Endings Lead to New Beginnings

Endings Lead to New Beginnings

Jess and Cathy discuss the circle of life—when one thing ends, a new beginning starts.  They reflect on their careers—how there are different phases.  Cathy grew into being an upper level competitor and that entailed going to Florida 8 weeks during the winter, renting a barn, being closer to her instructors that teach upper level competitors.  She taught less, she didn’t have as much time for the business side of her work, and had less money. Now she says doesn’t miss competing, she has more time for her students, and has an expansive course design profession.  Jess was not a professional with horses, but competed at the preliminary level for a lot of years.  When motherhood came along, she didn’t want to compete as much.  Her horse had retired.  Now she rides just for the fun.  Jess also talks about the sadness seeing this past week her old fruit and vegetable building had been torn down.  There are always new things on the horizon to do and become!

Theme song and host introduction. Jess and Cathy welcome listeners to There You Are, introduce themselves, and share what the show is about and who it's for.

Theme song and closing words from Jess and Cathy, including a call to action to share the episode, leave a review, and tune in next week.

Cathy is a professional at training and teaching the sport of Three Day Eventing. Her website is: 

https://www.cwevent.com

Jess is a licenced clinical social worker.  She see's clients in her office in the back of the house here at the farm.   

Her website is:

https://www.jessicabollinger.com

Transcript

Jess and Cathy 1:39

There you are. There you are. And here we are together at the kitchen table. At the kitchen table. I've got my leftover coffee, clunking, our coffee cups. This past Christmas I gave Cathy and myself these coffee mugs that have our horse's head outline, head, head on it. It's not a picture. And it has the the marking of their face. So Speedy's face is on my mug and Shaq's face is on Cathy's mug. And the horse's face marking is so cool. 'cause it's like our, it's like their fingerprint. It's what makes them an individual if they have one. Some of them don't have them, but yeah. A lot of times they'll have a snip or a blaze or a from the, between their ears all the way to their nose and, yeah. Yeah. So it's just fun. I love, it makes me, it connects me to Speedy I, it makes me, when I see his face, I like connect even more to it. 'cause I feel like he's with me this, in the morning when I'm drinking my tea or coffee. That's awesome. So welcome back. You just got back from a show. It was Derby weekend. It was a big weekend. Derby weekend happened. I was coaching some of my students at a three day event or horse trials in Aiken, South Carolina. That drive isn't too bad, except, a couple years ago when I 40 between Nashville North Carolina and Knoxville, Tennessee got com completely wiped out with floods. A lot of that, that had to go around for a while, and then that now they've gotten it to where. It's one lane for about 10 or 15 miles, but it can really get backed up, but it's still the shortest way to go. You just enjoy the scenery and watch the progress. That was wild when that happened because Highway 40 goes along the side of a mountain. Yes. And the Pigeon River just took out like two lanes Yeah. Yeah. Of that road. During those heavy rains. It was wild. Yeah. It was just heavy rains and flooding. Yeah. And they've taken this mesh, we've watched a YouTube video about it. They've taken this mesh wire and they've hooked it in there with these long spikes to the edge so that more of it won't erode. Yeah. Yeah. It's, wow. You made the most of it sounds like. Ka. I did, yeah. Yeah. Like I said, it's pretty drive through there and it makes you slow down and look and I'll also see the progress of how they're, progressing in the repairs and stuff. And how many people are involved. It's amazing. Anyway. Yeah. Derby weekend, once Cathy I was down in San Antonio for a workshop during the first weekend of May. And people around the rest of the country don't know that The first weekend in May is just Derby weekend. Exactly. It's the first Saturday of May. And if you're in Louisville, the public schools I think are out of school Thursday and Friday. Uhhuh? Yeah. Yeah. They get that into their Scholastic calendar. Uhhuh, that's the derby day instead of a snow day. And I grew up in Louisville and they progressed to have this derby festival stuff and balloon races. Bella Louisville races, we used to always go when I was growing up. That's when they do the thunder over Louisville and they do thunder over Louisville. About three weeks beforehand. They have fireworks. The marathon they have. They have a marathon. They have a mini marathon. They have balloon races. I might have already said that they have parades. It's like the, it's like all of April into May is a celebration. Is a derby. A Derby festival. I'm