CCSC Horse of The Month

February 2010 - Golden Promise owned by Jane Rohde

Goldie's full name is Mom's Golden Promise, which refers to my dream of getting back into horses after kids. I hadn't had a horse for 15 years, and when our youngest son Garrett showed an interest in horses, I decided it was time for a horse. We ended up with 3, one for Leslie, my husband, one for Garrett, my son, and Goldie for me.

Goldie is a 15 hand registered Foundation Morgan mare, bred from several generations of champion cutting horses. She's a chestnut, with a number of oddly places swirls. Linda Tellington Jones found that horses with strangely placed swirls are somewhat different--often remarkably good horses, but ones that needs the right owner. Goldie is definitely different, and fortunately, I am the right owner.

I bought Goldie when she was 3, along with her sister Portia (for my husband Leslie.) When I went to try her out, her owner and I took Goldie and Portia on what I thought would be a short little walk-about. After all, she was a 3 year old who had been ridden less than a handfull of times! The little walk-about turned out to be a 2 hour ride over some of the roughest timber strewn country I have ever ridden on! When we got back, I didn't even think twice--I bought both mares!

For the first couple of years trimming her feet was interesting. She didn't mind her feet being worked on, but she would simply forget that one foot was being held up, get interested in something "over there" and start to walk off. She didn't even try to take the foot back, which would result in her falling over. Duh! One farrier had the idea of standing her facing the tail gate of his pickup so she wouldn't walk off while he was trimming her feet. Instead she jumped right up into the truck!

Goldie is quite an escape artist. When we first brought her and Portia to the stable where we were going to be boarding, they had never been in a stall before. We took the wall between the stalls down to about 5 feet so the mares could see each other, and they seemed happier about things. Leslie took Portia out of her stall, on a walk about, leaving Goldie alone. I was in a nearby feed room grabbing hay for the "girls", and heard a loud thump. I went out to see Goldie trotting off down the aisle after Les and Portia. She had jumped the 5 foot wall between the stalls and one out the open door of Portia's stall. Not bad for a flat foot jump!.

As time went on, Goldie continued to develop new and more devious ways of escaping. The stall doors at the boarding facility slid on overhead tracks, with the bottom secured by a metal bracket when the door was closed. Goldie discovered that the door could be moved a couple of inches--just enough that the bottom would slide free of the metal bracket even though the door wouldn't slide open. However, once the bottom was free, Goldie would push it outward, and crawl on her belly through the opening!

The pastures at the barn were fenced in wide, thick plastic tape. Goldie would lie down and crawl under the bottom strand, pushing it upwards out of the way.

Goldie and I have done a lot of Parelli type training, which she loves. I have also done dressage, long line training, basic driving, and trail riding. For 4 years she was a tireless school horse working carting students around an hour or 2 a day, Monday through Friday, and 2 or 3 hours on Saturday. My students took her to small dressage shows and trot-a-pole shows.

Goldie is 16 now, and she and I just have fun--nothing pressured, and no students. I'm enjoying it, but I think she's bored!

September 2009 - Ladybug owned by Carolyn Stambough

At 19 I rented a little house with acreage out in the Doraville area. In the adjoining pasture was this 2 year old sorrel mare; forgotten, malnourished and very leery of people. Long story short I found out who owned her, bought her and started nurturing her back to health and gaining her trust. She and I grew up together in Doraville, Charlotte, Jacksonville and Nashville. Most of the time she lived with me instead of being stabled and I wasn’t around many people who could “tell” me about horses, so I just watched. There were times I would take in other horses to pasture board and I watched them communicate; not with spoken words but with subtle body language.

Watching Ladybug with different herd mates throughout her life taught me that trust is a huge issue and that in a herd there was a very strict chain of command and that there was one leader who would call the shots…especially in times of danger. I learned to gain her trust by becoming her human herd leader…I was in charge of her feet and her movement and made the decisions. I suspect that this relationship kept us both safe because we had many hair raising experiences.

Not to telegraph how old I am but when I lived in Doraville there was a lot of undeveloped woods and I would come home from work on Friday evenings…pack up and head out into the woods until Sunday afternoon…sleeping out in the woods or in abandoned houses. She and I did some crazy things and I made a lot of mistakes that fortunately she and I survived. Just because I could, I taught her some things that were hard to un-teach. Not thinking about how she might take advantage of a “trick” I taught her to rear up on command! It did come in handy at one point but that’s another story.

