Here’s a picture of her first 3-Day event last weekend.
http://gallery.me.com/judistewart#100030/RiverSong_3Day&bgcolor=black
You’d never know from this picture that she was a completely untrained and uncatchable 6 year old last August.
Here’s her story
She is a full Holsteiner Mare by Riverman (Hilltop Farms) out of a beautiful Holsteiner dam who was bred to be this womans foundation mare for her breeding program she was starting on retirement. A trash truck had an accident on their property when the filly was 2 and they ended up in a lawsuit with a large company in which all her money went toward legal fee’s. Luckily the horses were fed well and kept in clean paddocks but that was pretty much it. River grew up with her Mom in a Medium Size Paddock with about 5 other mares. The breeder eventually lost her law suit and her place was in foreclosure and then she had a completely debilitating stroke and was unable to care for her 10 horses on her property so her friends came it to help out.
They could only stay and help for 30 days at which time all horses were going to be picked up by a rescue. A lovely horsewoman saw the potential of a number of the horses and put up an add on EquineNow.com saying they horses needed to be off the property by the end of the week. I thought my event trainer Gina Economou would think I was crazy but the mare was so beautifully bred and had such lovely confirmation she said lets just take the trailer and see. So we traveled down to Valley Center and met this lovely friend Sally.
When we first went to see her she wouldn’t even let Gina catch her. So we sort of chased the horses around a bit to see if she could even move. Gina took one look at the big floaty trot and turned to me and said… “Get a halter” So she spent the next 15 minutes catching her. Then teaching her how to lunge. We didn’t want to purchase her without x-rays so they let us take her on trial. It took us a lot of time just to get her out of the pen let alone teach her how to lead and load but eventually she bonded enough with my trainer to follow her on. She let us close the divider and rode home as quiet as a mouse.
It took as a month to get her feet in shape. X-rays were good and we had to drug her to trim her as she didn’t even know how to hold up her feet. Within that month we free jumped her… sat on her… and through it all she was as sweet and excepting as you please. Not that she wasn’t completely frightened and spooky for the first couple of months… I mean EVERYTHING was new… the wash rack, the cross ties… the saddle… the blanket… And she’s 16.3 so you can imagine what a big 16.3 unbroke spooky mare who doesn’t even know how to lead was like.
Jump cut to this video we took at the end of the Year on New Years Eve. We were schooling her for Eventing and had jumped her and did ditches and up and down banks on Gina’s property but this was her first trailer ride off the property with another horse in the trailer. This video is taken about 15 minutes after she came off the trailer at the facility up the street where Gina also trains. This is my trainer Gina Economou riding of course. I’m just a happy horsie Mommy standing in the arena.
By mid January we took her to the Ian Stark Galway Clinic and Gina rode her while teaching her Novice group. She was wide eyed but seemed to enjoy life. When Gina took her out onto the Cross Country Course she had a buddy to babysit and they had to keep up cuz River just took Gina out into the field happy and ready for whatever.
She is sweet… lovely… smart… amazing gates and way beyond anything we could have possibly dreamed of. And as of 2 weeks ago I’m now riding her as well. She still has a long way to go… but we are so excited to see what the adventure has in store.
We just recently completed her first horse trials with her first dressage test, stadium and cross country… and although she was big eyed at the beginning of each phase she finished like she had been doing it all her life.
Hilltop farm will be posting this pic on Riverman’s offspring page and we’re hoping to give them plenty more pictures as she moves up the levels. I’m so impressed with this mare’s temperament, mind, willingness, work ethic and natural talent that I believe she will be the first horse I breed.
