Horse of a Lifetime #2?
Johnny moves on...
Long story short, I sold Johnny in December. We ran in 3 Beginner Novice Horse Trials and he consistently did great! Finishing 7th twice and 5th at his last event. He was very willing and did his job, but, ultimately, he wasn't my ride. The first person that saw him bought him, which really says something about how nice a horse he is. Best of all, his new owner ADORES him and I couldn't be more pleased with the match.
Vino moves in...
In February, I started horse shopping again. I went back to Ocala and reached out to Ashley Trier who I trained with when I lived in Charlotte, NC. She is based in Virginia now but spends her winters in Ocala. I asked her if she knew of anything for sale and she said Kendyl Tracy had a really nice prospect in her barn. Within minutes, Kendyl contacted me with video of a horse she had in training - and wasn't even on the market yet. It was really a stroke of luck.
I was in Ocala with Nicky for 2 days. I sat on 4 very nice horses on Day 1. Kendyl's horse, Vino, was my only showing on Day 2 and first thing in the morning I get a note from Kendyl saying Vino had pulled a shoe and they were trying to find someone to tack it back on. In hindsight, it's crazy to think I almost didn't see this horse. But they did get someone to tack on his shoe and Nicky and I went for a look. It was love at first sight.
Vino is an 8-yr old Zweibrucker gelding, standing at 16 hands. He's a warmblood with a light weight, modern build and on first look, you might mistake him for a thoroughbred - until you take a closer look. He was bred and trained as a dressage horse in Idaho/Northern California. Then his owners realized he had an aptitude for jumping and sold him to a jumper rider, so from May 2020 until Jan 2021, he was in training with an A-circuit hunter/jumper barn and he got a lot of great miles in the show ring in a short amount of time.
His owner had the sense that he would be a stellar eventing horse so she put him in training with Kendyl with the goal of selling him as an eventer. When I saw him he had been xc schooling 3x with great success. He was exceptionally well trained, easy to ride, stood quietly while we all talked. I put a down payment on him and scheduled the vetting. On February 18th he was officially mine!
I kept him in training with Kendyl until the end of March so she could keep his xc training going and take him to his first horse trial. I went down on two different weekends to take lessons and ride him, and each ride got better and better. He won his first event with Kendyl and then went on to win his second event with me in the jockey seat! I've never won a recognized horse trial before and seeing our names at the top of the leaderboard was a high.
He's really a magnificent animal. So smart and inquisitive, but doesn't interpret everything new in the world as a threat like Leo does. And while sensitive, Vino is not hyper reactive to every line of communication. He has a lot of Leo's great qualities - athletic, quick off the ground, bold jumper, very social. Though I'm sure he will never match Leo's gallop, I think Vino might just be the horse that gets me to that */** level finally. Horse of a Lifetime #2.
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