My “show mom” or in other words a lady I kind of adopted to teach me about showing horses gave me a call to tell me she found a reining horse mare that was trained and shown by one of the best trainers in the state.
I went to look at her and as I walked into the arena where she was tied I saw a bag of bones with a bloody gash down the underside of her belly. I couldn’t believe THAT was what I was supposed to ride but I reluctantly saddled her and got on. She limped really badly! I jumped off and picked up her foot to find her shoe grown an INCH into her hoof! So we hurried to trim her and pull her shoes and got back on. She didn’t limp and it was like she was new horse.
I was still very concerned but she seemed to do fine at a walk so I asked for a trot and it was very smooth. We even loped a few circles. She could spin, pivot and sidepass like a dream and could back up as fast as she could trot forward so I went ahead and told the man I would buy her. I came back a week later with $1000 and I found RC (it was before I renamed her Gracie) standing in the stable about 50 pounds skinnier then when I had seen her a week ago! Apparently the man selling her decided since she was sold he would stop feeding her (not that he fed her much in the first place). I could have smacked the guy!
It hurt to think that the $1000 bag of bones had once been a $15,000 reining horse.
I loaded her in my trailer and brought her home. She was so hungry she tried to kill anyone with a food bucket and almost coliced the first night we had her. It was terrible! But as time has gone by we have fixed her hooves, hocks, scratches, scraps, cuts and everything else and we are now burning up the show ring.
We have had a long hard road and I have had several times I just wanted to give up but she has been worth it! I love her so much and I wouldn’t trade her for the world even though we sometimes have our days when we could kill each other. Lol!
This year I have won a lot of ribbons and for our year end total we managed to get top 5 in reining and won a beautiful award halter, trophy and some other goodies. We also placed well in halter and western pleasure!
We also love to trail ride in the fall. Just about every weekend we go hit the trails and ride for 10-25 miles. It is so peaceful and low stress. We both enjoy it!
I look forward to another year in the show ring next spring and I’m going to keep working with her and building our bond. I think we are going to be inseparable!
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