The Putney School

"I ride horses as my afternoon activity, sing with the madrigals group as my evening activity, and, each spring, am in the school musical." — Blythe

Blythe I have always ridden, and so, like a few students, I brought my own horse to school. I'm a show jumper, and I travel with the school's group to shows in the region.

While I spend almost every afternoon in the ring, I'd have to say that horses are not the biggest part of my life here. I'm very, very busy with a five-class schedule, the madrigal group, and acting. I'm thoroughly enjoying my physics class even though I don't think of myself as having a particularly scientific mind. I'm also taking French Literature; we began this semester with some beautiful, little-known Proust stories. We speak only French in class unless the concept we're discussing becomes too esoteric, in which case our teacher lets us momentarily revert to English. We're now reading Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days, or Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours, which isn't just science fiction but is also a witty commentary about the English empire. In French Lit we also do translations and presentations.

I always enjoy talking about history, and we talk, in French Lit, about the wild technological advances of Verne's era that inspired Le tour du monde and also about the political upheaval of Verne's era in France. Because I'm a junior I'm taking U.S. History now, and have gotten into some great classroom conversations with our teacher about the Civil War. One of the ideas that I have for college is to study musical theatre at a conservatory affiliated with a university and to either double-major or minor in history. We'll see….

In U.S. Literature we're studying the same periods we study in U.S. History. And in Precalculus—as I said, I don't consider myself to have a scientific mind—we're studying topics that make Physics, one of my favorite courses, understandable to me.

One night a week I rehearse with the madrigals group. We do some pop songs. I had a lot of fun with a solo of Grizzly Bear's "Two Weeks" in a recent performance. But right now we're learning "As Vesta Was," an extraordinary English madrigal written for six voices, and we're having additional section rehearsals to help us with that. I'm a dorm head, which means that I also attend Student Council meetings. And then there are always, always the school musicals.

Horses at Putney

The riding community is relaxed and fun. Some of us ride competitively; some just like to be around horses. Because of all of my study and work commitments at Putney, my once quite heavy showing schedule has lightened, though I still get a show in now and then.
I have three horses of my own: Comet, Cupid and Donder. (Yeah, I know – the reindeer – I couldn’t help myself). They're with me at Putney. Comet and Cupid are used as school horses because they're smaller than Donder and can't really handle an adult-sized person for serious jumping. Certainly not every student who rides at Putney owns a horse; most don't. So people at a wide variety of skill levels ride Comet and Cupid, though I still get in a few rides on them throughout the year.
Putney has four adults who manage the farm and horse barn, but most of the physical labor is done by students. There are AM and PM crews for dairy barn duties, and there are AM and PM crews that work in the horse barn. In the horse barn, those crews feed, water and hay the stalls and paddocks, and they shovel out the stalls. I worked with the AM horse barn crew my first semester of freshman year, and I do it every now and then these days when someone asks me to sub for them. But because of the barn crews, I am freed up to join in on crews working on trails or in the kitchen or in any other aspect of campus life. Of course, after riding, everyone cleans, tacks, and rubs down whatever horse they ride riding.
Horses are also a huge part of my college search, because I definitely want to keep riding. Luckily, most colleges have at least a club, if not a team. Donder will come with me wherever I go, even if it’s California. I hope Comet and Cupid can remain a part of the horse program at Putney, even without me, until they're old enough to retire. It is an amazing place for a horse to live.