About Kathy Knight
I was born in Revelstoke, B.C. in 1953. My fourth word (after daddy, mommy and cookie) was horsey. It was love at first sight. I loved the big black horses that came by the house every morning pulling the milk wagon from the local dairy. In kindergarten, I often followed the horses back to their stable. In those days, in small towns, everyone knew everyone and everyone’s kids. The stable man would phone my mom to let her know I was there. I helped feed the big horses and brush them as high as I could reach. I asked for a horse every Christmas and Birthday but I didn’t get my first pony, Billy Boy, a black Welsh/Arab gelding, 14.2 hh until we moved to Quesnel, B.C. when I was ten. We moved from there to Chetwynd for a few years, then back to Revelstoke where my mom bought a second horse so my sister and I could ride together.
Sarah Q was bay, 16.2, an old-style quarterhorse/thoroughbred cross. She had been severely beaten by men and was terrified of them. She was gorgeous, afraid of everything and had a chronic shoulder lameness issue. She taught me a lot. I couldn’t stand watching the way men treated her when they came to “shoe” her, so I asked my dad to get me the tools and some books and I learned how to do my own trims. We didn’t have a saddle so my sister and I rode bareback. In the beginning, she would dump us off 4 or 5 times per ride. I had to learn how to fall without getting hurt (more like a jump and roll). I spent as much time with her as possible, which was quite a lot after we moved to Needles, a community that was moved when the Hugh Keenleyside dam was built in Castlegar, BC. The community was so small that there were only 2 kids in Grade 9. My sister had to board out for the school year because there was no Grade 11.
Sarah Q was bay, 16.2, an old-style quarterhorse/thoroughbred cross. She had been severely beaten by men and was terrified of them. She was gorgeous, afraid of everything and had a chronic shoulder lameness issue. She taught me a lot. I couldn’t stand watching the way men treated her when they came to “shoe” her, so I asked my dad to get me the tools and some books and I learned how to do my own trims. We didn’t have a saddle so my sister and I rode bareback. In the beginning, she would dump us off 4 or 5 times per ride. I had to learn how to fall without getting hurt (more like a jump and roll). I spent as much time with her as possible, which was quite a lot after we moved to Needles, a community that was moved when the Hugh Keenleyside dam was built in Castlegar, BC. The community was so small that there were only 2 kids in Grade 9. My sister had to board out for the school year because there was no Grade 11.
My horses were my best friends. Our houses were fenced to keep animals out. The animals could go wherever they wished and I often had to search for half an hour or more to find them after school. We developed an wonderful relationship. Bill loved apples and he would gallop toward me when he heard the slap of an apple as it landed in my hand when I tossed it in the air. Of course, as a kid, I was too lazy to carry a halter or bridle with me. I had a piece of binder twine in my pocket and that was sufficient. I rode bareback and bridleless for two years through the forests, along the sandy shores of the Columbia River, up the steep mountainsides along trails and logging roads. The only rule (and it was strictly policed and heavily fined) was that I had to be home by 10:00 pm.
My dad worked for BC Hydro at the Watshan power plant. One of his visiting co-workers from Lumby was a man named Flensburg. He was Austrian and had learned horsemanship with the Austrian army. He gave me a snaffle bit and the book: The Complete Training of the Horse and Rider from the Spanish Riding School. That became my bible. I got interested in Classical Dressage and pretty soon Sarah and Billy were learning how to do some elementary laterals, etc.
When the dam was complete, we moved to Robson where my parents bought a small orchard with apples, pears, peaches and cherries. We had to have room to keep our horses. My dad worked on the Hugh Keenleyside Dam until his retirement. Unfortunately Bill developed ringbone and was in a lot of pain. I tried everything I could to keep him happy, but my parents decided it was time to have him put down. My sister bought a horse and the two mares were bred. I purchased my first quarter horse when Sarah was pregnant just before my first foal was born when I was in Grade 12. Peter was a 16 hand chestnut gelding that was also terrified of men and had been severely abused. I turned his life around, not without learning a few hard lessons myself.
