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Going the distance

A fact in the horse world: the number of people you meet grows exponentially with each horse you acquire and with every horse related event you attend. It takes a whack of people to make, grow, and train a horse and rider, and even more to make and grow a horse event or organization. Some of the folks we meet will remain acquaintances, some will become friends, and others will be like family. Along the way there will also be mentors, whether or not they’re recognized as such at the time.

I met Judith Scrimger when I was hauling a small pony and Pony Clubber to lessons and “D” practices, and she was hauling a slightly older Pony Clubber and his medium pony to “C” events and lessons. Parents and Pony Clubbers, regardless of age, all came together to bed the stalls for spring and summer shows, build courses for training shows, make apple pies, and peddle chicken burgers at the exhibition canteen. Mary Henry’s Avon Pony Club was an intensive program. Lifelong friendships were made.

Judith started writing news items and feature stories for Atlantic Horse & Pony around that busy time, while excelling at her career as an associate professor at Mount Saint Vincent University. For more than 25 years, she’s covered disciplines as varied as mounted shooting, reining, carriage driving, barrel racing, hunters and jumpers, dressage, draft horses, eventing, and competitive trail riding. She’s written about euthanasia, horses on movie sets, concussions, therapeutic riding, getting a pony for Christmas, and countless other topics. Judith did two separate stints as the Nova Scotia Report editor when she took over from her son Ian (the Pony Clubber), who handled the report during high school. She’s crafted many profiles and loved doing almost every one of them. Her profile of the teenage Hornbrook brothers of Landslide Percherons in New Brunswick (“Horses in their blood,” HP Aug.-Oct. 2015) stands out as a hands-down favourite, as their stories rekindled her own childhood memories of life with ponies on the family farm, and the predicaments one might find oneself in.

Judith is retiring from HP to have more time to do other things she loves, including riding her pony Bert, enjoying her new puppy Shenzi, watching her Toronto Blue Jays, and visiting with Ian and his young family in Scotland. It won’t be the same without her, but you might still feel her presence (I hope!). I’ll be bouncing ideas off my friend and mentor for as long she’ll let me. She’s been a wealth of dependable, solid advice on writing, keeping horses, and even surviving life with a headstrong teenage daughter (the other Pony Clubber). She’s never steered me wrong, including convincing me I was up to the unfamiliar task of editing a magazine.

In this issue, Judith has teamed up with photographer Leona Nielsen-Hennebury for her final story, “Blindsided: Building trust with the one-eyed horse.” As often happens in the horse world, Judith and Leona hit the road to cover the story as acquaintances and ended up friends, getting to know intelligent and loving horse owners committed to understanding the needs of their one-eyed equine partners along the way.

We all need people in our lives who believe in us, and push us a little. And every undertaking benefits from the contribution of quality people who will go the distance, whether it’s Pony Club or a magazine. No doubt Judith will do retirement the same way she does everything. Knock it out of the park Judith, and thanks for being you.

NEW in this issue:

There seems to be no end to writer Garry Leeson’s adventures (and misadventures) with horses. Garry’s been entertaining us with his contributions to “On a Lighter Note” these past few years, and we couldn’t resist giving him a recurring column. You’ll find his first offering for the “Life of Leeson” in this issue – “The year of the blue Brabants, part one,” on page 42.