Jane, In Memoriam

Jane Pastel (1925-2021)

I'm a firm believer that teens need an adult mentor in that teen's special interest who has exceedingly high expectations of that teen. Jane was my mentor as a kid. We attended the same church, which is how we met.  The church was holding an auction fundraiser and I had donated my meager drawing skills listing off that I was best at doing horses (lol oh tween me) and could work off of a photograph. 

Jane was the only one who bid on my services and she invited me out to her house to meet Barron and Pooh Bear.  Barron was an already ancient chestnut, Morgan gelding, arthritic and cranky and nearly toothless. Pooh Bear was a spit fire black Shetland gelding going gray in the face with age who absolutely ruled the roost. Both were absolutely doted on by Jane. 

Up until that moment, my little bits of horse exposure had been the occasional pony ride at the fair, or as a treat, a birthday trail ride out of a massive trail ride business somewhere near UConn, and summer riding lessons at UConn as an 11year old. I was a sponge that had read as much as I could and all that was left, was the hands on stuff. Jane's vast amount of knowledge was this treasure trove that I soaked and immersed myself in. 

She had been raised in the British Pony Club style, as had some of her kids. She taught me how to brush a horse and in what order (curry comb, stiff brush, body brush, soft brush). She told me I should get to know the horses first before drawing them for her. What a clever woman.  My dad and I would come out on the weekend. I would brush both Barron and Pooh, my Dad learned how to clean the stalls. I would dump the wheelbarrow for him (he has polio in a leg and the terrain was too rough for him to do it himself). 

Jane and her husband, Harvey, ca 2008 at my wedding in Groton, CT

One day we arrived and Jane informed me that she had a new horse that I should go meet. I remember it was a cold, late winter day. The ground was frozen but what greeted me was a very friendly, bay gelding who I was informed was named Classy Clyde. He was a Standardbred, off the track pacer and Jane had found and acquired him. I was informed, if I was to ride him, I would need to join the local Pony Club.  And she would pay for everything about him except for my Pony Club membership and his Coggins every year. Eventually, I became her trusted farm sitter, caring for the horses when she'd take her annual trip to the UK to visit a daughter who lived there. 

I rode him a little that really cold day and he was honest and steady and I decided then and there that bay standardbreds were my most favorite horse in the world and I wanted nothing else. This dude occupied a little piece of my soul. And I like to think that he decided I belonged to him too. 

Jane would pick me up after school in her big red diesel truck. Sometimes with the horse trailer in tow if I was going to a pony club lesson. Clyde took me through my C-1 until I finally left for college. Every winter I'd come home and hope to be around for Jane's Christmas Party. As a teen it was a fantastic time, held in her old farmhouse with multiple levels of floor as rooms had been added on over the years. There'd be caroling around the piano and I'd always escape out into the frigid air to visit the horses, already tucked in for the night, munching on their hay. 

I spent my summers at her house, cleaning stalls and riding for hours on the trails that connected into Bolton Notch State Park and Valley Falls Park. I knew that valley in and out and Clyde and I would head out and we'd just leave the trail and explore because I knew I'd always be able to get home. It was contained wild space, to a degree. I'd love to go back and ride those trails again, just to see them because they were such a quiet, tranquil space for me. 

2008, dancing at my wedding

Later, when Erica and I were engaged, we took engagement photos at her property. And when we did pre-marital counseling we were asked to identify a married couple we admired and looked up to. Jane, with her husband Harvey, was our immediate response. Or at least mine, and it didn't take long to convince Erica why. Harvey and Jane were married for what felt like ever. He was a retired surgeon, absolutely brilliant, kind man, and spent his retirement affectionately pinching Jane's bottom, playing tennis, and building beautiful, delicate model airplanes out of balsawood and rice paper or intricate origami pieces of art. There was so much love evident with the two of them and it was so obvious that something they were doing was right. They were lasting, they communicated and their love just continued to blossom. He passed away in 2017. 

