No one who's lived through them will forget the winds, but the pizza, the clinic, Nancy's patience and good humor, Barbie in a back brace, Catherine riding Tipper, Robbie proving that he can, too, be a dressage horse ... these are things that we might forget, some of us sooner than others.

To help us remember and to let those who come later know how things were, your web site will host a history page, a place for memories and vignettes, for reminiscences and photos.. Here’s a place where you can post your tales (tall or otherwise) of shows won and lost, of horses you loved and showed.

Anyone with a story or picture about the HMDC or anything connected to dressage in the Big Horn Basin is welcome to forward material for inclusion. Please keep within 500 words per segment and email to stuart@wybarfarm.com.

The Harriet Years
An Early Participant.

“Now, that’s impressive!” someone said in awed tones. No one else spoke although along the arena edge people sucked in air in audible gulps, let their breaths out in long w-h-e-w-s of sound. The only other thing to be heard was the occasional thud of hooves coming down hard on worked footing.

Harriet Peterson stood near one side of the arena, hands at her side, her light hair gathered into a neat, long braid down the back of her jacket, her diminutive figure as erect as it would have been if she’d been the rider.

Finally, as the horse finished his temper tantrum and began trotting, Marina still firmly in place, Harriet spoke, her voice as always clear and resonate. “Now, if you two are ready, we’ll resume the exercise. Take him out to…”

For almost three years in the mid-nineties, Harriet came down to help us from her home in Billing, giving us a periodic taste of the larger world of dressage, coming as a rider and clinician who had actually taken a horse through the FEI levels. Harriet was a graduate of the Potomac Horse Center’s Horsemaster’s program, one of the early training grounds for American dressage riders. She went on to train in North Carolina, riding the great Hanoverian stallion, Banter, and one of his sons. And, she was the first person any of us knew who got her USDF Instructor’s Certificate.

During those years, many of us made a weekly trek to Billings for lessons. In fact, the parking lot at New Horizons sometimes held more trailers with Wyoming plates than Montana ones. Barbie Bell, Sherrie Goppert, Lynda Peters, Leanne McCumber, Pat Davis, Marina Murray, and I, we all rode with her, profited from her presence.

Almost more than her teaching, we loved watching her ride. Her small body seemed to increase in stature when she mounted her big Hanoverian, Echo, and the two of them trotted forward. We cheered their successes, and enjoyed each new training breakthrough with both of them.

Other horses gained from her help, one of them still with us. Lad, now owned by Desiree Murray and ridden by some of Marina’s students, is a TB gelding that Harriet started fresh from the track and took up to second level. He is passing along what she taught him to riders new to dressage, Harriet’s legacy continuing.

A few years back, Harriet’s husband, a poet and English teacher, landed an excellent position at Sweet Briar, and they relocated to southern Virginia. Thanks to Dianne Stanley, Harriet still returns to Montana for clinics, but her regular guidance is missed.

©Pat Stuart, 2005