OUR HORSES

 

As a teen, I took horseback riding lessons in Austria in English style riding. Since that time I've had very few opportunities to ride good horses, mostly trail riding. My wife, Vivian, had owned ponies as a teenage. In the winter of 2007, my wife and I took riding lessons as a form of exercise. We got so into it, well, we ended up with a horse for each of us!

 

This is Ringo. He's a 17 hand modern paint (part paint, part thoroughbred) gelding. He's about 14 years old. When we first saw him, he had been out in the pasture with other horses all winter and had not been groomed or cleaned in 6 months and was shedding his winter coat. I wasn't too sure about him, but has you can see, he cleaned up really well.

Ringo was a rescue horse. He was purchased in a slaughterhouse auction by a friend of the horsewoman from whom we acquired Ringo. He was underfed, dirty, un groomed, and his hoofs were overgrown. But he was wearing $400.00 shoes! We believe he was someone's show horse, there was some sort of tragedy, and someone ended up with a horse with no knowledge or ability to care for it, and finally, out of desperation, sent him to the auction. That was about 4 years ago. He's still a bit obsessed with food, but he's really turned out to be a gentle giant!

 

Meet Sunny, a.k.a. Sunsmanship. Sunny is a 16 hand 6 year old retired thoroughbred racehorse gelding. We adopted Sunny from the Maker's Mark Secretariat Center in the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Kentucky.

Vivian and I stopped by the Horse Park one Sunday on our way home from a camping trip, and visited the Secretariat Center. The people there gave us a complete tour and we saw all the horses. We walked out into the pasture to see Sunny and one other horse, and it was love at first site for the three of us. After proper introductions (horsy style, of course... sniffing each others breath), Sunny let us scratch and rub him, lean against him, and lift his feet. Then we just followed us out of the field back to the gate.

The Secretariat Center is devoted to rehabbing retired race horses to prevent them from going to slaughter houses, and both their retraining program and adoption process is very thorough and we highly recommend them! It took about 8 trips to Lexington (just over a hours drive each way from Louisville), over a 10 week period, but the good people there worked with both Sunny and Vivian until everyone was confident it was a good match and everything would go smoothly. Vivian practically got a free program in natural horsemanship!

 

Our newest addition is Alwilda, or Willow for short. Willow is a four year old thoroughbred mare straight off the track. She got a bad case of colic and had to have surgery. Her owner didn't want to risk racing or breeding her, so she found a new home with us.

Horsemanship Goes Back A Long Way In My Family

My father, circa 1940's, and my father again with his American Standard Saddlebred mare.

My grandfather, Patrick Rowe, on his Tennessee Walker, and my great grandfather's brother, Forrest Rowe, on Dixie Chief. We don't know what breed Dixie Chief was, but family tradition says they raised thoroughbreds.

And finally, me at about age 2. Note the English saddle.

 

We pleasure and trail ride. We've been to a couple of competitive shows, but that doesn't really interest us. I prefer the English saddle over the Western, as the rider has more contact with the horse. After all, the average English saddle weighs about 8 pounds, and the average Western about 35 pounds, so the English saddle is much less like sitting in an easy chair!

SOME MISCELLANEOUS HORSE PHOTOS

How Ringo got his name.

SNACK TIME!!!

Our horses are boarded at Rain Tree Ranch in Pendleton, KY

raintreesranch.com