Spotlight on a Member: Sarah Lewis

Harvey and Sarah - Click on pictures to see full size photos

Some of you who have been members for a little while will know that I will try anything (almost!) to get members to write in and tell us something about themselves which is why we have so many competitions etc. I decided that it was time to have another go at sending out my 'Spotlight on a Member' questionnaire to a few people who contacted me for one reason or another and I am very pleased that Sarah (along with another member Rachel Walker) agreed to give us her answers. Sarah has also written an interesting article about how horses learn which you can see in the News & Events.

1. Can you tell us about yourself?

I'm an organisational psychologist. As a child I worked leading horses at my local yard for a couple of years in exchange for rides. 'My horse' at the yard was an Exmoor pony called Derby, whom I loved dearly and who allowed me to pull him around with great patience and forbearance and only occasionally trod on me. I rode appallingly but fortunately it didn't matter as all I had to do was follow the others and stay on. I had a great time cantering, galloping, jumping, riding bareback and falling off. I was highly allergic to horses and still am. In due course school-work and boys called and time for horsey stuff got squeezed out.

2. How did you first get involved with Appaloosa horses?

Twenty five years later I took my youngest son, then 7 to the local yard in London (Mudchute Farm) to learn to ride. After a few sessions watching him I thought I would have a go. I was instantly hooked. I still rode appallingly and essentially had to start again from the beginning. I was very lucky in my first teacher who both aspired to classical riding, and took it as a personal challenge to transform this bouncing, unbalanced classic 'sack of potatoes' forty year old into something resembling a rider.

After a couple of years I moved to another yard that was able to offer hacking as well as just schooling. Slowly the idea began to form that I would like to be able to ride out on my own, and that to do that I would have to have my own horse, so I started to keep an eye out. The yard I was riding at also acted as a trading yard. I was riding in the school in my regular class one day when in came a beautiful rather scared horse: Harvey. He caught my eye. Shortly after that I rode him. It was pretty much a disaster: I couldn't get him to canter, we demolished jumps, obviously I had to have him.

3. What horses do you have and what is their breeding?

Just the one, Harvey, no idea of his breeding, he is alleged to have come over from Holland and is also alleged to have once had a set of papers but they got left with a previous dealer.

4. What is your favourite type of Appaloosa and why?

Mine, obviously

5. What is your proudest moment?

So many to choose from: eventually getting left lead canter, coming first in a showing class, training him to load better, training him to free jump, our first clear round!

6. What are your future goals?

We are just starting to do dressage tests, and I hope to progress slowly in that area, we will continue to develop our local jumping and we are about to start doing TREC. I hope to get a bit more experienced at cross country in due course

7. When did you join the ApHC UK?

Last year

8. What do you hope to gain from being a member of the ApHC UK?

I joined to get some papers for him, which we now have. I appreciated the help in getting those and the passport. I hope to get to compete at an event.

9. How do you think we can make the club even better?!

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Not sure

10. What sort of articles would you like to see in the Newsletter?

Information about the breed, about things of current debate and interest in the equine world, people's accounts of their experiences, news of events.

11. What are your other interests? (if you have time for any!)

Walking, reading, film, family, squash, tennis (not necessarily in that order and not necessarily what you would call frequently indulged).

From The Editor:-

Thank you Sarah for completing our 'Spotlight on a member' questionnaire and for sending in the great photos of Harvey that appear in the middle insert pages of this newsletter.