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Susan
Harris' Personal Page
Hello! I'm
Susan
Harris, and this
is my personal page, with my family, animals (past & present),
people and places I’m involved with, and some pictures.
Here I am with Masquerade ("Max"), my blue-eyed Pinto.
Here I'm at home in my
studio....
And with Watercolors, my late
great Appaloosa.
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Masquerade (Max) is my Clydesdale x Paint cross
gelding,
15:3 hands and 1400 lbs of fun, an overo pinto with two blue eyes.
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click on image for larger view |
See more photos of Max, Colors, & my other horses in My Horse Picture
Gallery)
I’m an international
equine instructor, clinician, writer and artist. I travel throughout the US and around
the world teaching Anatomy in
Motion,
Horse Gaits, Balance and
Movement, Centered Riding
and other horsemanship clinics. I also write and illustrate horse books. When I’m not teaching or
chained to the drawing board or computer, I enjoy riding (trail,
dressage, jumping, hunter paces & foxhunting, and western), taking
care of horses, reading, painting, theatre (especially Shakespeare)
and folk music. I do Tai Chi, the Alexander Technique, and other body-mind
work, which relates to my teaching of Centered Riding. I’m also a
licensed pilot, though I don’t have time to keep current nowadays.
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click on image for larger view |
Foxhunting with Limestone Creek Hunt Club, on
Watercolors |
Here's Boo, my demented white cat with a vampire complex, who annihilates mice, flies
through the air after moths, & pounces on my neck when I sit at the
computer too long.
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Leapin' lizards!
It's
BOO! 
click on image for larger view |
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I live in an old
carriage barn, with an apartment and several stalls, so my horses are
my roommates. I can run out & feed in my bathrobe!
I've recently been restoring the carriage barn where I've lived
for 30 years. If you'd like to see the progress of my "This Old
Barn" project, click on this link to my Webshots albums. http://community.webshots.com/user/sueharris1
At that site, click on the
albums This Old Barn, Before, In
Progress and After.
My family includes
Mom and Dad in Landrum,
SC , four brothers (Steve in Oswego, NY, Ted in Columbia, SC, Jon in
Jacksonville, FL, Chuck in Spindale, NC), and my sister Robin. I also
have nieces and nephews ranging from toddlers to grown up & married.
Robin is also a Centered Riding Instructor & Clinician, and
teaches at her Summer Song Farm in Jacksonville, FL.
My mother, Nancy
Harris, is an artist and art teacher, and teaches "Horses and
Art" workshops with me. You can see her art work on her website at http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/NHarrisArtworks/,
or visit her many photo albums on Webshots at http://community.webshots.com/user/tednan.
Kelly Rhinehart Harris, my
sister-in-law, is also a creative photographer (she took many of my
professional photos); you can see her work on Webshots at http://community.webshots.com/user/stevekellyharris.
Robin teaching in
Florida
Mom & Dad in South Carolina
Like
horse pictures?
In
my Horse Picture Gallery you'll find pictures of many of the horses
I've owned, ridden & known over the years, and their stories.
Click
here to enter my Horse Picture Gallery
(Please
be patient while the Horse Picture Gallery loads; it can take a couple
of minutes.)
People I Know & Places I've Been:
I was the Director and Head Instructor of 5-H
Acres School of Horsemanship in Cortland, NY from
l970-79. 5-H Acres was a 2 year private trade school for riding
instructors and trainers, founded by Capt. Sam. Hendrickson, one of
the last graduates of the US Cavalry School at Fort Riley. Lin Sweeney
(then Linda Minard) and Lorraine Day (both graduates of the Riding
Instructor Course) were the other primary instructors. We also taught
local lessons, the college riding program for SUCC Cortland, showed,
trained & raised horses, and had a summer riding camp.
Capt. Hendrickson & some
students
Donovan, one of our great school horses
Jumping lesson
The 2 year Riding Instructor Course had l8 first
year students and 6 to l0 Seniors each year, who lived on the farm.