surprised they Monday's not a holiday like today for everybody to recover, yeah. Oh yeah. They need recovery for sure. Yeah. So I go to San Antonio Derby weekend for a conference and had to let everybody know at that workshop that it's Derby weekend. We have to watch the race. Exactly. Take the time out, go to the lobby of the hotel and watch the race. Yeah. So it's really cool and everybody has a winner or thinks they have the winner and then it was, I was so excited that. Sh Shere Sheree, Devoe. A woman won the raise because women are so involved with horses as we are women we're involved in horses. Yes, exactly. Yep. Yeah, it's just she's done the history's all out there for everyone to read, but, what I was excited about was that the, these people, there's a lot of people say a lot of bad things about racing but the good ones, and maybe all of 'em, they follow their horses. They know what's happening with all of their horses, and it's just. It's pretty incredible. I can't, I don't, can't get my head around someone could train 140 horses or how Bob Baffert does it, or and I know they have assistants and things like that. To me, that's just a feat of incredible. Attention to detail and watching the horses work. And I don't know enough about it to really comment. They have really good people. I've been reading about that. Okay. And listening to some podcasts. They have really good people and they have a base place. Cherie is based out of Kentucky, maybe Lexington. And she. She's they have a base, but they have a trainer. They have a trainer assistance that might be at in Louisiana or Florida. Or they might send something to New York 'cause they might, with this string of horses. I think that they, if a good trainer really knows each one intimately. And I was listening to a trainer being interviewed and he said he, what he does, and he has 140 horses also is he always, is, he's the one that watches 'em, jog, to make sure they're sound Yeah. He's the one in there feeling the legs Sure. And so forth. Exactly. That head trainer is meticulous. And I loved how, at the interview afterwards, of course the question was will he, run in the P Preakness, which is only two weeks away. They talk and it's a short race. It's a shorter race. It's the shortest race of the triple crown. Yeah. But they say that's too close where you, they've taken these months to prepare the horse for the derby. And then they just have two weeks for the P Preakness. And a lot of times sweetheart, is they the horses that. That aren't training specifically for the Derby but they're, but they've, they're on this training program. They might peak at the Preakness and they'll beat the Derby winner. If the Derby, that's what they, yeah. That's what, that's why triple Crown winner is so incredible is because they. The, and they're all three year olds, so that's another thing. They're only three years old. These, they're just babies out there. They don't have a long record behind them. No, they don't. Some of them as anyway, getting back to where I was going is the, that's why the Triple Crown, you have the entries for the derby. Then that horse that wins the derby, goes to the Preakness. The Preakness is the shortest of the three races. In the Triple Crown, but just like you said, someone's prepping their speed horse to go and see if, I wanna win the Preakness. Can the Derby winner also be fit and strong enough to be faster than the horses that they put in? And then you go to the Belmont and the Belmont is the longest race and people are preparing their horse to win the Belmont. And can that horse that won. The Derby and the Preakness come back on the third and that race is three weeks after the Preakness, so gives them a little bit more time. But it's a big, it's a huge thing for the horse to win. The Triple Crown. The triple crown. All three races. Yeah. What? You don't know and you don't know what You don't know exactly. What I heard is that the Belmont is only gonna be a mile and a quarter. It's not gonna be a mile and a half. Oh, okay. Everybody's okay with that because mile and a half, it's really long and there's not that many. Races that long, right? Yeah. I was in the eighth grade when Secretariat, and it had been a long dry spell for a Triple Crown winner. And watching that horse win the Belmont, it was just astounding. And it was something like, I never, I didn't, I How many? It was 32 or 23 or something. Yeah. Just crazy. Yeah. Going away. Yep. Yeah. So we were talking about. You'd had a conversation with another competitor? I, we we started with the weekend and I went to Aiken. We talked about the drive, we, you did derby things I did, was able to watch the derby on my iPad. Great. Tuning into Peacock. So that was great. And, it was a nice competition because it was I didn't have a ton of students. Not that I don't mind like a lot of students, but it was great to go down there and just have a couple kids running the prelim and one student