A while back I wrote about free-range kids and the Cody way: let them try things, let them find their own limits, stay close enough to catch the big falls.
I owe you the update, because that little girl in the story is not little anymore.
Piper rides hunter/jumpers. If you have never watched it, the sport is a lot of patience, a lot of repetition, and about eight seconds of something that looks effortless. It looks easy because somebody did the boring part a thousand times first.
That is free range, grown up. Nobody can hand a kid a sixteen-hundred-pound partner and a fence and promise it will be safe. What you can do is build the reps, the judgment and the habit of getting back up, and then step back. We drive. We hold the gate. We pay attention. She rides.
The lessons did not change
- Limits come from experience. The best riders are not the fearless ones. They are the ones who have learned exactly where their edge is.
- Small mistakes are cheap. A rail down in a schooling round teaches more than a perfect round ever will.
- Help when it is asked for, or clearly needed. Good coaches know the difference. So do good parents, most days.
The work happens early and mostly out of sight. The pictures show the part that is easy to love. What they do not show is the 3 a.m. alarm, the cold barn and the long drive home.
JoAnn said it better than I can, from the rail at a show this summer:
This is what it’s all about.
Not the 3 a.m. wake-ups. Not the cleaning of boots and tack. Not the endless hours driving to the barn.
This.
Waiting to hear how your heart and soul did with their best friend after they rode their hearts out. Watching them chase their dreams, give everything they have, and come back knowing they gave it their all.
This is why we do it.
JoAnn Cody
JoAnn is the horse person in this house, and a lot of what we know about patience, preparation and showing up on time comes from there. It is also why the rest of JCody Ventures is built the way it is: do the unseen work well, so the day itself looks easy.