Something Old

Get outta here! Embarrassing as it is now this is a photo of me at a horse show at about the age of 17. The Ewe Necked appy gelding I'm on's name was "Jokay's Tex McCue" he was a 7 yr old registered App horse and the first horse I owned that knew how to side pass like a dream. BOTH WAYS! Yeah....I know, but when goofy looking hats, and a borrowed saddle was the best you could do a well broke (even if ugly) horse was a really cool thing to have.

"Tex" as he was called was near to impossible to beat in a trail class. That is a show class where they set out a series of scary obstacles scary to horses anyway) and you have to follow the directions exactly as you maneuver, and navigate through the course. My $500 ( cheap back then) horse was really, really, good at trail class. We won lots of trophies, in fact I have a photo somewhere where I am on him holding one. Next time he gets brought up in a post I will try and find it.

I enjoyed Tex for about 4 years solid until a fellow boarder at the stables where I kept him fed him a lethal bucket full of rotten soured corn on purpose. I found this out because she bragged to me about it a couple of days after he had died of colic. She proudly told me I wouldn't be winning any more trail classes. You see.. it seems she too liked the trail class, and was really, really, tired of me winning them all the time. So she "got rid" of the problem by poisoning Tex.

As you can imagine I was devastated and heartbroken as well as very, very, angry. Within the week I bought myself a new horse that looked very much like a better looking version of Tex. "Jimmy" aka Missoula Jay Sizzle was also a registered Appaloosa but was only three years old and barely broke to ride. Due to the fact that he was so green he only set me back $350.

He also set me into fast forward mode to get him trained up to Tex's capabilities. I worked hard on that all fall, winter, and spring, and when the first shows rolled around he was as good (maybe even better) than Tex was. Not only that, I could take full credit for that fact. Upon my first win with him in Trail Class at the "Tumbleweeds Saddle Club" in Wanamaker, Indiana I turned to the once again humiliated horse killer, and said " what are you gonna do now? poison this one too? go ahead! it wont take me long to train another one! No matter how many horses I have to buy I'm going to beat you every single time!" Her name was Donna. I will never forget the look on her face. She left Jimmy alone.