doing some other stuff and observe one of my other old students compete. So that was great. But I was talking to, a friend com. Yeah. Fellow competitor. Back when we competed and we were standing there in, in the rain with our, I had my wellies and my rain pants and my rain, and we were talking about whether I needed a warm hat. And we were like, aren't you glad you're not doing this anymore? And she said, yeah, I really am. I had fun and it was great. But so it was just a great conversation about. What we're doing now when you decide that you're not going to, continue to compete at the upper levels or continue to compete because I personally don't miss competing at all because I did it so much for so long. And I'm really enjoying watching other people compete. My horse, I'm watching. Enjoying doing my course design and coaching. So it was just a fun conversation standing in the rain. Yeah. Glad that we weren't out there. Yeah. So your assistant, Nikki competes the horses for you, right? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And she's got your horse Shaq. Yeah. Yeah. That's your mug. My mug. She's competing Shaq and moving Shaq up the upper level. Yeah. To the upper levels. And it's so much fun watching that. Yeah. Yeah. So in our phases of career. And I've had different phases of my career, both with competition. Sure. I never professionally competed like you did. But I moved up levels and then then stayed at preliminary most of the time. And then with Prince. Yeah. Yep. And then when we adopted Lucas. I said I don't really feel like I want to compete anymore. Yeah. There's a lot of factors in that. And with me, motherhood was a factor, but also the horse that I had that, that brought me up all those levels, Calume Prince, he retired. Yeah. And there wasn't a horse that really matched him. So it's different plugs that have to get plugged in to make it right. That. To to continue on competing. And some people might have an accident that takes their passion away or some mishaps. Exactly. And then that kind of takes away their drive for competing. Yeah. And so many I had a call yesterday on the way home from a lady that runs a very nice restaurant here in Lexington, and I was like. I had her number in my phone. Yeah. And I was like, oh, Debbie, what do you call me for? And answered the phone. And we had a great conversation about Uhhuh, horses and what she was doing and where she was boarding and didn't need to be at a place, where everybody was competing and, so it was just, everyone's all at a different level with their horses. Which is really cool. We're gonna, we're gonna plug Debbie in Dudley's restaurants the best. It's the best restaurant in Lexington and it's been going on forever. Yeah. And so she's she has such a good operation, but you go in Dudley's and she's there, she's taking care of you. It's such good food. So she's still riding, huh? Yeah. Fox hunting and Yeah. Uhhuh. Yep. Yeah. Cool. Is she looking for a horse? She's. It was just a good conversation. She, I think she has a couple horses. Yeah. Yeah. Was yeah. Get gathering information from me. I think, location of how, where she has to go to get to fox hunting and stuff. So that's what we were, talking about. Is where do you need to have your horse? Do you need to have your horse where there's an arena for you to practice in? No, not necessarily. 'Cause I'm gonna go take it Fox hunting and. Trail ride a bit, yeah. So yeah, it was a great, it was fun to hear from her. So being your partner for 32 years, I've seen your career. And you moving on up the levels and then riding advanced and riding at Kentucky maybe 12 or 14 times yourself. Yeah. The Kentucky three day and going overseas and competing some. And taking horses to Florida in the winter because you had to have an edge and keep your competition, or that's where the trainers were, that's where you trainers and conditioning for to be able to train with, Ralph or who was my first kind of upper level and Karen, David, to be able to have the consistency of not just seeing them, they were there, so if I wanted lessons with them, I would have to go to Florida. So I ended up just going down there and then we planned a spring competition schedule based on. Culminating with the Kentucky three day event, so 'cause you had to prepare, because that's the last weekend in April. Yeah. You had to have your horses have some things underneath them, so that required you to go to Florida. And it was always sad for me when you go down there for six or eight weeks, but we figured out how long we could be apart. Yeah. You'd come back every two weeks or we'd go down there to catch up with you. Also when you're teaching and you're competing at those higher levels, you can't teach as much, right? Because we were talking like you all when there's a competition, you have a lot of your students. You're like going every 15 minutes for dressage or show jumping across country. You got this long list and if you're