Our student instructors learned hunter seat, dressage, eventing,
foxhunting, and western, in addition to horsemanship theory,
teaching, stable management, horse care & veterinary knowledge,
conditioning, and training, and they also took college courses. To
graduate, they had to ride 2nd level dressage, ride on the
flat and jump 3' to 3'6" courses in the ring and across country;
they also trained colts, competed in shows & eventing,
and graduated with over 500 hours of practical teaching experience
plus college credits. Most 5-H Acres graduates went on to manage
stables, train, show, judge and/or teach riding.
Captain Hendrickson died in l973, and the school was sold in l979; it
closed a year later. I really value the years I spent teaching at
5-H Acres; it was a great place to teach, learn and grow.
I'd love to hear from former 5-H Acres students,
especially graduates of the Riding Instructor Course. Maybe we can
have a 5-H Acres reunion some day!
Linda
and Shaun Sweeney have always taken wonderful care
of my horses when I travel. Their Irish Spring Farm, in
the beautiful hills of Central New York, won the CNY Horse
Club's Golden Horseshoe Award for the best horse facility in Cortland
County a couple of years ago. A small and friendly boarding facility, they
also host clinics with Alexandra Kurland who teaches clicker training, Kate
Graham , a John Lyons instructor, and an annual Centered Riding
Clinic with me.
Kate,
Joan and Glenn Goldwyn at Strawberry
Fields Farm in Cortland, NY, have been good friends and
partners in teaching and horse care. They lease my horse Max and keep
him fit and happy in their riding school while I'm traveling (Max loves
being the center of attention, especially when the students fight over
who gets to ride him!), and I enjoy trail riding on their farmland. Both
Kate Goldwyn and her mother Joan
are Centered Riding Instructors, specializing in teaching hunter
seat. They have kindly loaned "Zippy" (her real name is
"Star Spangled Banner"), a former champion Welsh hunter pony,
for Visible Horse demos on the Syracuse International Horse Show and
others. Joan is also a physical therapist, so she is able to help riders
with stiffness, balance and body problems, and she helped me recover
from a fractured knee so I can ride again.
Sally Swift,
my mentor and teacher, is 94 this
year and still going strong.
I apprenticed with her in 1989, which was a wonderful learning
experience and quite an adventure-- I traveled to 16 clinics in 4
months, got to ride everything from an FEI dressage horse to a mule,
and missed the San Francisco earthquake by one day! I
illustrated Sally Swift's second book,
Centered Riding II: Further
Exploration, and I wrote the chapter on Centered Jumping. It
has been translated into several languages and looks as if it will be
as big a hit as her first book. Sally is an inspiration to all of
us --I hope I’ll be as vital as she is when I'm her age. For
more info on Sally Swift and Centered Riding, just click on her name
above.
Travels and Amazing Places
Switzerland
I
teach Centered Riding Open and Instructor Update Clinics at
Christa Muller’ s
Stall Christa
in Winterthur, Switzerland. It’s a wonderful
place with
many different types of horses including Arab crosses, Irish Tinkers,
Freibergers (Swiss Mountain Horses),
Tarpans, ponies,
and donkeys. Swiss, German, Italian and Irish Centered
Riding teachers participate in the clinics, riding warmbloods, Quarter Horses, Paints,
Haflingers, Friesians, and Icelandic horses.
As I don’t speak German, translators, pictures and sign
language help me get the message across, but I’m picking up German riding school terms & am beginning to teach
in "Germ-ish." (Maybe Italian next?) One nice thing about teaching
at Christa’s is getting to travel around and see
the beautiful Swiss countryside and the Alps. I’ll be back in
Switzerland again later this year for a
Centered Riding Instructor Course and to give Anatomy in Motion
presentations at the Swiss BEA Expo (Swiss Agricultural Show).
For
more information on Centered Riding in Switzerland, please click on: www.stallchrista.ch.
To
see my pictures from my clinics and travels in Switzerland, click
on this link to my Webshots albums; at that site, just click on the
album Images of
Switzerland.:
http://community.webshots.com/user/sueharris1
Australia
Peggy
Brown and I last traveled to Australia in
November 2003 for Equitana Brisbane
2003,
where we presented the Visible Horse and Visible Rider demos. (We've
been to Australia on previous trips, and even got to shoot our Anatomy
in Motion videos in Perth, Australia.) Equitana is a wonderful show, with wonderful Australian hospitality.
