Barb finished working on the horse. Interestingly, he was
very wound up and appeared tense and reactive. Looking back at the situation,
things make sense to me now (more on that later). But at the time I was just
mystified by the whole episode. The horse was *so* up that Barb was reluctant to
turn him back out. The owner did so; the horse pranced and reared all the way
to the paddock.
That horse had deep and troubling physical issues that the
owners were not addressing. They wanted me to work with the horse anyway and
attributed his behaviors to attitude. I could not do so in good conscience and
we parted ways. The horse never did regain soundness. This was the only time
Barb was able to work on the horse.
And so that was my initial exposure to Mary Debono’s work. I
was intrigued, but did not see it as anything I particularly needed to pursue.
Since Fate/Kismet/God has a sense of humor, of course Mary
was placed in my path again. And again. And again.
Not long after this experience I moved back to California . Being from
here, I had old and established horse friendships and relationships. I also had
made some new horse friends on line that I was meeting physically for the first
time. Bill and Gay Walker had become dear friends who rode and owned a barn.
The very first time I visited them, gee, look who was there working on their horses.
Mary. I was introduced, we chatted a bit about our mutual friend Barbara, and that was that.
But I mean really. What would be the odds of the primary friend
I met in NC knowing a person in CA (which is a big state!) who then was at the
barn in one of my first visits home, working on my friends horses.
A normal person might have said ‘well! I guess this is
something I should pay attention to!’ But you may suspect by now that ‘normal’
is not usually used in a sentence that contains the word ‘Abby’ and I was just
not that interested. The LTJ and the Jack Meagher work and the Centered Riding
work were all meshing so well for me and producing such improvements in my and
my clients horses that I felt quite satisfied with what I was doing.
And then, those wonderful friends Bill and Gay, gave me, for
my birthday, a place at a week long clinic with Mary. Oh great. I had way too
much to do to attend a week long clinic. I really wasn’t interested. And yet it
was an expensive and incredibly generous gift. Of course I had to accept it. Of
course I had to go. But I was less than thrilled, and even a little irritated
at the whole situation. I mean *really* did they not see that I already knew Everything There Was to Know?
Well. I am sure by now you know me well enough by now to
guess how these things tend to turn out. And you would be right.
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