competing a horse, it takes away from you showing up for your students. Exactly. Yeah. So now you can really more fully show up for your students. For sure. And like this past weekend you were jump judging 'cause you had some extra time. I was like, I'm done at 12 or 1230. So I went into the office and said, if you need somebody extra, and she goes, oh good. Go relieve so and she has to go take care of her dog. And then. Someone else had lost a job or gotten fired. She goes, my head's just not in the right space. So I was just, it was fun, yeah. One to five 30 or 5 45, you sat jump judging. Yeah. Sat there and jumped, judged. Yeah. Yeah. And then also when you would go to Florida, you would have to have space for five to seven horses. Or however many went down. And you'd have to rent space and you were teaching less and not having as many students there. So being able to stay home in the wintertime, you're able to keep your 30 lessons a week or so? Yes. When the weather cooperates. Yeah. Yeah when the temperature's not too low. We have a cover for our arena. But if the temperature's, what below what you might not wanna teach? 25 kind of fits. 25 degrees above 25. I'm okay, but below 25 it, I know there's heated vest and boots and everything else, but I don't feel like, and I always say that. The students come out, and I know from experience, you get out and get on your horse and go ride, you'll be warm, but you can stand there in the barn going, oh my God, it's cold, uhhuh. So I'm like, get on, start trotting around, do a little sitting trot. You warm up really pretty quickly. Yeah. So again, it's a the riders stay warm and the horses. I think above 25 and above, they're breathing and everything else. They're okay with doing the work that you're doing in the wintertime, and I don't, that's my line to draw, but I love being home. In the winter. Yeah. And not going to Ocala and the whole stress of renting a place. Renting a place. And, I always had a great responsibility to my, the college students that. That stayed home and that weren't on a competition schedule or the adult amateurs that have real jobs and they, they couldn't go to Florida for two months. Sense of responsibility to get back to, to work with them. Yeah. You'd come home about every two weeks Yeah. And have a lesson scheduled for the weekend. Yeah. And the family. Yep. And in my life. We haven't talked. Cathy got home about six 30 last night. We had dinner and stuff. We haven't talked that the fruit market folks. I, I started at the after college. The the summer after I graduated uk. And the building was torn down this past week. Oh, the fruit market. Jessica's quality, fruits and vegetables. Oh no, the building was down. I think I saw a picture or something went across. Did you post something on Facebook? I reposted. Oh, okay. John Hawkins post. John Hawkins. Yeah. I saw it and I just swallowed, so it just numbed me down. Yeah. Oh, that's awful. Yeah. So when I graduated college in December of 80. My dad looked at my resumes. Yeah, you've said before, we've already talked about that. Yeah. You have to listen to that. But anyway, dad says, what are you gonna do? And I said, fruit market. And looked into it. And so we found property on Nicholasville Road, which is a very busy road, and we found a whole corner lot and it was 166 feet wide. Thinking that the fruit market wouldn't be able to pay for, it was 166,000. It was a thousand dollars a front foot. Wow. This is back in 1980 and there was an optical company that owned it. Simpson Optical. Yeah. They owned that and they would've liked to have a, yeah. A store there. So we built a six unit condominium office building at the corner. And I was snugged in between that office building. The fruit market was, yeah. Afterthought. The fruit market really Could have used all that parking. No. Just really zoomed. We had limited parking. Yeah. Anyway yeah. So we were able to help pay for the property by selling off some of those condos and right, and that, and anyway, the fruit market, when I retired after 15 years, I went back to school and got a Master's of social work. I leased it to Tim Hawkins, who helped manage the market for me. I leased it to him and it was called Joseph Kelly's for a few years. And, and then I own the property while he leased it. And I sold the property to, to Jeff's car wash. As Cathy said, people would go in the car wash, they drop the car off in the lane. Yeah. Walk over to Jess's, the fruit market. And then they'd be checking out, turning their head to see if their car was out of the. Car wash. Yep. It was just enough time to shop at the market. That, that alleviated somewhat of the parking problem. Yeah, so Jeff owned it and used it as a detail center, and it's been since 19. I don't know I'm not sure exactly when Tim closed, but. But that Jeff has had it right in the detail center. Yeah, exactly. But I don't know what's going in there now, but that was, I was like, like an end