Team #741 Susan Hunter and Brownwood Peas and Carrots

Woody Hunter (Husband), Wendy Jeffries (Trainer), Ann Sykes (Sister-in-Law), Emmeline Francisco (Grandniece), and Susan Hunter riding Brownwood Peas and Carrots.

Team #741: Susan Hunter and Brownwood Peas and Carrots
From: St Simons Island, Georgia
Ages: 77 & 28
Combined Age: 105
Test: WDAA Basic Level Test 3

Until two years ago, I had not been on a horse in more than 30 years.   

As a child, I took lessons at a local hunt seat barn near my home in Rockland County, NY, but quit as a teenager due to lack of family support. I rode again in college and bought a horse when I got my first job after graduation. Rand McNally was a petite four-year-old Paint with a cute jump and markings like a world map. In those days, thoroughbreds ruled the show hunter world, so we tried our hand at three-day eventing, where we both had introductions to dressage. For me, it was my last dressage experience for 55 years other than as an occasional spectator. 

When my husband and I moved to Atlanta in 1972, I took a position galloping and three-year-old racehorses. This job was equal parts fun and terror. With some regret but an eye towards personal longevity, I soon accepted an office position for which I’d previously interviewed.  

After seven horseless years filled with career and family, a friend offered what turned out to be a life-changing opportunity: would I look after her horse while she and her husband spent a sabbatical year in Boston? Reverend Ike, a Quarter Horse-type trail horse was reliable enough in the ring that I taught my husband to ride, marking the beginning of our family’s lifelong interest in horses.  

When Martha returned from Boston, I bought a horse for myself, a big race-bred appendix Quarter Horse, named Over Easy, who turned out to be anything but easy. He could be a delight or a demon, depending on his mood. He fox-hunted well until one day the demon emerged and he deliberately kicked a hound, a major transgression in the hunt field. 

Next, I acquired what turned out to be my heart horse, a 15.2 Thoroughbred/Welsh cross mare named Tight Money. She was a joy to ride both in the show ring and on trails, perhaps a little less rewarding in the hunt field where she thought her thoroughbred genes entitled her to lead the field. Today I know that she was a “packer” in the show ring but at the time I didn’t know the term and just thought that finding good distances to eight consecutive jumps was not as difficult as others thought. She later gave us three nice foals. 

In the early 1980s, we had a glorious year in Charlottesville, VA, while my husband was on sabbatical at the University of Virginia. We kept Over Easy and Tight Money at The Barracks, where we rode under the tutelage of Claiborne Bishop and Glenn Moody and hunted with the Farmington Hunt. Our five-year-old daughter, Emily, took her first riding lessons there. I learned so much by watching the top hunter/jumper riders who shipped in to train in the indoor arena on cold winter days. When Ellie Wood Keith Baxter, who lived next door to The Barracks, wanted a companion, she would invite me to ride cross-country with her. Had I known how legendary she was, I would have been in awe, but I had ridden with her several times before I learned of her fame, and so I was flattered rather than intimidated.  

When we returned from Charlottesville to Atlanta, we bought a small farm where we kept our own horses and some boarders. We sold the farm when Emily graduated from college. My husband and I returned to an urban lifestyle in Atlanta and exchanged horses for bicycles. He and I completed several century rides where the goal is to bike 100 miles -and the age of the rider has nothing to do with it!  

Fortunately, daughter Emily stuck with horses through college, law school, and into marriage and parenthood, and so I was able to maintain horses in my life, albeit vicariously. 

In spring 2022, a friend driving her show hunter from Ocala to her home in Virginia stopped over on St Simons Island, GA, to visit her mother, my neighbor. We visited the mare, who was overnighting at a local stable. Elizabeth convinced me to climb aboard for a walk and a little trot. (I need to add that Elizabeth’s mother, who was 90, also sat on the mare for a walk around the ring. If that wasn’t inspiring, I don’t know what is.)  I was hooked.  

After several lessons on St Simons, I returned to our other home in Franklin, TN, for the summer. The farm where my daughter keeps her jumper has a sweet Quarter Horse, Lil Ruf Bro, whose owner kindly let me ride him.  After thirty years out of the saddle, I was surprised to find that I was stronger and better balanced than I expected, which I attribute to having worked out with a personal trainer twice weekly for the last twenty years.  

When we returned to Georgia, Wendy Jeffries of Shady Oaks Stables, where grandniece Emmeline Francisco rides, was willing to make a horse available to me. (It’s not everyone willing to take on a senior who hasn’t ridden in thirty years!) I began to ride Ms. Awesome Rodder, a 24-year-old registered Quarter Horse with Western Dressage and English experience. Just before Christmas, I read about the Century Club and decided it was an achievable goal for “Ginger” and me, despite the challenge of learning to ride both Western and dressage after a career that had been entirely hunt seat. Ginger knew her stuff and I learned a lot from her (and Wendy) as we moved steadily towards the April show date we had chosen for our Century Club ride.  

Unfortunately, Ginger developed symptoms of Equine Cushing’s disease and we made the difficult decision that she was not well enough to be my Century Club ride partner. Just ten days before my ride, my twelve-year-old grandniece offered me Brownwood Peas and Carrots, a 14.1 hand Dartmoor pony, now 28, whom Emmeline most recently competed at WDAA Level 1. Her generous offer meant that she would have to give up her own opportunity to show as it would not be fair to “Peasy” to do more than two classes in the unseasonably hot weather predicted for show day. Peasy and I had only four rides together but, like Ginger, she is kind, wise, and well-educated, and I trusted her. I am very grateful to Emmeline and Wendy, who has been so supportive of a 77-year-old who has rediscovered her passion for riding. None of this would have been possible without the support of my husband of 52 years, Woody Hunter, who tells me that I have been “walking happy” since I started to ride again. I also want to acknowledge the ongoing support, albeit long-distance, of my daughter, Emily Plotkin, who understands perhaps better than anyone the passion that drives her mother.  

After thirty years away from riding, I am thrilled and amazed to have participated in this Century Club ride!  

Susan and Brownwood Peas and Carrots completed WDAA Basic Level Test 3 on April 20, 2024 to join the Century Club at the North Florida Dressage Association schooling show at the Jacksonville Equestrian Center.