This message is from: "Arthur Rivoire" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Hello Everybody from Carol Rivoire at Beaver Dam Farm in Nova Scotia --
Brian Jensen wrote (and I paraphrase) <that the Fjord breed will only move forward with owners and breeders who are willing to learn -- > Brian goes on to say . . . < If you are looking for a teacher, look to those people who > have had successes with their Fjords competing in Open Class shows against > all breeds. That is where the Fjord of today and tomorrow belongs. Brian Jensen> I have to say that I agree and disagree with Brian's statement. -- I agree with what I believe is behind Brian's statement, meaning that someone looking for a teacher should find one who really knows what they're doing, but I don't agree that this teacher has to be a competitor. -- To teach someone to drive correctly and safely, the teacher has to be really good and really experienced, but doesn't need to have competitive experience. -- You see, I believe a carriage driver who wants to be a good, safe driver needs to develop his skills to Intermediate Level, whether or not he ever intends to compete in Pleasure Shows or CDEs. -- To drive across country at a good, fast clip and deal with the terrain and various obstacles (natural, man-made, and motorized) likely to be encountered, the driver needs the skills of an Intermediate CDE driver. If he doesn't have those skills, he's just trusting to luck. --So, if you find a person willing to teach you who can skillfully drive cross country, basically he doesn't need to have had competitive experience. My very first teacher was not a competitive driver. This was the man to whom I dedicated my book, THE FJORDHORSE HANDBOOK. His name was Coupe, and he'd grown up using the twelve draft horses on the family farm in N.H. When he was eight years old, each Saturday he drove a pair of horses with a load of green lumber to the mill. Can you imagine that? An eight year old, two Percherons, and a valuable cargo? -- Coupe could drive and train any horses in any type of hitch. -- He always drove one-handed, he was in his seventies dying of cancer and heart disease, and he had a glass eye. One time, we asked him to accompany us to one of our first shows. I had a mare with a foal, and we'd left the foal in the trailer while we were doing classes. Well, the mare was giving me a hard time, so I asked Coupe to do one of the Cones Classes for me. He drove it one-handed, with one eye, with a mare whose attention was on her foal, and he won the Blue Ribbon against a large class of experienced driving horses of all breeds. My point is that a person looking for a beginner driving teacher needs first to find one with lots of experience, and a healthy respect for safety, and a person who can teach beginners. The student should learn all he can from this mentor. -- Then after the student has gained basic skills, and he wants to compete, that's the time to look for someone with show experience who can teach him all the details of showing and competing that only show-ring experience can provide. Student/Guests at our Nova Scotia Beginner Driving Vacations have been taught over the past eleven years by a variety of teachers, some with competition experience against all breeds, and some with no competition experience. Before Arthur and I moved to Nova Scotia, we competed our Fjords in open shows - Pleasure and CDEs. Arthur competed his little mare, Tessa, mostly in Pleasure Driving, and consistently won with her --- particularly in Cones and Gambler's Choice type classes. -- Arthur also competed a wonderful big, imported gelding we had at that time -- a horse named Urjan. And at that time, I was competing our first-born BDF horse, a 4-yr-old mare named BDF Toril. -- All four of us did quite well during that period. One year, at Maine Carriage Days, Arthur and I both won our Dressage Classes. The prize that year was a half dozen old fashion glasses etched with a driving horse. -- We were delighted to take home a full set of a dozen. A couple of years later, I was competing our stallion, Gjest. He was a phenomenal driving horse (still is at 27), and we did quite well at some big shows like Myopia and Gladstone and The Green Mountain Fall CDE. -- I remember that one particularly well as Gjest and I got the best dressage score in all the classes, all levels, out of all the horses and ponies competing. There were 58 of them. Larry Poulin was the judge. I'd done a clinic the day before with Larry and he helped me get Gjest really in hand, which allowed me to win the class. But, to get back to my point about a driving teacher not necessarily having to be an experienced competitor. -- Take, Don, for instance, the wonderful driving trainer and teacher that was with us for so many years. --- Everybody who ever came to our farm could see and sense in a minute that this man was a rare horseman who could do things with driving horses not many people could. --- And yet, Don had never seen