Page 38 - The Hunt - Spring 2020

(Previous page) Lucinda Donaldson rode leased ponies and horses for several year before getting Rocket Man. (This page and opposite) Conor helps his mom, Stephanie Dowling, with the daily chores at her Grey Lake Stables.
It’s hardly unusual for families in the Brandywine Valley to own horses, ride to the hounds or participate in equestrian events. And their children are often in the saddle not long after they learn to walk. Such was the case with Lucinda Donaldson.
Now a 12-year-old student at Charles F. Patton Middle School in Kennett Square, Pa., Donaldson had been riding leased ponies and horses for several years when she changed barns in April 2018. “The woman at the new stables was looking to sell this horse, so I took him for a ride during my first time there,” Donaldson recalls. “She said, ‘You two go well together.’ And I said, ‘I agree.’”
For a while, it was a tenuous relationship between Donaldson and Rocket Man, a handsome 12-year-old Welsh thoroughbred. “He had a lot of anxiety and is still a little spooky,” Lucy says. “Sometimes I’m nervous, and he can sense that—so he’s nervous as well.”
The turning point in the relationship came at an early competition that wasn’t going well. “I was thinking
of dropping out, but then I thought, ‘No, we’re both better than that.’”
Horse and rider finished the competition. “We’re comfortable with each other now,” says Donaldson.
144 THE HUNT MAGAZINE
SPRING 2020