Our Featured Adult Rider of the Month is Yufei Zhang

Yufei always had a childhood dream of learning to ride. There was an equestrian club just beside her community and on weekends, she would watch the horses with her parents. Riding lessons, however, were too expensive, so she had to give up her dream at that time. She was finally able to start riding in 2014 as a third-year university student in Beijing. Yufei moved to Canada and started at Lancers in October 2017 when she was doing her Master of Finance at Saint Mary’s University. Since then, she has been riding in our J3 Thursday evening ride. Yufei found that the location of Lancers was a strong attraction because when she finished university in China, she was dying to consistently ride in Canada. With the stables near her university, she is able to, as she says, “keep working on her dream”.

         While she only rode her once, Alice is Yufei’s favourite horse. Yufei says that Alice is “like driving a fighter aircraft and she says ‘no worries, I will keep you safe!’”. Yufei certainly also enjoys the therapeutic benefits of riding. She explained, “we usually have exams on Friday morning, so my riding classes on Thursday night gave me a big help to get rid of stress. Besides, on the other hand I also learnt how to balance the study work and life interest”. She also feels that Lancers gives her a lot of opportunities to improve herself. In China, Yufei’s instructors would usually groom and tack up the horse. She noted that “Lancers gives me an opportunity to learn how to saddle up by myself and also gives me a sense of accomplishment every time I saddle up my horse”. Additionally, Yufei really enjoys communicating with her ride mates after each lesson. She added, “at the beginning, I always feel shy to talk with others since I am worried about my English speaking. However, my group mates and coach treat me friendly and welcoming which makes me get involved in the team gradually and become cheerful to people”.

          Yufei has just graduated from SMU and is now looking for a job in Halifax. She even wants to stay in Halifax and noted that “Lancers gives me a huge inspiration to stay in Halifax and it also makes me get involved into the city gradually. Sometimes, life can be difficult for people far from home”. When not riding, Yufei also enjoys diving and acquired her AOW diving license when she was in college but equipment and environmental requirements are quite hard in both Beijing and Halifax so she will just keep focusing on her equestrian training!

We are very happy to have Yufei as a Lancer and hope she finds a job to her liking here so we can keep her!