We saw a campdrafting competition, an excellent horse show, and
great competition in dressage, reining, showjumping, and even indoor
eventing, as well as many fine clinics and demos.
Afterwards we drove
down from Brisbane to Sydney, taking time to explore Lamington National
Park , the Waterfall Way, the Blue Mountains and the beautiful
Megalong Valley. I got to cuddle a koala, pet a python, watch thes
Crocodile Hunter feed his crocs, and hang out with kangaroos, wallabies
and emus. Australia is a wild and beautiful place, with incredible land,
wildlife, and wonderful people.
To see my
photos of Australian scenes and wildlife, you can click on this
link to my Webshots albums; then click on the album Images
of Australia.
http://community.webshots.com/user/sueharris1
Ireland
I
finally got to live out a lifelong dream and visit Ireland,
the Mecca for all horse lovers,
last summer. It's a wonderful friendly country, with lovely green hills,
magical ancient sites and castle ruins, warm, delightful people and
great pubs, and of course, wonderful horses and ponies. Irish horses and
riders are legendary jumpers, due to the many stone walls, ditches,
Irish banks and bohereens throughout the countryside. I galloped
an Irish hunter on the beach, visited the Irish National Stud, and drove
through beautiful Connemara, finding ponies in the heather whenever the
mist lifted. I also taught an Open Centered Riding and Jumping Clinic at
Island
View Riding Stables in
County Sligo; we had excellent riders from kids to professionals and
even grandmothers, riding lovely Irish Draughts, Thoroughbreds,
Connemaras, Irish Cobs and Tinkers. I also gave a Visible Horse Demo,
using a grey Connemara pony, of course! I'm
looking forward to returning to Ireland
again.
For more
information or riding in Ireland, please click on the Island View Riding Stables link above.
Here
are some pictures from Ireland:
To see more
photos of Irish horses and countryside, click on this
link to my Webshots albums; once there, just click on the albums Irish
Images, Irish Horses or More
of Ireland.
http://community.webshots.com/user/sueharris1
The
Netherlands
I've
just returned from a clinic trip to the Netherlands,
where I taught Open Centered Riding and Instructor Update Clinics, and
gave a Visible Horse demo. I was lucky to visit this small but
beautiful land during tulip time, when you can see huge fields of
flowers in vibrant colors. We were in the center of horse country,
with lovely Dutch Warmblood mares and foals all around us, as well as
riding schools and riders training, riding and driving through the
countryside. I had excellent riders in the clinic, including some
excellent dressage riders on Dutch Warmbloods, Friesians,
Lippizaners, Andalusians, Arabians, Irish Tinkers and Fjords. There
was also time for some sightseeing, including a trip through Zeeland
to see traditional barns and farmhouses, dikes, windmills and polders
(land reclaimed from the sea), and a canal boat tour through old
Amsterdam, with tree-lined canals, bridges, the flower market, great
museums, and many bicycles.
For more information on Centered Riding in
the Netherlands, please click on this link:
www.alona.nl
Iceland
Peggy brown
and I recently traveled
to Iceland, to teach at the
Icelandic National Horse School at Holar College. Peggy Brown and I drove
through "the land of fire and ice," seeing
lots of ice and snow, lava beds, geothermal hot springs, geysers, and
most of all, the wonderful Icelandic horses. We saw an Icelandic horse
competition on ice, on a frozen lake, and bathed in the geothermal Blue
Lagoon, staying warm even in a sleet storm! Peggy learned to ride the tolt, and we gave Visible Horse & Visible Rider demos, taught
Centered Riding, and were on Icelandic television. I have illustrated 3
riding manuals for The Icelandic Agricultural Collage at Holar, who hosted
us; we also visited Helga Thorrodsen at Theyringar, the largest horse farm
in Iceland. Both host tourists for riding tours in the summer; for more
information on riding in Iceland, please click on either
of the following links: http://www.thingeyrar.is/
or http://www.holar.is/english.htm
To see more
photos of Iceland and Icelandic horses, click on this
link to my Webshots albums; http://community.webshots.com/user/sueharris1
; once there, just click on the
album Images of Iceland:
I
hope you've enjoyed this page, and I hope
to see you at a clinic!
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