Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude
By Kat Olbrych
GMHA Magazine Spring 2004
It was a brisk Vermont spring morning, with snow still clinging stubbornly to the soggy soil. When the birds woke, they would be singing their spring tunes. The buds of the trees, flowers, and bushes were still hidden from sight, to the glee of those who make syrup. This was the morning, April 4th, around 5:00 a.m., that my mother Susan, sister Tee, and I loaded four horses onto our slant load trailer and headed for interstate 91 South.
My name is Kat Olbrych. I am now a John Lyons Select Certified Trainer. My mother, Susan Olbrych is also a John Lyons Select Certified Trainer. This is the story of our experience in our quest to become certified.
Josh Lyons teaches the Certification Program. Certification candidates are required to bring two horses, preferably one “broke” and one “un-broke,” so that the trainers can experience firsthand the different stages in training. The program is run at the Three Acres in Parachute, Colorado. Parachute is west of the Rockies, and about forty-five minutes east of Grand Junction. In other words: The Middle of Nowhere.
The Trip
We love road trips, and this was the third time we had done this particular trip across country, so we were extremely excited to do it again. From knowledge gained on previous road trips, we understood the value of planning ahead. Weeks before leaving, we contacted and chose farms along the way for us to stop and rest for the night. We stopped at Grand Haven Stables outside of Cleveland, Ohio after 583 miles, Lone Oak Stables in Eastern Iowa after 719 miles, and A. Drummond’s Bed & Breakfast after 703 miles. Our trip ended in Colorado, another 394 miles down the road.
We loved the scenery of the Midwest – the giant barns plopped on the edges of shockingly-green fields that went for miles and miles, and the cornfields that shifted like sand dunes when they were grazed by the practically constant wind. However, I would have to say, about halfway through Nebraska, one tends to get a little stir-crazy due to the lack of change in the surrounding environment, and Nebraska is a big state. The highlight of the trip was driving through the Bureau of Land Management’s acreage in Wyoming and Colorado. It was at this point that we turned a little off the beaten path and left the majority of all traffic behind. There we saw golden eagles, wild herds of elk, antelope, and horses; they were not very far from the road, so we had a good look. It was refreshing to see that some of the country is still wild.
Colorado
Have you ever looked around at part of the United States and said to yourself, “Is this really the same country?” That was my feeling as I was talking to cowboys at a rodeo, surrounded by the mesas of Colorado. A tree is a rarity in the high desert, and in most cases, if you do see one; it was planted and is irrigated regularly to keep it alive. In April there is a fair amount of greenery as compared to the summer months, but when I compared that greenery to Vermont, I felt as though I lived in the rainforest. I had always thought that greenery and trees were required for beautiful scenery. It didn’t take long for me to realize this was not true at all. The colorful mesas and valleys and turquoise Colorado River proved me wrong; their beauty was staggering, almost overwhelming at times.
Beauty Is As Beauty Does
As we were packing for Colorado, we would ask people what they thought we should bring. We knew that it got hot there, but everyone said “Oh, but it’s a dry heat, it’s not hot like it is here in New England, with the humidity.” Well, I have something to say to that: 115 degrees is HOT! Though the average humidity is 14%, it is still hot. Dry heat only means that it is like being in an oven that sucks every ounce of moisture out of your body. Are you sitting near a light? Hold your hand about 1 inch from the light bulb. Feel that? That’s a dry heat. We people of the northern rainforest could not buy containers of moisturizer or bottled water big enough. One always felt like an old raisin that has baked in the sun too long.
Cowboy Up Ranch and the Three Acres
John Lyons’ home and office are at his Cowboy Up Ranch, complete with a covered arena, an indoor arena, two barns, irrigated pastures, and a pond with a large fountain. Our classroom, where we discussed training theories and business and marketing ideas was in the office. Some days it was really nice to go to an air-conditioned room to hide from the sun. The Three Acres is where our horses were and where we went for class every day. This property is also owned by John, and includes 50 bow system stalls, a 300’ by 500’ outdoor riding ring, five round pens, and an Altradome, a secondary classroom used mostly for the week-long clinics.
Interesting things surround the Three Acres; on one side is the brand new high school, then the Colorado River, and then there are the actively-used railroad tracks. I would like to take a minute to talk about the trains of the west. Here in New England, we see mostly passenger trains and the occasional cargo cars, and a long string takes about 30 seconds to pass you if you are standing there watching. Out west, there are trains that are literally a mile long, with as many as eight engines chugging away, spread out along the line. You would see a passenger car occasionally, but it was mostly coal that peeked over the top of the cars, glistening black.
Home Sweet Home?
At the end of a day of class, we would tuck our horses in and drag ourselves into our trucks and head for the apartments. At this time of day, the apartment looked like a posh spa because it had a shower. The dust that one would collect at the Three Acres was astonishing. One day I asked a fellow student, Michele, if she had put on that strangely-colored mascara. She looked puzzled and said she hadn’t. Later that day we both found a mirror and inspected the alien mascara. We noticed that I had it as well, and so did the rest of our class, including the men. After wiping it off, we realized it was dust. If you measured dust the same way you measured makeup, we all were wearing more than any rodeo queen. With this in mind you can understand why a shower sounded so very good. In reality our apartment was built and furnished in the ‘60s, complete with shag carpeting and bugs.
