Tales of Formerly Fat Quarter Horse: About Us

Hey everyone,
this blog is about me and Justin, a fifteen year old quarter horse. We'll start with my history, then get to how I came across him.

I've been riding for three years now, and it started with me wanting to go to a horse camp. I rode at the same farm for over two and a half years, and worked my ass of to get all the ride time possible. I rode everything from the big warmblood to the little shetland pony, I didn't care what it was as long as I was riding. At the beginning of last summer I fell in love with a morgan x clyde cross named Panzer, and I worked with him up until I left that farm. My reason for leaving was that my trainer had been fired, and there were no other instructors left there that I wanted to ride with. So I headed down to my trainer's barn, which is about 45 minutes away.

Four horses came with the property, two thoroughbreds and two quarter horses. Rudy and Buzz, the thoroughbreds, are both rideable and fairly nice horses, young and athletic. Cimmy, the quarter horse mare, is your average, do-it-all lesson horse. And then there was Justin. The first time Suzie tried to put someone on him, he started rearing and bucking like a mad man. Of course, he's long backed and swaybacked, and at that point he was still fat, so it didn't do much. My trainer worked with him, and the next time I came down, she asked me to ride him, and said that we might try his first canter under saddle. Oh boy. So we had Cecily take Rudy out as a lead, and off we went, attempting a canter. I'm pretty sure we got around three strides of canter in between all the bucks.

I've been riding Justin ever since, and he's definitely come a long way. We're jumping 2'3"-2'6" courses, and his eventing career is officially started. We attended a cross country schooling show, and took third place in the Beginner Novice team division. We're hoping to go to some schooling events toward the end of August, too. I ride him every time I'm down at my trainer's barn, and our new farm has loads of trails to go on, as well as a well manicured path around the corn fields for conditioning gallops. We're also building a cross country course, which is absolutely fantastic. I'll keep everyone updated on the progress we make :]