Lucky at the Standardbred Show N Shine

Our local racetrack Fraser Downs has a horse adoption program called Greener Pastures to help place retired Standardbred racehorses into new homes. They make fine riding horses, they're versatile and excel in many disciplines.

To help raise money for Greener Pastures they've held a couple of horse shows this summer called Standardbred Show N Shine. They have classes in halter, showmanship, English riding, jumping, Western riding, and trail.

I have an ex-racehorse, Lucky, that I rescued from the local auction on December 15 2002. He was several hundred pounds underweight, covered in cuts, mud fever, and severely neglected. I got him for fifty bucks. The meat buyers weren't going to buy this rack of bones. I wasn't sure if Lucky would live or not, but that horse has heart and under veterinary care, some groceries and TLC he came back to be a healthy horse.

We've come out to both shows just for a little fun and an outing for him. At nineteen years old he's probably the oldest horse in the show ring and maybe the most obstinate too. The first show he refused to trot and paced nicely all day. His pace is so smooth to ride and I was quite comfortable, but he didn't score too well when he should have been trotting. The last show was held on September 7 and he was in a more agreeable mood that day and did everything that was asked of him. Lucky is a big boy with a big stride and when asked to trot and canter he decided he was in a race and ran circles around the other horses. He does nothing halfway. When asked to canter, he gallops. If I pull back the reins to slow him down he'll go into a trot.

Oh well, he can be a fun boy. I thought he would do his best in the trail class because he fearlessly goes through the trails and up and down hills, over bridges, around trees, and under branches as surefooted as a mountain goat. A trail class set up in a riding arena has makeshift obstacles. The bridge was a tarpaulin, and no way was he going to walk on that, even though he walks over a tarpaulin at home back at the farm. The gate was a couple of poles with a rope strung between them. Nope. No way. If it had been a real gate there would be no problem, but not this pole and rope.

But on the last show they changed the trail class a bit and held it in the warm up arena. They put the obstacles up ahead of time and let the horses practice a bit. This time they had a small wooden bridge. I tried Lucky across it with little success our first few times. Then he finally figured it out and crossed it nicely after that.

But the call came for the Western discipline classes and we returned to the show ring. Lucky picked up ribbons in each class and then the group headed over to the warm up arena for the trail class which each horse and rider would enter the arena one at a time and go through the course. When it was Lucky's turn he took the course wonderfully. And this time we were awarded a 2nd place ribbon.

Not too bad for an old, grumpy man!