About a month after we moved to CastleRock, a new trainer arrived at the barn: Jane Armour, a three-day eventing trainer from Scotland who had come to the U.S. on a "Trainer of Trainers" visa. Jane was offering conformation evaluations, so I made an appointment for her to check out Harley, and for us to check out Jane. Five minutes into the evaluation, I knew I wanted to train with her. What makes Jane so great? In addition to her outstanding background in classical dressage, she just plain gets horses. And their owners.
On September 3, 2009, we had our first lesson. Calling it "not great" is putting it mildly. Harley charged ahead when walking or trotting, could not relax, threw his head in the air, swerved unexpectedly away from the rail and tried to run back to the gate. Jane was totally calm, telling me not to fight him, and then, to my amazement, she complimented Harley, telling me that she loved that he had the confidence to do that. Never in a million years would I have been able to find anything positive in that lesson, but Jane did. I went home that night feeling hopeful. But we had our work cut out for us. Harley is a strong soul who stands up for himself and resists any kind of aggressive or forced training. Gentleness and patience were the only methods that would work with him. Fortunately, that is how Jane works.