Ladybug and I barrel raced, herded cattle on a friend’s ranch in St. Augustine, FL for a week, and packed out in the woods frequently overnight, all in an English saddle. Later in life, I discovered the very handy Western saddle and now have all kinds of built in places to tie up all my stuff.

Ladybug was one of those character horses. She could open doors: like when she got in my kitchen and in my garage and ate a bag of dog food, my porch and ate an entire watermelon, let a mare and her new foal out of their stall, and when I wouldn’t let her in would beg at the door.

In Nashville at 37 Ladybug started to colic chronically and I had to let her go, but she truly lives with me every day and I thank her for being so patient in raising me to understand her kind.

August 2009 - Flame owned by Larry Wheat

Where do I start when writing about my horse? About 11 years ago I became a horse owner when I purchased my first horse, Dakota, a large 16.1 HH Paint horse. Unfortunately as a new horse owner I did not realize when I bought him that he had a breathing challenge − he was a ‘roarer.’ We did ride many trails together and I could not ask for a better trail partner. But when I bought a trailer a few years later and discovered many more challenging trails in north Georgia, it became obvious that my preferred style of riding (some might say ‘fast’ trail riding) was difficult for Dakota. I sold him to the stable owners where I boarded, and bought a 5 1/2 year old registered Arabian. That was in March 2004.

I knew that I wanted either a gaited horse that would make life a bit easier for my knees, or an Arabian. I have always loved the look and presence of classic Arabians, and that was where I concentrated. I searched for Arabians that were at least six years old. A friend who owned an Arabian convinced me to look at a 5 1/2 year old horse offered for sale on the east side of Atlanta. I found a thin, not muscled yet, beautiful Arabian that lived in a backyard setting of a couple acres. He had three Arabian mares as pasture mates, and he had barely been ridden in a round pen. But he was a gentle and loving animal. I purchased DSA Flamingheart (Flame for short) and hauled him to Three Fillies Farm where I boarded. I learned that Flame had some impressive ancestors, including GG Jabask, El Shaklan, *Bask, and Witraz. He was bred for a combination show and performance horse, but he was born with a club foot. Presumably this ended his show horse future. He had surgery, recovered nicely, and was purchased by the lady from whom I bought him.

I leased Dakota for a few months while I trained Flame, following the general teachings of John Lyons. Following round pen work and lunge line practice, I began leading him on rides with Dakota. Flame was a thin 15.1 HH and Dakota was a hand taller and much broader. Soon Flame and I were riding in the arena, and then on easy trails. It took about another year before Flame matured with good muscles and added another inch height, to 15.2 HH.

I am an active trail volunteer and ride all kinds of trails and cross-country. Flame has become an excellent dependable trail horse. He has carried my chainsaw and gear on National Forest trail clearing workdays, and puts up with small tree branches falling on him when my machete clears overhanging limbs. He loves to move fast and we do pretty well at riding on some trail nearly every week of the year. He is approaching his eleventh birthday, so I have owned him half of his life. I am so glad that I purchased him. He is full of energy, but is like a big loving puppy. He likes to socialize with other horses, and is simply loving and wonderful around people.

July 2009 - Pie owned by Jane Stephenson

Jane owns Stephenson Stables in Woodstock, GA, where she trains both horses and riders. Jane is ranked among the nation's elite horse trainers, and Pie is her most dependable school horse. Jane says, “Pie was born in 1980 at our stable down in East Marietta at the corner of Paper Mill Road and Terrell Mill road. The morning Pie was born, his momma was in the paddock, and cars were lined up from that paddock all the way down to Soap Creek, which is a distance of about 2 miles! People were stopping and getting out of their cars to take pictures of Pie.

“Pie was out of an old mare named Pitty Pat, that I taught on until she was 38 years old. Pie is now 29, and he teaches regularly every week.

