Going there---

I try in this blog to keep a positive tone, not "going there" when things are wrong or have gone astray in my life, but sometimes things happen that are too big not to be acknowledged. This is one of those occasions.

On the evening of April 1st, the horse world of Saskatchewan lost one of its leading lights, and I (and many, many others) lost someone who was a good friend, mentor, supporter, instructor, and source of inspiration for the past twenty-five years. Elaine Partington was all these things for several generations of riders in our area.

She was one of those larger-than-life characters that are in rare supply these days. With a big personality, more character than many could handle, and a deep and abiding love and knowledge of horses, she was always my equine "go-to" person in good times and bad. Her understanding of horses and how to work with them evolved over a lifetime of "hands on" work and a never-ending desire to better her methods and ways of teaching horses and their riders to work together to be the best they could be. I rode under her instruction for a quarter century, and to the end never ceased to be amazed at her ability to come up with new exercises for horse and rider, new ways to expand on refining our performance, and her ability to make "old" concepts new for us and to keep her lessons fresh, challenging, interesting and occasionally alarming. Her dedication applied equally to those of us who train and ride for the satisfaction of being with horses, as to the "performance" show riders of the dressage or hunter/jumper rings.

I witnessed her endless patience with beginners, and with many of us who were not beginners but just couldn't seem to "get it" some days. She could go over the same concepts again and again until the penny dropped for us. In my case, some things took years for me to understand and incorporate into my daily riding, but she never told me just to go away, although likely there were days when she felt like it. By the same token, if a rider who knew better was unfair to their horse or was performing in a less than optimal fashion, she could blast them out of their saddles with some well-chosen language that would get their attention and shape them up quickly. Effective communication was the order of the day in Elaine's lessons. She could employ diplomacy as required, but "political correctness" wasn't something you were going to experience. Generally speaking, you got what you earned, and if you didn't like it, you needed to check out your attitude and performance level, whether you were horse or rider.

In looking over some of the photos taken around Ebon from the past few years, it is striking that Elaine was always in the midst of the activity, whether it was teaching, running a show, or just enjoying a rare bit of down time. She was the ultimate "hands on" trainer and show coach, and I have endless shots of her raking the sand ring, resetting jumps, coaching riders over warm-up fences, gesticulating wildly, consoling unhappy riders who were having a bad day, praising those who were functioning well, in crisis-management mode when the weather caused a show to fall apart at the edges, zipping around in her golf cart or on her scooter, talking on her mobile, laughing and chatting with visitors, or taking a moment with her grand-children or her beloved little dog Murphy. It is incomprehensible that we will never again get to experience those special "Ebon moments" with the person that was at the heart of it all. She was a great "family" person, and luckily for those of us who were at Ebon, her family extended to embrace all of us.

Go in peace, Elaine. You've earned your rest, but it was far too soon.