the inside of a showring. Don had never heard the term "dressage". -- He didn't have to know the lingo. Don knew how a horse was supposed to move, and he knew how to get him to move that way. And, as well, Don knew how to teach those skills. Don was an amazing horseman. Go figure . . . The man had grown up using draft horses. That's what he knew. Yet, instinctively he knew that a carriage horse was supposed to go in a different manner than a draft orse. -- Don and I were of one mind where horse training was concerned. I approved of his methods and I certainly approved of the marvelous results. And the many customers of ours who were lucky enough to get horses trained by Don are thanking their lucky stars everytime they hitch up. Their horses stand when asked, and when asked to go, they go with exuberance and energy. All Don's horses are supple and bend. All Don's horses have soft ouths. -- And yet, Don had no competitive experience, and he had never had a lesson in his life. And then, the other permanent member of our staff, our Stable Manager, Jaimie, who has never competed a driving horse in her life. -- She does have Pony Club experience, and did all those shows as a child and eenager. -- Jaimie was just a neighborhood kid who started to hang around here when we moved to Antigonish, Nova Scotia. She was eleven years old. She and three other girls hung around here every spare minute. On school vacations, weekends, and summer holidays, they'd arrive at 7 am, and leave after 10 pm. They all became terrific riders, and Jaimie learned from me how to drive horses. (Actually, I also trainer her to ride, and yet, I'm not much of a rider myself. However, I do understand dressage principles from my driving experience, and was able to use those principles to teach Jaimie to ride well) -- Now, Jaimie trains all our driving horses, and believe me, they're beautifully trained. --- The Shining Examples are the two 5 yr. old imported mares we used last year in our Beginner Driving Program. We'd imported the mares as yearlings, and Jaimie had done all the training. Four solid years of training went into making those mares safe for our guests. And the result surprised even e. --- For the whole ten week season, Saakje and Saskia never put a foot wrong. --- Anybody who really knows horses will realize how absolutely remarkable such a thing is. -- And it happened because a kind, gentle, experienced young woman trained them one step at a time -- never skipping any of the vital steps. The bottom line is that you do not necessarily need a driving teacher with Show Ring or CDE experience. --- You do need a teacher who is experienced and has a high regard for safety (yours and the horse's), and who understands how a driving horse must go, which is different than a draft horse. And, also, a teacher who has an understanding and sympathy for the horse. I suppose that when the student has enough experience under his belt and wants to try a show, then it would give him a headstart to have some lessons with an experienced competitor. -- I'd also recommend that the prospective competitor spectate and volunteer at shows for awhile before competing himself. And, I'd also recommend that he take his horse to spectate once or twice before actually going to a driving event as a competitor. -- The next step would be to participate at a few driving clinics. -- All these things are really quite vital before taking part in a show. So, if all this has whetted your appetite to learn to drive, there are several places around where you can fulfill your dreams -- Brian and Ursula Jensen, I believe, still does driving weekends in beautiful British Columbia, and Brian's specialty is multiple and unique hitches. -- Vivian Creigh (Competitor Extraordinaire) is now offering driving lessons at her Vermont Farm. And we continue to offer a 4-Day Course called Nova Scotia Beginner Driving Vacations. This year, we start June 23, and run until the end of ugust. -- July is pretty well booked at this point. There are a couple of weeks with a single spot open. -- August is a bit more open. Call us about availability. Along with our regular staff, this summer we're expecting seven young horsewomen from Europe as summer interns. These girls are all dressage and event riders, and one of them has her driving licence from the German National Equestrian Federation. All of us at Beaver Dam Farm are really excited this year about the coming season. -- Really, more excited than usual, and I think the reason is that it's been such a horrible year with the war and terrorism threats that we're just so grateful that our life with our horses is going on as usual. Kind Regards, Carol Rivoire http://www.beaverdamfarm.com Beaver Dam Farm Fjords II R.R. 7 Pomquet, Nova Scotia B2G 2L4 Tel:(902) 386-2304 Fax:(902) 386-2149 Carole Rivoire, author of THE FJORDHORSE HANDBOOK, only book in English on the Fjord breed, available from Beaver Dam Farm, $36.95 US includes P&H http://www.beaverdamfarm.com/book.htm
