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Thursday, June 21, 2007

Collecting Gaits Farm/USEF Dressage Festival of Champions

Jodie Kelly and Lora Kay Witterstaeter: Teacher and Student Share Gladstone Experience
By Lynndee Kemmet for Dressagedaily.com

A Young Rider Develops a Career

It’s also made her a trainer – and a good one. Althoughs Hoef has been guiding her along the way, even he says the credit as trainer goes to Kelly. “She did it all herself and that’s very good. A lot of people buy a school horse and ride that, but she bought this one at three year’s old, barely broke, and did the work herself and that’s a very great thing to do, especially at her age.”

He’s not the only one who’s proud. So too is Kelly’s mom, Laurie Kelly, who describes her daughter as relentless and diligent when it comes to her career. “She’s always wanted to do this since she was a little girl. She has worked really hard, day after day after day,” her mom said.

At her tender age, Kelly also knows what it’s like to be a proud teacher because along with being a successful trainer, she’s also a successful teacher. So successful, in fact, that one of her students joined her at Gladstone and was a competitor in the National Junior Dressage Championship.

That young rider, Lora Kay Witterstaeter, 17, is riding Kelly’s former young rider mount Weltkaar. “Laura has taken lessons with me since she was five. I’m so proud of her. My young rider horse was not an easy horse and she’s doing a great job with him. It’s really fun to have a student here competing,” Kelly said.

That kept Kelly busy at Gladstone as she split her time between schooling her own horse in the Brentina Cup race and coaching her student. But, like her daily life back home on the family’s farm – Southern Cross Equestrian Center in Destin, Florida – it’s not work to Kelly. “I’m 23 years old and I don’t feel like I’ve ever worked a day in my life because I just love it.”

Even though she sometimes works with as many as 14 horses a day, Kelly doesn’t care and is still amazed at the life she has created for herself. “My life is more than I could have ever imagined. It’s going wonderfully and I love it. It’s hard work and long hours, but I love it. I wake up in the morning and go to the barn and at the end of the month when I send out my bills it’s like, I get paid for this?”