing hospitality and for the enriching experience they were able to provide our students.
Our first day we learned how to harness a horse and drive a single horse cart. We had the pleasure of driving a Morgan gelding named Bart, who came to Bruce and Patty all the way from an Amish community in Ohio. Bart seemed to enjoy the attention from the students and was very patient while we learned.
The next two days we learned the fundamentals of riding a western horse, specifically a reining horse. Stranger, the horse we rode, was once a World Champion in the Reined Cow Horse event in Texas and has since retired. Stranger demonstrated that age really IS only a number; even at 20 years old Stranger still had all of his bells and whistles!
[ Kate and Melissa receiving instruction from Bruce ]
[ Matt riding one-handed, like a true cowboy! ]
Thursday we worked with Bart once again – whom Bruce and Patty call ‘Uncle Bart’, or ‘Bart the Bully’. Apparently Bart has similar attributes similar to our Taco – he’s very bossy with other horses. Bart is used regularly for english riding lessons for Patty’s students.
We closed our week on Friday with a beautiful horse-drawn sleigh ride through very pretty wooded trails across from the farm. Our horses were Sunny and Bart. Bart is Sunny’s Uncle, hence where the name ‘Uncle Bart’ came from. Sunny came from the same Amish family in Ohio. I was shocked to hear that Sunny is only 3 years old and already such a nice driving horse. He is a true testament to the amazing quality of driving horses the Amish can produce. I’ve driven many horses that were raised and trained by the Amish and I have always been impressed.
[ Tim and Matt try to duck out of the photo; Sunny and Bart ]
We had a wonderful time visiting Greenbank Hollow Farm and learned many things about different styles of riding and driving. Horses are pretty amazing in that they can offer so many possibilities to those who dabble in their world.