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Horseytalk.net Special Interview
Allison Lemon

www.roanoke.com

If you want your kid to stay out of trouble, buy him a pony, says rider and medical school student

Allison LemonAllison Lemon said her horse was key to her academic success. "We are so in sync," she said. "You don't get that with many horses."

Allison Lemon jumps her horse during a practice
Monday at the Roanoke Valley Horse Show in Salem, Mass.

Lemon is a North Cross and Washington and Lee graduate who will soon begin medical school.

Allison Lemon, Washington and Lee class of 2011, is Wake Forest Medical School-bound in the fall.

In a way, she'll be arriving on horseback.

"She's been riding horses since she was little," said her mother, Patricia Lemon. "I think they've helped her get to med school."

For sure, show horses helped get Allison Lemon through W&L. She was a four-year member of the riding team there, four years chosen All-Old Dominion Athletic Conference. She readily agreed with her mother that riding played a major role in her academic success.

"Absolutely. To any new dad, I'd say, if you want your kid to stay out of trouble, buy him a pony. You put so much time and effort into it and you love it so much, any threat to getting rid of it. ... It is a privilege that I get to do this. I respect that and want to keep it going."

So through all the years at North Cross School in Roanoke County, then at W&L, riding was a means to learn time management, focus and a lot of other things that didn't have anything to do with a horse.

Lemon, 22, rode her first pony at age 6, made her first show at 12. She'll be showing this week at the Roanoke Valley Horse Show at Salem Civic Center. It has been an annual event for her.

She's enjoying it while she can. The next four years, medical school is going to demand more and more of her time. Riding time inevitably will suffer and she knows it. With that in mind, Wally, the hunter she's ridden since she was 15, is up for sale. Lemon is trying to stay calm and adult about all this, but she's preparing for the worst, emotionally speaking.

"Oh my gosh, it's devastating," she said. "The worst part of this will be selling him. We are so in sync. You don't get that with many horses."

Once she gets over losing what she calls her best friend, she'll have to learn how to get along without being a member of a college riding team. She's hoping she can make some arrangements with a Winston-Salem, N.C., area barn so she can get in a ride every now and then. But it won't be the same.

At W&L, she was a team captain the past two years; ODAC scholar athlete -- 3.5 GPA or better -- all four years; academic All-American.

"Great rider and great team member," Generals coach Gordon Reistrup said. "All this she did while maintaining her own horse at another stable, riding with us, and keeping such a high academic standard. That and she is the nicest girl, always friendly, always pleasant, always a kind word for everybody else, not just on our team but other teams as well."

Allison LemonShe was off and running at the horse show this week, winning a green hunter class on a 5-year-old mare named Rittani and coming in as reserve champion (second place) on Wally in a working hunter class Monday. She was riding Rittani for trainer Anneliesa King, who works out of a Bedford County barn. She has been Lemon's instructor for years.

That Lemon was able to do so well on an essentially strange horse was partly because of her experience as a college rider. In intercollegiate competition, the visiting team rides horses provided by the host school. All riders draw for their mounts, a clear disadvantage for the visitor.

"Allison was a great college rider because she has an innate feel for how to assess a horse. ... You get on and go right into the ring with no practice, you can't assess a horse in a walk-through," Reistrup said. "You literally walk through the gate and figure it out as you go. She has a great feel for that."

Now it's on to med school. She knows it's going to be tough. She's not just thinking about the academics, either.

"I'm just not going to have the time to ride," she said, as if to convince herself one more time that Wally has to be sold. "It wouldn't be fair to the horse."

Just like a horseman to think of the animal first.

Interview sourced from roanoke.com

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