of an era, right? Yeah. To have the whole building come down. Yeah. Come down. Yeah. Uhhuh. Wow. Yeah. Sad we haven't talked about that. Yeah. You, this is a live conversation that you're hearing right now because I used to always drive, there's the market. Yes. Drive past. People still miss your market and didn't you have a fruit market? When we go to Rupp Arena or wherever we go in public and people walking, they'll stop you on the street. I miss your market, Jesse. Yeah, it's been a lot of years and they still remember me from that, even though I got a different haircut now. Your hair still pulled back though, so it still appeared short. Yeah. You didn't have your hair down long? No, when I had my hair long, I always just had it like in a braid every day. Yeah. So anyway, just the different phases of our lives and careers. Yeah. It's all, it all evolves. It does. And whatever we're ready for next. And I think that's how the Greeks lived. I always talk I mentioned that they are students and they're soldiers and they're whatever, they process. You go through different phases of your life to do different things. So I've been a therapist for over 25 years. And I love it. And I'll do it till I get put in the manure spreader. That's what I say is my ashes that get put in the spreader. It's gotta be cremated and put her ashes in the manure spreader. As long as I can remember what my client said, then I'll just stay with it. But I love it. But that's why we put gates in at the front of the farm, wouldn't it keep the loose horses in, is when I get too old and Cathy's wandering around on her golf cart. The gate, keep you outta the road. Keep me outta the road. I'll just go down and sit by the side of the arena. I. Tell people what to do, even though I'm not really teaching. No teaching. Yeah. So as you're standing at this show with this other professional who's doing coaching now, not competing at higher levels. Yeah. Uhhuh. Yeah. It's we've been there, done that. Yep. Like I've been there, done that, gotten up at three o'clock to drive the fruit market truck to Louisville three days a week. Exactly. Yep. Don't have to do that anymore. No. Uhhuh. I think the other the other big thing that we both. Cottoned on too was, we had money in the bank. And when we were going hard and fast at trying to make the Olympic team or competing at the upper levels, it just took so much money to do that. And she wasn't, weren't, you weren't teaching as much and it wasn't teaching. And it's just it's always, it was always a catch 22. You gotta do well to try to get sponsorship. And then, but if you, and then once you get the sponsorship, that's just, you gotta have the money to get, do well, to get sponsorship and and the sponsorship, cash, sponsorships are just few and far between in the horse world. Yeah. Everybody's happy to give you, supply you with grain or fly spray or a saddle. But there's only many, there's only so much of that stuff you can use at the end of the day. Yeah. You need money to put diesel in your truck. Money to pay the entry fees. Money to pay the farrier money to pay the vets, so cash. Yeah. Fly spray doesn't buy. Fly spray doesn't buy groceries. No, exactly. Yeah. But it's all good. Every phase has been good. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And it's been important. Yeah. But we're, I, we're all in that's what I think about myself. I was all in. At any point in my life doing the best I could, wherever I was and what I was doing. Yeah. Same with you, for sure. Definitely. Yep. Yeah. So think about that y'all, with your own lives, like where you're at, what you've done, what your dreams and goals are. 'cause there's still new phases. I, I just turned 68 last week since the podcast not turned 67. Yeah. Two weeks. Ago, I'm a year wiser than Cathy. Yep. But yeah, there's still just so much to do and to be, and I, yep. I looking forward to it all. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. The new different, we are, we're projecting out the farm what we want the farm to do and be. And that's really fun because. It's good to see life go on and continue. Yeah, for sure. And new dreams and goals for ourselves. We have such good help at the farm. I got this boat back in. I've got this boat that I've had now for when I turned 55. So it's going on 13 years. Yeah. I've had this boat. And I'm able to go for a week or two on the boat 'cause I've got great, we've got great help at the farm. Yeah. Yeah. New adventures all the time. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Alright, if you all wanna ask us any questions and we're happy to share what we know. And we don't know what we don't know. And you can share what you know. It's all good. It's all good. Yeah. Peace and love. Have a great week. We'll see you next time. We'll see you next Monday. You'll hear you. You'll hear us next Monday. Yeah. We'll see at the kitchen table next Monday at six o'clock. Peace and love. We love you. Take care.