It was because of Jane's tutelage that I felt confident diving into home horse ownership. I wouldn't be the equestrian I am today without her. She demanded skills and knowledge out of me and I rose to meet her expectations. Her confidence and trust in me was so crucial to me as a teen. Even if I'd fuck up at school (and I did... my resulting punishment was me delaying getting my drivers license), having Jane and Clyde was a constant in my life that I could rely on. 

Jazmin on Pooh (L) me on Clyde (R)

I kept meaning to write to her. To call. And realizing I can't anymore, that my procrastination cost me the chance to say hi and good by one last time, to send a purposeful thank you.... Fuck that hurts.  At least I can make the memorial service. 

RIP Jane. Harvey was probably impatiently waiting for you. I'm glad you're reunited with him again.

Day 15 - Talking to any horse

Day 15- If you could speak to any horse, dead or alive, what would you say?


From Clover Ledge Farm

There's going to be a bunch of posts. I had a ridiculous week and didn't have the chance to sit down at a computer.

I would want to talk to Clyde again and tell him why I left and never really came back and did anything with him again once I left for college. I'm sure he had a great retirement, but I missed him and I didn't get to do what I wanted to do with him in retirement (ie. love on him every day) and he died before I could bring him home.

Day 12 - Favorite Coat Color

Day 12- Favorite horse color



From Clover Ledge Farm

There are five different colors of spots on this mare. Also, she camoflages mud easily.

Love me that bright bay tho...

Despite having a very uniquely colored horse now, I'm a HUGE fan of a good bright bay. Honestly, I like most coat color and it'd be a shorter list to write out which coat color I'm not a fan of (Buckskin, chestnut and Gray, though I'd be a fan of gray if they stayed that fun dappled gray but they all go white in the end)

What has been fun is learning about coat color genetics. Appaloosa is funky, splash can get you a dead foal, gray is dominant and sorrel and chestnut are the same don't even try that here.

Sorry, I really can't wax poetical on coat color. This is all you get. I'm going back to making my brilliantly orange quarter sheet for hunting season riding.

Day 7 - Favorite Ribbon

Day 07- Your favorite ribbon won at a show and why


From Clover Ledge Farm

This, for me, is really easy to answer. Clyde and I struggled through Pony Club. As an off the track pacer with only Pony Club instruction we made slow progress through the levels and showing. There was one 3 Day PC Event where I was begging the Technical Delegate to let me continue with the Stadium Phase (It was a true 3 day, Dressage on the first day (DQ'd because I brought in a whip), Cross Country on the 2nd Day (too many refusals) and then Stadium.

Anyway, this isn't about that event, but it does kind of inform you, this horse and I struggled. I remember being at Pony Club camp and we had to switch horses and I was practically gleeful at how easy it was to canter the horse around and around and around the arena.

So back to the story at hand.

Every fall, a farm would host a schooling show with flat and jump classes. It was very popular with the pony clubbers. If you entered the series of the same category you could qualify for a champion ribbon.  You had a flat class, W/T/C, then jumping and maybe a third, I can't remember it's been well over a decade and a half. But I entered all the classes. I dolled Clyde up and into the ring each time we went.

He jumped his heart out, we were on point and we came away with the Reserve Champion Ribbon. Some of our critics were there watching, people who would ask my parents why they didn't just get me a better horse when they saw us struggling in lessons. At this show, they congratulated us on how far we'd come and how well we did. Suck it, Glastonbury. I was a chubby middle class kid on a free horse who could barely canter competing against upper class kids who wintered in Wellington and Ocala on 5 figure ponies. And I fucking won.

That is my favorite ribbon.

Day 5 Blog Hop for NaNo

Day 05- Your first fall

From Clover Ledge Farm

I'm gonna break this up into two categories:  My first fall and my first fall off of Gwyn.

My first fall was when I was taking lessons at UConn. We were learning how to canter or do sitting trot or something and I just could NOT figure it out. They pretty much had me drop my reins and hold onto the pommel of the saddle to pull my butt into the seat.

