My Greatest
Accomplishment: GVHS 1st Versatility Medallion of Honour By Rita Susgin-Cardy When the GVHS rolled out their Evaluation Program, I was really excited. With my background in warm-blood horses I understood how valuable that process was in achieving the breed standard goal. I started by having our first Vanner mare we ever purchased evaluated. Although she achieved a 5 star rating (80%), it was very important as a breeder to know what areas she could be improved upon. Thrilled with my information and now on a quest, I took our stallion, The Pleasures’ Mine, to be evaluated for conformation and thought I may as well try the English under saddle test as we had started showing him in the dressage ring at the lower levels.
we proceeded up center line, halted and he sat back and reared up. Much to my horror, astonishment and embarrassment after balancing there for about ten seconds, which felt like forever I reached forward with my whip and gave a good tap, telling him to “Get up!”After a brief inspection of equipment and chat with the evaluators expressing my bewilderment over his behavior, we started over and he did his usual manner of performance scoring 72%. We also brought our newest mare to this evaluation and she was also rated as a four star Vanner scoring 75% for confirmation and 76.25 for English Riding.
Although he was evaluated as a 4 star stallion (73.5%) and I was hoping for a higher rating, I digested the numbers, the remarks and his scores and after some careful unemotional thought came to the same analysis. The Evaluation for English Riding was probably one of my worst attempts at riding ever! I started by going in the wrong direction and with no markers in the arena, I made a real mess of my figures. Being somewhat embarrassed and rather rattled it was hard for me to hold the horse’s attention. He did however do whatever I asked and we managed a score of (70.8%) which I know was what he showed that day in Ohio.
We were now well on our way to achieving the versatility medallion with the stallion but Western Riding was not an area we had any proficiency in. I spent the winter attempting to attain a grasp on Western Riding and getting my rather forward moving boy to rock back, collect and accept this new discipline. It was obvious to me after just a few months of trying that we needed some professional help. I participated in a western dressage clinic and got the assistance of a renowned reigning trainer. Sadly no one other than me was available to ride him the weekend of the evaluations. Evaluation day was a beautiful spring day and we had an unfortunate trailering incident only fifty feet from our driveway. Our yearling colt ducked under the chest partition and was wedged with his face into the front wall. We ended up untying him and he shot out the man door skinning his eye and scraping the inside of one front leg. We decided to load him back on and see how he was when we got there. Other than his scrapes and a bump that came up on his back, he seemed fine. We arrived in good time but rushed to get ready for my riding portion. In the rush, the tightening of the girth was overlooked and within a few steps after my leg up I attempted to straighten the saddle at the same time another stallion snorted loudly from behind the arena wall and my saddle slid. Pleasure was sure he should leave, and the ground and I became close friends as I watched him canter away. (He did look back) After retrieving him from a chute between two paddocks, I repositioned the saddle, tightened the girth and remounted. There was a half mile track for our use as warm up and I took full advantage of it, perhaps maybe a bit too much. After five rounds in different directions and in all three gaits he was certainly warm! They were waving us in
Knowing that this young stallion had a lot of talent and was very trainable, we started him in harness which to date is still his favorite discipline. He amazed the man I hired to give me a hand. Tom has worked for many years with Clydesdales and was in awe of Pleasure’s ability to process all the new things that being harnessed entailed. After only line driving five times, we hooked him to my exercise cart and with Tom at his head we set off. After two times around the ring and a few changes of direction we were solo on the rail and it was obvious this was his deal. He was far more relaxed and confident than I was and it wasn’t long before I started feeling the same way about driving him. He was only broke to harness a few weeks before Vanner Fair and we drove him there to a second place finish. I spent a year gaining enough confidence to perform the driving evaluation and Pleasure had never really taken one wrong step. The day of the evaluation the weather was brisk and he was more horse in between the shafts than usual. After a brief warm up
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