“I wasn’t very good at riding though,” Shana admits. “Everything seemed so confusing to me. At the end of camp everyone got awards for what skills they improved on the most. I got the award for ‘Best Tack Cleaner.’”
The Vermilion, Ohio native grew up in a family that didn’t know much about horses, let alone own any, but that didn’t stop Shana. Once she was bitten by the horse bug, it was hard for anyone to hold her back. The determined teenager soon had a horse of her own, a jumper pony named Jimmy, and began going to a local barn where she took lessons.
“Jimmy was an awesome jumping horse – he’d go over anything I’d point him at. What Jimmy wasn’t so great at though was stopping when I wanted him to. He’d run off with me all the time and often ignored my cues to turn. Basically, he was a typical jumper – hot and really stiff,” Shana acknowledges. “I thought it was something I just had to accept. I thought jumpers were supposed to be that way.”
That line of thinking changed when Shana discovered Clinton and the Method. During the early stages of his career, Clinton started coming to Shana’s boarding barn every six weeks to teach horsemanship clinics, and Shana quickly decided to participate.