Long story short, it didn't work. I didn't really develop a good seat until much later and many more lessons on Clyde. I did have a spectacular fall at UConn though, that ended with me at the ER and on crutches because I bone bruised my hip. Thankfully that's the worst I've ever had falling off a horse. It's not the worst I've ever had horse related though, that honor goes to Clyde and getting him to cross a bridge and he stepped on top of my foot. Not just the toes, the whole foot. No break but I couldn't walk on it for a while and used crutches until it healed.


Now, the story about the first time I fell off of Gwyn is hilarious.  Gwyn was still basically a baby and being broken and this was in Florida when she still belonged to Cheri. We were riding in an empty lot of land that was for sale and it was all overgrown grass. Like past the draft horse belly high. Gwyn and I were in the lead, just trying to enjoy ourselves when Gwyn tripped. Her feet had gotten tangled in the grass. She went down to her knees and I kind of rolled over her shoulder and gently landed on the ground.

Gwyn didn't know what to do. This was the first time anyone had fallen off her and boy was she concerned. Like checking up on me concerned. She hadn't moved her feet since I'd left the saddle and was sniffing me. I backed her out of the tangle and went in search of some kind of elevation in order to remount. But this is Florida and old orange groves and that was easier said than done.  We walked back out to the dirt road, which was a few inches lower than the grass but it wasn't enough to give me the height advantage I needed to remount.

Cheri ended up getting off to give me a leg up. She hoisted and up and into the saddle... and over the other side I went. Falling off Gwyn for a second time in less than ten minutes.

At this point Gwyn just looked perplexed and impatient. Like, "Come on guys, this isn't a very fun game, get back to riding already"

We ended up using the bed of a pick up truck from Cheri's husband as he drove by and all was well.

NaNoWriMo: Blogger Style!

Day 1 - When & Why You Started Riding

Via Clover Ledge Farm

 My mom has pictures of me at the local fair, you know, the one that comes to the suburbs and sets up in a parking lot, not even in a field because there's no open field big enough, riding the ponies that go around the modified hotwalker at a glacier pace.

I was obsessed with horses for a long while. I pestered my parents enough that my birthday presents were often trail rides at the local-ish riding stable. And then finally a series of lessons through the summer program at the University of Connecticut when I was ten. And I'd beg to go to camps where I could ride horses.  I have a picture somewhere of me at Asthma Camp (no joke! lol) that happened to have horses and I got very attached to a nice morab.

Then a lady at my church kind of heard that I was horse crazy. She invited me out to her farm where I met Baron and Pooh Bear, an ancient chestnut morgan gelding and a nearly ancient spitfire little black shetland. She taught me how to groom them while my Dad cleaned their stalls. It was under the pretense that I would draw Baron and Pooh, since she had won that in a church fundraiser auction. I did eventually get her a drawing.

But then one day a new horse showed up. He was a big, beautiful bay Standardbred and we just... connected. He was off the track, but he had the most wonderful heart and personality. I was the only one who could touch his nose and his whiskers and he whinnied every time he heard my Mom's car.

I started riding him. And he was mine to ride. No one else's. Then Jane, the old lady, suggested that I join the Pony Club. They were Proper. She had already taught me how to groom the Proper way. 

Clyde

So I joined the local Pony Club and started taking regular lessons. Jane would pick me up after school in her big red diesel truck and I would ride, either in her kind of grass arena or on the trails behind her property that connected to a local state park. I had miles of trail to explore. I was distance riding before I knew what distance riding even was.

My 'arena', not level, single dirt track, a couple of homemade jumps

 But I joined Pony Club and Clyde and I learned together. And we evented. Clyde LOVED cross country. Not so much dressage. He had trouble cantering and not pacing (off the track, remember) but we made so much progress together. He's who I credit with how well I ride now.

Standardbreds Can't Jump? I never knew that was a thing. This horse was excellent at it.

I threw my all into Clyde and Jane and Pony Club. They helped me survive my teen years. My one regret is that I wasn't able to take Clyde for his retirement. He lived out his days with Jane, she was forever homes for nearly all of animals so I know he was loved until the end. But she always said that I could have him if I had a place for him. I got Firefly too late. He had already passed.