Lea McFarland-Bushnell is loving her equestrian journey

Lea McFarland-Bushnell. photo by Becky Coffield Mark Twain once gave advice to choose something one loved to do so much that one would be willing to do it for free -- that, he claimed, was the career one should seek.

That is exactly the advice Lea McFarland-Bushnell seems to have adhered to her entire life. She now trains horses in Sisters.

Her love of horses has proven to be the single most defining factor for who she is and what she does. Born and reared in the high desert cowboy country of Bend, Oregon, Bushnell began riding as a youngster, inauspiciously enough, on a neighbor's horse.

Quickly stricken with horse fever, she had to beg, plead and cajole her father into letting her buy her first horse, a paint mare, which took her from Western pleasure riding to dressage and hunter and jumper lessons while still in high school.

While her father, a local doctor, had been a hard sell, Bushnell's mother recognized her daughter's talent and gave her the opportunity to study abroad upon graduation from high school at Porlockvale Riding School in Porlock, England, formally recognized by the British Horse Society.

While her high school classmates were riffling through college catalogues and excitedly chattering about sororities, Bushnell spent three months in England where she received her teacher and trainer certification.

"It was a tough school -- very strict, very military," Bushnell said. "I learned mostly about horse management there, do's and don'ts."

Upon graduation from Porlockvale, Bushnell traveled to Germany where she studied and rode for a year under the tutelage of Egon von Neindorf at his institute.

"Living and riding in Germany was probably one of the most difficult things I've done in my life," she said. "I was there by myself, only 18, not really knowing the language -- having had only a bit of German in high school."

Slowly Bushnell learned the language. Daily she walked several miles from her basement apartment to the riding institute, eventually wearing holes in her boots, the only shoes the 18-year-old had taken with her.

It took a full three months to master her balance and a very difficult horse before things began to turn around for her.

"Sometimes I'd feel so discouraged and depressed I'd go into a stall and cry it out, then I'd pull myself up by my bootstraps, get up, and get on another horse," she said. "If you want something badly enough you stick it out and you will succeed if you stick it out!"

She attended a horse show in Klamath Falls while enrolled at Oregon State University after her return from Europe.

There, she came to the attention of Hermann Friedlander, a dressage master, who was so impressed with Bushnell's riding that he invited her to study under him in California, which she did for the next four years while attending school at San Jose State.

"In many ways my time with Friedlander was really an extension of my German studies, but it was more detailed and precise training because I had individual instruction instead of group," she said. "I rode everyday, often for hours, getting instruction and exercising horses. Somehow I managed to attend school and work a part-time job, too. I was young."

Being only five foot six and a hundred-and-nothing pounds is not a hindrance to a woman one could easily consider to be the alpha mare of the barn.

Bushnell's touch is firm, loving, and reassuring to her 1,500-pound Freisian mounts. She tolerates no foolishness, yet understands the young horse's fears and whimsies.

An exacting task master, she guides her mounts to performance perfection with care and understanding.

As for the future? She shrugs lightly, then smiles shyly as she looks up, her eyes twinkling.

"Doors are always being opened. I live each day relishing my work and the animals I've been given the opportunity to train.

"It's an adventure. It's the journey that is so wonderful. There is no end."