Formerly home to nearly 300 thoroughbreds, Heather Carder and Gregg Lanza have begun turning it into the Northwest's newest large-scale center for horsemanship
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The Wildwood Farm is also very pretty, one of Whidbey Island's hidden jewels. It's an end-of-the-road kind of place, convenient but isolated in its own little valley with a surrounding barrier of mature fir trees and a pond, really a miniature lake, right in the middle.
When you drive in for the first time and crest the hill by the forested, quarter-mile exercise track near the entrance, the farm and the valley it fills come into view to the sound of you and everyone in the car saying "Wow!"
"We did that. We'd looked at maybe 20 other places, but this was it," said Lanza, who along with business partner Heather Carder purchased the 80 acre facility last November. It's Lanza's second farm. "Well, sorta," the gregarious Canton, Ohio, native laughed. The first farm was, he said, "basically a large network of small computers we called a computer farm at Ohio State. We were able to out-perform a Cray computer, which is like organizing a large enough group of gerbils to out-pull a pickup truck."
Heather Carder is a native of Fife, near Tacoma, WA., and grew up with horses. Her first came when she was 12, a year after her mother died, when her father brought home an Arab yearling for her to ride on their 30 acres. She named the little filly Charlee but wasn't happy about it being so young. "I wanted a horse I could ride right now, not in three years," Carder smiled, caressing Charlee's nose, "but she's still with me and doing well for a 27-year-old." Charlee competed at fourth level dressage with Heather until retired by a tendon injury.
Since her work in the computer industry allows telecommuting, Carder moved to the farm in January and began the make-over process. In what she calls her "Master Clinician" program, she's bringing world-famous authorities in for two and three-day weekend clinics, focusing on both dressage and on various equine health issues and ways of dealing with them. Last month, for example, Dr. Richard Vetter led a two-day dental clinic that began in a classroom, went on to a horse chosen as a teaching example and finished with the animals brought by those attending the clinic.
She also hosted Dominique Barbier, instructor of classical French dressage, in January. Barbier, 52, grew up in France, and like a gracefully aging D'Artagnan teaches a form of classical dressage that comes straight from its roots in the Italian Renaissance of the 16th and 17th centuries. Even his saddle is built on a design over 400 years old. His instruction bears the relaxed and simple reference to the basic keys one gets only from a master of his art, like taking piano from Mozart. With each client he seemed to know the one or two right things to say to get the rest of the package working together, like someone pushing on just the right domino to make the whole pile collapse.
Diane Stevens of Oak Harbor brought her black Arab mare she'd just bought in Montana. The horse seemed nervous and green even at six years of age, but by the second day of the clinic Barbier had quieted her down remarkably. "It's a huge difference," said Stevens, "and I know what to do now to make progress from here on."
"It's not what you do, it’s what you do NOT do," summarized Barbier. "Ninety per cent of your job as a rider is to stay out of [your horse's] way. Once you've learned that, if you think you're clever enough you can try to help out. But: stay out of their way. It's like Zen, more being than doing."
Lendvoy added that following Barbier's idea of relaxing and letting the horse be itself, thereby becoming your partner, "quickly leads you to points where you're in absolute harmony with your horse. You go into a kind of zone that's so absolutely fulfilling and rewarding it's worth searching for over and over, like reaching a peak in any sport, like dance or tennis, only here it's with another living creature."
Gerd Reuter Clinic set for March 28-30
This month Gerd Reuter, one of the top International Dressage instructors in the world, will lead a three day clinic at Wildwood. Like Barbier, Reuter wants his students to first relax and have fun. "My basic goal is to have people drive away happy after three days with me," said the affable German, a native of Kiel who now lives in Virginia with his wife Sarah and their newest daughter, four-month-old Natasha. Reuter, 47, has won United States Dressage Federation silver and gold medals as well as a string of German and European titles going back to 1973, when he rode in the German Young Rider's Championships at the age of 17.
Carder met Reuter 8 years ago at a clinic in Graham, WA., and plans to bring him to Whidbey Island four times a year. Reuter has instructed at every level, and still takes lessons himself from 82-year-old Rosemarie Springer for whom he once apprenticed. "She flies over twice a year from Germany," Reuter said, "and rides like she's twenty years younger at least."
Reuter said he's happiest teaching beginning riders. "It's that sense of discovery, of what can really happen between horse and rider. And another thing," he added, "remember, we're here to have fun!"
One of the last riders in Barbier's clinic was 12-year-old Lauren Folk of Edmonds, WA. Heather Carder walked with her as she lead Charlee to the arena and waited her turn, nervous but competent, happy to have such a nice horse all to herself as she once had been for Carder. Charlee was a chestnut then, later a rose gray and is now a drop-dead gorgeous pure white, as if she just pranced out of a china cabinet. Folk went through her paces as Barbier reminded her to smile and have fun while Carder stood along the wall, watching her life come full circle.
Wildwood Farm
Heather Carder and Gregg Lanza
2326 North Happy Valley Road
Oak Harbor, WA 98277
(360) 679-3474
www.wildwoodfarm.com
Copyright © 2008 The NW Horse Source, LLC
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