A young girl with a gift

Click here to read about team penning

Kaitlyn Blanc, 13, is like most girls her age. She loves animals - especially horses. She wants to be a horse trainer when she grows up.
Her sister Kristine, 16, also loves horses.
However, Tom Seay - owner of Andora Farm, where the girls come every Friday to team pen - says Kaitlyn has a rare gift.
"I mean, she can talk to the animals," Seay said. "Someday they'll make a movie about her." 
 
***
 
The Blanc family - sisters Kaitlyn and Kristine, mother Kathy and father Philip - gather around the deck in lawn chairs for the first time since they can remember. Busy schedules usually keep them from chatting like this.
The deck overlooks a hand built stable set in a wooded, western Culpeper County backyard bustling with animals.
A small herd of horses nip and thump around inside the fence, as a gaggle of chickens, guineas and ducks peck the ground.
Neither of Kaitlyn's parents have equine backgrounds. The Blanc family uprooted from their Long Island neighborhood and plant into a plot of Culpeper woods about 10 years ago with the intention of owning horses for their daughters.
They developed an early love for animals - especially horses.
"They never played with baby dolls," Kathy says. "They played with horses."
She says sometimes the girls even ate breakfast outside with the horses.
Philip Blanc, a Fairfax County police officer, refuses to ride any of the family's six horses, but he built the stable where they live. He calls the animals "expensive and stupid," but he's the first to race to the rescue if one of them is frightened.
He tells people he'd never ride something without brakes and a steering wheel, yet he is seldom missing from the crowd on Fridays
at Andora.
The girls started riding English. Kristine excelled, but Kaitlyn seemed to struggle starting with her first dressage lesson.
The instructor kept telling Kathy that Kaitlyn didn't seem to understand simple instructions, later learning her daughter - the girl who finds every excuse to ride bareback - was purposely flubbing because she wasn't comfortable with the stuffier riding style.
She refers to horses as if they were friends - "he" or "she" - and laughs and brags about the cute things they do like grandmothers in the office break room.
Kaitlyn learned to pick up on a horse's body language - how the horse was feeling or what it was thinking, based solely on the angle its ears were perked.
Kaitlyn says the first time she fell off a horse she didn't get upset at it. She blamed herself. ("He could tell that I was afraid," Kaitlyn said. "He could feel me shaking.")
 
*** 
 
Philip sprang from his lawn chair when two of the horses start bucking each other. He wanted to break up the "fight."
He worries they'll get hurt, Kathy whispers when Philip is out of earshot, he doesn't understand that they kick to establish dominance.
He returns - horses unharmed - and the family's discussion leads to memories of past and present pets - a boa constrictor that creeps out Kathy, cats, chickens, dogs, a donkey the girls once let in the house, ducks, guineas, horses (of course) and Australian sugar gliders.
Sugar gliders-
The girls giggle and run inside. When the sliding glass door flies open again, Kristine is grinning and toting a small purse. A duckling waddled close behind her heels. Inside the bag, two tiny, wide-eyed, nocturnal squirrel-like creatures pop their heads up then nuzzle back to sleep.
The family says they've had every pet imaginable - except a giraffe.
 
***
 
Kaitlyn is just 13, but she partners with adult riders, converses like a businesswoman and shakes people's hands when she introduces herself. She teaches team penning to people three times her age with the patience of a professional.
The quiet, cheerful blonde immediately charmed Seay. Ever since, he's regularly enlisted her and Kristine to appear on his equine travel show, "Best of America by Horseback."
He sometimes even lets Kaitlyn ride his horse.
"When she rides my horse, they look like dancing partners," Seay said.
Last year Seay partnered Kaitlyn with renowned horse trainers Charles and Michele Pellham, of Cornerstone Horsemanship, an Etlan cutting-horse, or cow-horse, training business that endorses gentle handling techniques.
Because Kaitlyn is homeschooled, she can participate in a work-study program with the Pellham's, cleaning stalls, grooming and warming up horses in exchange for lessons on basic horsemanship. 
"She's actually a very good rider," Charles Pellham said. "She's got very good balance, good timing with her hands and her legs."
Pellham said Kaitlyn is one of the more dedicated and respectful kids he's ever worked with.
"That's why I like having her come to work for us," he said. "The problem with a lot of kids, they think they know everything or they're scared to death. She's a confident rider, but she's not what I would call cocky or arrogant."
 
*** 
 
A deer fawn with two budding knobs for antlers stands, staring at the circle of chatty people, by the base of the deck's steps.
"Look at that," Philip says.
Any other deer might have darted back into the woods, but this one starts climbing the stairs.
Kaitlyn rises from her chair and scratches the fawn behind its ears. The dogs wag their tails - unfazed by the visitor.
The girls run inside again, this time they return with handfuls of Apple Jacks - Buddy's favorite snack.
Buddy-
The little deer is a frequent visitor. Two summers ago, the Blancs found Buddy trembling on the side of the road with his umbilical chord still attached, its mother presumed dead.
They didn't feel right leaving him there, so they brought him home and looked after him until he was big enough to fend for himself. He returns every now and again for affection and food.
When the fistfuls of Apple Jacks are gone, Buddy and the dogs huddle around the family members, licking hands and competing for pats on the head or a rub on the neck. As suddenly as he appeared, Buddy descends the deck and disappears into the woods.
The dogs plop back to the floorboards.
The family laughs.
"Goodbye, Buddy," they call.
 
Katie Dolac can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 138 or