Please judge rider, horse is not mine.

Starlight is a 16hh, 2005, strawberry roan Quarter Horse.  When I first got her, she had never jumped and had not had any training (she had a western saddle slapped on her a few times and was “cowboyed around”, but that’s it).  She was taken to a stockyard, then to a sale barn, where she did not sell and ultimately came to the barn I was at as a camp horse.  Nobody could ride her, and I needed a horse, so I bought her.

 

When I started riding her, she cantered like this:

 

 

 

 

 
And even though she had nice knees like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And sometimes did this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She was finally able to canter a small course like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She went lame.  After six months off, we started over.

 

We started off kind of like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But were soon able to do this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our show debuts weren’t great though:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But after lots of work on calming down:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are able to do this:  She can still be strong and spooky, but her flatwork has improved immensely – She can do shoulder-ins, haunches-ins, leg yields across the entire diagonal, counter-canter, flying changes, etc., when just six months ago she couldn’t even canter straight.  She could only travel with a lateral gait and with her hind end swung to the inside.  This has transferred to jumping and has led us to find both of our love of showing.

 

 

Stella Danza – Level 0 jumpers.

Please only critique Starlight, this is my trainer riding, not me.