Fast forward through going to school, getting married, moving to Saskatchewan, moving to Kamloops and Cranbrook, having children and ending up back in Robson, getting divorced, going to college, starting a publishing company, getting sick and having to give it up, the one constant thing in my life were the horses. Taking one or two people for rides in the mountain developed into a trail riding business that soon had 15 horses. I completed the Western Coaching Program with Carole Walton at Quantlan College in Langley because there was nobody teaching Western lessons in our area and Western riders certainly couldn’t take lessons from an English trainer. They were putting kids on untrained horses and the kids were getting killed (two in one year!).
I taught English and Western lessons and took people on trail rides. Each summer I would “borrow” couch potato horses, start and train them and put lots of miles on them. Their owners got them back in the fall as safe, calm, well-schooled mounts. Fast forward again. The community I lived in was growing. People were building houses all around our little orchard. Even though we’d been there for years before people moved in, they started complaining about the traffic, noise, etc. Eventually the Regional District gave me the ultimatum of downsizing to 1.5 horses per acre or leave. I figured the complaints would never end, so I moved. The place I moved to was out of town, higher in the mountains, had no fences or trails. I spent the next year building fences and my clientele didn’t come back. I lived too far for their kids to bike to after school. I ended up working for Red Mountain Resorts in Rossland as a liftee during the winter and a cook for a bicycle tour company that took German tourists from Nelson, BC to Hope, BC on the abandoned train lines. Wolfi was on my Aug 99 tour.
Wolfi is a wonderful funny man with a big heart. He started sending me air plane tickets so I could visit him in Germany and he came to visit when he had vacation. We decided that long distance relationships weren’t right for us. He had spent some time in the US attend university in Syracuse and wanted to live in North America. He works for a well-known software company, SAP, with offices around the world. We looked at the possibility of him transferring to Detroit or Chicago, but an opening came up in Montreal. My daughter already lived in Montreal and my son in Ottawa, so it was a good choice. I sold my farm in BC, packed up my four horses, four dogs and cat and he packed up his apartment in Germany and we bought our farm in Rigaud, Quebec.
Again I built up my equestrian business, boarding horses and teaching lessons. It wasn’t until after my mom died and left me a few dollars to follow my dream, that I started the home study course with the University of Parelli. I had been keeping an eye on Pat Parelli for several years and liked the attitude and partnership that was developed through natural horsemanship. I bought my first Parelli Level 1 program and two halters, a rope, a carrot stick and string. I couldn’t afford to buy halters and ropes for ten horses, so I started making them myself. The first halter took two weeks. Now it takes 20 minutes.
It was Christmas time 2006 when my Level 1 program arrived. It took me three months to complete it with all ten horses. Then I dove into Level 2 and was hooked. This was a better way to be with horses. I took the next two years off from teaching riding lessons to develop myself and all my horses before I felt comfortable to teach natural horsemanship. Unlike some Parelli Professionals, I could not afford to take the time off to attend the Parelli campus either in Colorado or in Florida. The tuition was okay, but I could’t afford to hire someone full time to look after the horses and farm while l was away. I purchased all the DVDs I could as well as attended a lot of clinics. Once I mastered Level 3 in all four savvys, I started taking on students again. I completed Level 4 and am playing with concepts of more than one horse at a time on-line and liberty. Now I want to put a purpose to what I’ve learned. Trick Training with Carole Fletcher, Working Equitation and Cowboy Obstacles are a fun way to play with your horse. Getting answers such as “why am I doing this?” or “how does this benefit my horse?” are now being answered in my Straightness Training Mastery Program. As a Mastery Student as well as a Parelli Student, I want to continue to upgrade my education so I can be the best horse/woman I can be. I like to pass this better way to be with horses to as many people as I can.
Do you want to know about the pony parties? Five years ago my grandson in Ottawa wanted a pony party for his birthday. Who better to ask. Nana’s got ponies. We had so much fun that I thought it would be a great way to get the word out that there is a better way to be with horses and it’s great to start with kids. So many of the parents who used to ride or still do are blown away with getting the horse to go with a smile and to stop with a sigh. There’s no push, pull or kick with our ponies. Some of the places they’ve been would have given “normal” horses heart failure. Our ponies see the trailer and can’t wait to get in so they can go mow a lawn. They get to meet lots of people, eat lots of grass, get carrots for tricks, lots of kisses and hugs from kids. Just the way it should be.
May the Horse Be With You.