First Day at Work at Pau by Nobie Cannon

Hi I’m Nobie. I’m an American rider based in Florida going to the University of Florida in Gainesville. I have been a working student for PRO rider Ruthie Harbison for several years now, but recently traded in my riding boots and baseball caps for stilettos and berets to study in Paris for the semester.

When the opportunity came about to groom for Joe Meyer at Pau for the week, I jumped at the chance and it being my fall break from school made it a convenient mini vacation. So after a long journey, we arrived at Pau on Monday evening around 7. After getting the horses settled in for the night, Joe was nice enough to cook for us! This was a welcome treat compared to the usual fare of midnight McDonald’s at the shows back home. Got to bed early, excited for the opportunity to be here at Pau as an insider.

Bright and early this morning, I set out for morning chores. After dumping approximately 100 pounds of supplements into each of Joe’s horse’s feed, I came to the conclusion that this man may quite possibly have more supplements than the entire Smartpak catalog stocks. I took the two horses for a nice long walk, all the while trying to find any distinguishing characteristics between the two identical horses-same color, same height, same age, same breeding. Oh boy.

When Joe came out, we took the two for a hack around the grounds and he worked in the dressage arena for a bit with Cam and then Don. Cam was treated to the magnetic blanket after his workout, and as a sidenote, I would like to point out that European magnetic blankets might possibly be even more complicated than American ones due to poorly translated instructions. The rest of the afternoon was spent cleaning tack and feverishly trying to find some sort of brass polish to take care of the years of dirt and rust that had accumulated on every inch of metal that Joe owns. Either my former boss Ruthie is relatively obsessive about her brass or Joe is just really laid back. Or perhaps a little of both :) With that taken care of, I got the boys fed and settled into their pajamas for the evening and came back to the lorry to brush up on my less than stellar Kiwi English skills.

Note to PRO, please send a translator to Pau at your earliest convenience. What does “getting stuck in” mean?! A bientot!