Maryland’s World Travelers, continued...
After wandering up and down the long aisle I found him hidden in the lower stalls. In my best attempted German accent I asked, “Csabi, wo ist
Helios?” He smiled knowingly and began walk- ing towards the pasture. Who needs language anyway? We reached the fi eld and he pointed out, in a fi eld full of bays, surprise—a bay horse! I yell a “danke shön” over my shoulder and start the trek up the hill. For the fi rst two weeks it felt as though I were liv- ing the same day over and over. Trying to understand as much of the language as possible,
learning which
horses were which, fi gur- ing out what saddle went on which horse. Similar to starting a new job, I suppose, except with the added complication of not knowing the language very well. Luckily for me,
all
well, because opportunities like this one don’t come along very often and are not easy to fi nd. Once I had given Helios a quick groom and
of the people at Rothen- kircherhof were more than helpful. T ey tried to understand my broken German and were willing to help me learn ev- erything I needed to work there. I wanted to do
Corinne Foxley with Uta Graef in Germany
thrown on his tack as quickly as possible, I headed toward the arena. Hoping that I had made the correct assumption from the two words of German I had understood, I got on Helios and started to ride. Uta was sitting at the short end of the arena, her spiky white hair glowing in the sunlight along with her ever-present smile. A few quiet comments are all she needs to encourage her stu- dents. “Gut, more forward, sit deep, super jetzt!” she said. Her eff ort to teach in a for- eign language (being English for her) was admirable. She told me to ride shoulder-in, a small circle, balance, and cre- ate a little more fl exion. He- lios began to feel softer and more willing to go forward as I completed the exercises. I heard another “super jetzt” and kept going. She told me
to traversale, then extended trot down the diag- onal. “Mehr, mehr, guuut!!” I had found his ex- tended trot! I came down to a walk and silently
thanked Felicitas back at First Choice Farm for giving me the gift of sitting trot. “Gut! I think that’s enough for today!” I smiled and nodded, she told me that she is happy with where my riding was going and that I still needed to get a better feel for having the horse in front of me. I told her I agreed and know now what I needed to feel. I thanked her for my lesson and let He- lios cool out. As I walked around the arena on Helios, smiling to myself, I glanced up to see Csabi with a big smile on his face giving me the thumbs up. I had become part of the family. I enjoyed every moment of my time working at Rothenkircherhof. By the end of my two- month stay, my German and their English im- proved. We laughed at our language mistakes and enjoyed being able to work together de- spite them. I came away from Rothenkircher- hof having learned a great deal about creating better competition horses, teaching them to re- ally love their work, and to not be afraid to go for it. But apart from the riding, I left Rothek- ircherhof with a new family that I hope one day to see again.
Traveling abroad this year? Send photos and your story to
editor@equiery.com for the October 2013 issue!
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