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Nell is an elderly lady who once was
one of our lead horses in the Bowman Belgians/Bundoran
Belgians hitch. She now is the solo queen horse at
most weddings at the Mountain Lake Hotel. She is quiet
and friendly, and has a great job with good folks
like Jennifer Bulot taking care of her. Jennifer is
a student at Virginia Tech and works at the hotel
to help with her tuition payments.
Jennifer reports: "I attended Fred
Scott's driving school the summer of 2000. I had just
started working for Mountain Lake Resort driving their
horse and carriage, and I had never driven horses
before. Due to my work schedule I was only able to
attend a two day course, but during that time I must
have put in 12 hours of driving. Within those twelve
hours I learned how to drive a one and two horse hitch
through circles, backing, turning, and obstacle courses.
I even tried a three horse hitch, which was extremely
difficult, but it gave me that much more confidence
in my ability to drive a one horse hitch."
When Jennifer and her co-driver Brian
Matthews arrived and began training, we decided to
focus on additional areas of risk that might come
up when dealing with wedding crowds -- people throwing
rice at the bride and hitting horses, etc. So we really
pushed them into these specialized areas. In spite
of this, necessarily stressful, training, Jennifer
adds, nicely: "Fred Scott made me feel right at home
and gave me the confidence and know-how that I needed."
As to her confidence and ability,
we agree. On a recent trip to that beautiful hotel,
we observed both Jennifer, shown here, and Brian driving
with real confidence. We are really proud to be associated
with that operation.
The quiet Percheron is Julie who we found at
Ray Kisamore's place when
Mountain Lake asked us to help.
Mountain Lake is a rare natural lake
and is high in the Allegheny Mountains just west of
Blacksburg, VA. The hotel has been open for years
and is a delightful place to visit. Cool in the summer,
with miles of walking trails, it's perfect for a honeymoon
or quiet vacation. We love it there. Give them a call:
800.346.3334 or visit at
Buzz Scanland, General Manager of
the Mountain Lake Hotel sends his teamsters to Bundoran
for recurrent training because "we rely on Fred to
train our people and supply us with heavy horses.
We know that we get good training and a quality horse
for a fair price." Further: " We cannot afford a slap-dash
operation. We will either do it right or not at all,
and the crew at Bundoran helps us do it right. They
understand risk, and they help us manage it."
We are expanding our hotel-crew training
program, as we have done for Nemacolin
Woodlands, a five-star resort in Pennsylvania
and would be delighted to customize a driver training
program for your crew.
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