Looking Back

The nice thing (about the only nice thing) about spending the day clearing out and organizing, throwing out all the junk one accumilates that they don't need and reorganizing the stuff one decides to keep, is that you find stuff you forgot you had. It puts a smile on your face and you remember some of the good times that needed a good dusting off in the archives of the mind.

I've already shared some of the pictures of our POA's we showed when I was a kid. I can't remember if I mentioned Pee-Wee.

His name was Wonders Equal. He was a son of the great Siri Wonder and my dad bought him as an unbroke stud colt who threw my little brother off during his test ride. We put some training on him, gelded him, and fit him up and got $2700 at the Pony of Americans International Sale. He went to a lady in Indiana who took inner city kids and gave them an opportunity to learn about horses and show them, so Pee-Wee went on to make a difference in kids' lives.

You can't ask for a better reselling situation than that....

Then our rig. This was our pride and joy when we really got into showing. Funny thing is I'd never want anything this big today (6-horse slant steel trailer), but we had a lot of fun times in this.

One of the not-so-fun times was when I was 16 and my dad had me drive this rig on the way to Kansas City. Please remember I came from a small town in western Kansas and had never hardly even BEEN to Kansas City, let alone drove through it and I was SIXTEEN so I hadn't been driving long anyway (if you don't count driving my dad's work truck through stock gates when I was old enough to reach the pedals). My dad didn't wake up in time and before I knew it I was in rush-hour traffic going through downtown Kansas City--eek!!!! We survived, though, and that gave me the experience to drive any rig now. Anything seems easy compared to that!

Then this guy here is a paint I showed for one of my first clients. The date on the back of this photo is 8/28/93. Her mare had kicked me and hurt me pretty badly (moving one of my ribs back and creating a lot of scar tissue I had problems with for years). This gelding was a lot sweeter but not much of a mover, so we didn't do very well, but it was fun to get my feet wet at some APHA shows. This photo was taken at an open show in Pratt or Kingman, I believe.

Then there was Nipper. When I was going to Juco in Hutchinson I got the opportunity to help out at an ApHC trainer's place. I wasn't paid, but I got to do some training on the side that I earned a little extra money doing.

This colt was a solid Appy that her daughter hadn't had any luck on. He was so funny because he bucked every time we loped! We had the vet check him out and we went over our tack numerous times. No matter what I did training wise, tack wise, vet wise he continued to do his little carousel-horse buck. It was harmless but wasn't appropriate in the show ring. I eventually chose to ignore it and ride it out of him, so we went ahead and prepared for the show, buck and all.

When we got to the ApHC show I warmed him up and he did a couple of little bucks but nothing too bad, so I went ahead and entered the class. He did PERFECTLY! He didn't buck one bit! We won our class, beating the trainer I was working for on her horse. We did well in all our classes and I later found out we had won the high-point junior horse for the entire show!

Of course after that her daughter wanted Nipper back. Not sure whatever happened there, but it was sure fun while it lasted.

Look at all this....all these stories off of 4 old photos. It's amazing what a person digs up when they go looking through their junk!