Our Class
Our certification class was extremely diverse. We had people from Kentucky, South Dakota, California, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Colorado, and New York. The equestrian disciplines ranged from Roping and Penning to Dressage and Hunt Seat. Everyone came for his or her own reasons, but we all had the same goal, to learn as much as we possibly could from Josh in seven months. We had Quarter Horses, Arabians, Friesians, Morgans, Mustangs, Thoroughbreds, Drafts, Paints, and Warmbloods. With all of those variables, you would think it would be hard work to keep everyone happy. The truth is that disciplines and breeds are not as different as they seem. We found that we had the same problems and basically the same goals- the only differences were the little details. By the end of the program, we had become very, very good friends and colleagues.
The Program
The John Lyons Certification Program is seven months long. It is a total of 12 weeks of class, split up into four three-week sessions. In between sessions, you have either 5 or 6 weeks to go home and do your assigned homework. We worked with Josh Monday through Friday, from dawn to dusk, and there were times that we worked well into the night doing triple sessions with our horses. The majority of our day was spent in the saddle, on one of our two horses. There is a common misconception that the Lyons method is solely round pen work; we only worked in the round pen for three of our twelve weeks.
Most mornings would start off with a group meeting with Josh, at which time we learned what we would work on for the day, and discussed what we had learned the day before. Often it would take time after we learned something before it would really sink in. The morning meetings would sometimes generate hot debates when a new idea was brought forward, the hotter they got, the more we learned. Josh wanted us to think on our own and find the answers on our own because that is what trainers have to do; this was frustrating at times.
One day during the second session, a Certification alumnus visited and asked Susan if everyone had cried yet. She looked at him, puzzled, and said, “No.” He replied with his North Carolina drawl and a nervous smirk, “You will by the end.” He turned out to be right. That didn’t stop any of us – the more frustrated we became, the harder we worked.
Exploration for Sanity
To take our minds off training for a minute or two, and to give our poor steeds a break, we went exploring every weekend. We went to the Peach Festival of Grand Junction and feasted on some of their famous (irrigated) peaches, to the Bureau of Land Management in search of wild horses, to Glenwood to hike the dark caverns, to Monument Park in Grand Junction, to Ouray for the natural hot springs and the Box Canyon Falls, to Aspen for shopping and lunch, to Fruita and Rifle for rodeo and reining competitions, to Strawberry days in Glenwood, to Parker for a clinic, and we went went tubing leisurely down the Colorado River for an unspoiled view.
The Beginning of the End
Our very last week of class was bittersweet. We were all so excited to graduate and start training, but we did not look forward to the separation of our certification family. When we asked Josh the training questions we had left, he informed us that we were the only class that he actually ran out of things to teach.
We celebrated on graduation night at the Battlement Mesa Recreational Center, and then the White Buffalo, and finally said good-bye. The next morning, a few brave souls started their trip home before the sun hit the Three Acres. Those of us who were looking at a four-day drive waited until the following morning.
Coming Home
We weren’t quite as enthusiastic about the trip home because the weather was not looking good. All through Wyoming and Nebraska the weather was decent, and then it started to rain. And it didn’t stop – by the time we had gone half way and to third day, we had had enough of being on the road and decided to drive through the night. Our horses were quite fit and very good travelers, drinking and eating and dozing the whole way. As we pulled out of the truck stop in the area we had planned on spending the night, filled up on Starbucks, we looked at each other and said “Okay, here we go!” By eight o’clock the next morning, we pulled into our barn driveway and unloaded the horses into their stalls.
Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude
This was an experience that changed my life permanently. Both my mother and I learned so much from Josh, but until we got home and started working with other horses, we didn’t realize how much we had learned. My view of life changed; I now see problems in pieces that need adjustment. That was the way we were taught to look at a horses’ problems.
On a less intellectual and spiritual side of things, all of a sudden driving great distances to do something doesn’t seem unreasonable (sheesh, New Jersey is just one driver-shift away). Now fully recovered from being an overcooked Colorado raisin, I relate this story with a sigh of relief – we had a great time out west, but it is good to be home.
I also added to my vocabulary…
Cowey: The description of a horse with an inclination to cows. A horse that is cowey almost hunts for a cow. This is a horse that has not had a chat with the trail horses of the Northeast, who given the opportunity would inform them that cows spit flesh-eating acid if approached.
Mutton Bustin’: A sport in which toddler cowboys and girls dig their fingers into the wool of a bucking sheep and “ride ‘em out.”
Mesa: A mountain with a flat top.
Jiminy Christmas: An exclamation used as follows . . . (ahem: ) “Jiminy Christmas, woman! Quit grabbin’ at that rein!”
Rough Stock: Broncs and Bulls ridden by men who have a death wish and very few teeth.
Ty Murray: Superman.
