Most of my life I lived near Frankton on a dairy farm were I showed cattle in 4-H and did all the work most kids do on a farm. So of course, I had the notion, “I knew how to ride a horse as well”.  As most young girls do, I had read all the books about horses, so knew just what to do. “Right”?  That was my second mistake but I didn’t know that at the time.  After 30 days at a trainer, I started to ride this nervous tall horse that I called Rusty. After a while Rusty did start to trust me and we would go trail riding around the farm. Unfortunately, I formed some very bad riding habits. I believe we broke every rule of safe horsemanship, but we still had a good time.

 After a few years I sold Rusty to a young girl for a hunter jumper. Many years later this young girl now a teacher told me she was writing a story about Rusty’s life and wanted to know what the white marks were on his rump.  I told her the story that I had been told, that a man had used a pitchfork on him and those were the white spots on his rump. She told me that she had found old Rusty again in a run down stable where he was used as a lessons horse. I have often wondered if she wrote the book about him and what happened to Rusty.

My next horse was a nice gentle palomino mare that I rode and raised a few colts from. I had always loved Arab’s so I finally traded, two palomino mares for an Arabian 2 year old filly called Camason. Camie was a small 14.1 hand chestnut with 4 white socks and a blaze. Next stop for Camie was Mendenhall farm where they knew more about Camie’s blood lines than I did since they had trained Camie’s grandsire. They found out that Camie could trot and she love to do it especially under harness. Camie went to Deckers and together they did some winning in English pleasure, driving, costume classes. Camie was an extremely gentle nice mare and at home you could put a kid on her or take her out on the farm for a trail ride with no problems. But if Camie saw a show ring or heard music she was a show horse again. I learned about horses, from watching many different trainers and shows but still had lots to learn and believe that learning about horses is a never ending process. We had a few nice Arabians after Camie but she was the first and the best friend I had.

 Then I went from class A Arabian shows to 4-H with some friends’ kids for about 18 years. I found that Arabians would not place well at 4-H shows or local shows even when the Arabians were really good. So we found some POA ponies for the kids to show.  The POA could compete well in the under 56 inches at 4-H and open shows. We did have one old POA pony that was 49 inches pony named Sir Domino. Domino had been shown around Indiana all his life and people would tell me how he had won for them. The last few years he was completely blind but still won the state fair western pony class twice. Best little pony you could ask for a kid.   We still have two nice POA mare ponies that I will keep in case any of our grand kids would want them. During the 4-H years, I took the 4-H kids to many different trainers for advice and riding lessons. I didn’t want the kids to start the way that I had so made sure they had a good background. I also learned that no two trainer train alike and their approach to training can be so different.  I learned as much or more than the kids did.

My husband has just started to ride and we have been trail riding mostly in the National Forest around Norman. It only took 30 years to get my husband to ride with me, so you young gal’s don’t give up on your men. Jack Brush found us a safe older black bay gelding name Buck for Ron to ride. Someone has spent some good schooling time on Buck and did a nice job with him for more than just trails. I have started riding a filly I raised named Maverick Surprise, a 5 year old Appy. Surprise is doing great on trails and with Buck as a teacher she will make a good calm trail horse. I also have an named Arabian One More Time that I ride around the farm and sometimes take on trail rides. Time has developed Cushing’s disease but with medicine she has regained her health and can be ridden again.  Then there is a mini pony “Trixie” for our two grandkids to pat. I can not forget our most important animal Bear our Miniature Schnauzer that you will see around the trailer on trail rides.

Nancy Utterback