“Pie really is the mensa of the horse world. He will literally tell you what he wants. I don't have a lot of trouble with those great big horse flies, but three years ago, we had a bunch for some reason. Those things are ugly, but they aren't very fast. I could usually catch them on a horse's butt and knock them down. After I fed him, Pie would almost have one around him, and when I'd turn him out, he'd stop at the gate and I'd pop the fly. One day he came in to eat, and he was standing tied to his feed box, and he wouldn't take a bite. He just kept looking at me, and I'd look back at him, and he'd turn his head and swing it around to the side, and then he'd look back at me. I was thinking, "Well, if your tummy's hurting, you're not acting colicky. You're not lying down or anything." And he'd look at me, and I'd look at him, and finally I walked over to him, and sure enough there was one of those big horse files on his side. I popped it and he started eating. He was trying to tell me to come over there and kill that horse fly for him.

“A few years back I had a young man named Steve teaching lessons for me. He'd go down every day to get the school horses. Pie always had lessons because he's my most dependable school horse. Steve would come back day after day complaining that he couldn't find Pie! I'd tell him, "Well, he's down there. He's with the herd", and Steve would say, "Well, no, he's not. I just can't find Pie." So I'd go down and I'd find Pie, and I'd bring him up. Finally one day, I was really wondering why it was that Steve could never find Pie, so I followed him down one day, which he didn't know, and watched. What I saw was Pie following Steve around, staying back behind trees where Steve couldn't see him. So, I put a cowbell on him. From then on, until Steve quit, Pie wore a cowbell so Steve could find him.”

June 2009 - Alladin and Garrett Rohde

--by Jane Rohde

Al is a 27 year bay old quarter horse gelding. We got Al when he was 15, and my son Garrett was 10 years old. Turned out that finding the right horse was a lot harder than either Garrett or I expected. Whenever I made an appointment to look at a horse, I was very clear that I was looking for a bomb proof horse for a fairly inexperienced rider. I wasn't particular about breed, but he had to be around 15 hands so a kid could easily mount, and he had to walk, trot, and canter on a loose rein and have a good stop. I also wanted to see the owner ride him first. Garrett and I saw a number of really unsuitable horses including two who bucked their owners off, one that ran away, one who instead of being a 13 year old bomb proof guy, was actually three years old, and nearly unbroken! By the time we had seen our 25th horse, Garrett had decided that horse hunting just wasn't as much fun as he thought it would be, and he absolutely refused to go look at Al. I went alone, and he turned out to be the "right" horse. When Garrett went to see him, it was obvious they were going to be buddies from the start.

Before we purchased Al, he spent his life at a racing stable where he ponied race horses on the track. Since then, Al has done just about everything. I rode him in drill team, and found that he remembers patterns far better than I do.

A couple of years after we bought Al, we opened a stable and small riding program. Al took my students around barrels, over small fences, and did dressage through level 1. Al would learn a dressage test so well that as long as I called the test, he didn't need any input from his little rider, and in spite of being a build-like-a-brick quarter horse, he never once failed to place against the larger warmbloods who are oh-so-popular with dressage judges.

While Al was carrying my small students around the ring, Garrett was training him Parelli style.. Garrett now rides him bridleless! When Garrett became interested in equestrian vaulting, He joined a vaulting team, and at home he would just hop on Al bareback and ride around the ring Roman style.

Garrett says that one of his fondest memories is riding Al with the family on a trail outside of Portland, OR. Garrett was riding bareback and bridleless, and at one point the trail became so steep that he nearly slid off Al's rump. Leslie, Garrett's dad, and I got to the top of the trail, which was quite a clamber indeed, turned around, and no Garrett! He appeared in a few minutes explaining that bareback riding had its drawbacks on very steep hills!

Now Al is retired from teaching and lives in our backyard with our other two horses, Goldie and Portia.

May 2009 - Cisco and Vonnie Jean

April 2009 - Ringo, Buck and Marianne Torchia

We moved to Cherokee County in 2000. I kept passing Stephenson Stables on East Cherokee Drive. Well, history was made. I met Jayne Stephenson and took lessons from her. I had no clue, mind you, what I was doing. Sometimes I still feel that way...yes, I still squeeze too hard, lean forward...duhhh, LET'S MOVE OUT!

Big Ringo is a puppy dog who needed a Mom, doesn't every animal I own? He's a big guy...If you're five feet, your stirrups are short...OK , the stirrups are up to my shoulders.

These two guys are awesome. They are both approaching 20 and are so dependable. If I'm not on my not so little Spotted Saddle Horse "Annie," I'll be riding one of them or a friend will. They're so good!!!

March 2009 - Require and Tamma Trump

February 2009 - Danny and Vonnie Jean