Hi Jackie,

I did have some lessons with Kay directly, but being there for the summer camps, I usually rode with the instructors that handled the camp program. I did however work closely with Kay one summer...in the camp kitchen when the cook broke a leg getting bucked off when galloping racehorses one morning! Karen came onto the scene I believe it was the last summer I spent there working in the kitchen. I rode in the end of summer FS clinics a couple of times too. Saw my first "three phase" one summer, along with watching the Potomac 3 Day Event and got hooked on eventing. I struck off on that branch to learn and do more eventing-related riding and ended up as a working student (later, in the instructor's course) at Morven Park the following summer. Just down the road from Purcellville (where NF was located then) in Leesburg. I satisfied my eventing bug finally (made it into Preliminary on my home-bred) and moved on to foxhunting. I realized that my love of cross-country riding started at North Fork where we rode out once a week over the wonderful hunt country of northern Virginia. Taking up hunting was like returning full circle to what I had originally fallen in love with. And, despite all the dressage, balanced seat, etc. that I have done, I have always kept the principles of FS in my riding and training. Particularly now with my OTTB I've had 3 years. A springy horse combined with all the years have taken their toll on my back! 

I've always felt that using the FS principles was the best way to start any horse as well as to give them a break from competition schooling. As I learned at MP, "A hand that takes when the horse gives and gives when the horse takes results in a horse that goes kindly, if incorrectly." At my age and with my goals these days, kindness trumps "correctness". When he gives me a soft mouth, jaw and back, I'm happy - and so is my horse!