Pony Tales


P O N Y


T A L E S


THE GRANDAUGHTER CHRONICLES PART XXI


S


always been one of my favorite places, but somewhere I don’t get to very often. When my granddaughter received the show premium (we are on every mailing list now) she basically begged to go and see what happens in classes for “little kids”. I was quick to agree as it would be only her and I for the holiday, and I also knew the festivities at “the turkey show” are an experience everyone should be a part of at some point in their lives, the plan was set. We arrived early on Thanksgiving Day and the instant


anta Barbara and the Thanksgiving show has


in full costume for the Thanksgiving Day dinner festivities late Thursday afternoon. It was a wonderful


we hit the show grounds it was like we had walked into a magic kingdom of some kind. There were kids and ponies and parents everywhere, being kindly herded around by trainers with way too much energy that early in the day. The excitement in the air was contagious. The first person we ran into was Kristin Hardin and the


her followers gathered my granddaughter into the group like she was a long lost cousin returning to home, making it one of the most special days of her life so far. If ever this sport gives an award for influencing the lives


wonderful group of children she always has in tow, some hers and some not, but the pied piper effect is always the same. Life in Kristin’s world is always an adventure, always a children’s story and always a surprise. My granddaughter got swallowed up in the activity and I was left to follow her around or find a comfortable place to just sit and watch the “show”. The Hardin family can only be described as amazing.


Kristin runs a million miles an hour doing all the things horse trainers do….and rounding up a dozen kids and ponies at the same time. The kids are an “un” organized mass of completely organized children and they always seem to be at the right place at the right time although no one really knows how that happens to work. Cole, the ever patient husband and father, has a second instinct of what Kristin needs and before she can even ask, he is usually handing it to her or getting it done. Parents and friends are right in the middle of it offering a helping hand but staying out of the way of the children’s world. Or, in the case of Anne Amundson Hoover, making sure there are lots of photos to keep memories recorded. Snowden Clarke has been recruited to join this amazing


troop, and if anyone can walk beside Kristin in those teaching shoes, it is Snowden. He finds humor and laughter in the very things that some barns would chew nails about……like little kids giggling and singing all the way around the show ring course, Zacko learning the term “point, shoot and kick” when receiving instruction at the back gate, Tyler going at mock speed in a class and then hugging the ponies neck to apologize for being “SO slllllllllloooooooow!” Colorful helmets, wonderful bridles with shining (and occasionally rusty) buttons on the side, stirrups not quite on the ball of the foot, plaid show jackets, saddles that keep the children safe but may not be the “in” brand. AND the entire group


of children, it should go to Kristin. And for those of us who have known her SO long…..who would ever have guessed that this crazy love of children and laughter is culminating as the time of her life, and she LOVES it!!!!


vacation for me and as we sat with hundreds of others at the traditional dinner, I found myself being thankful for things I had not paid attention to. Kristin and


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