For the Love of a Horse

Unfortunately, we had another great equine partner leave our midst this past week. An animal that many throughout the OUEA have had the privilege of enjoying as a ring show partner. A gelding that always shone through and always had your back.

"The first time Lauren Hunkin saw him:

The first time I placed eyes on him, he was trucking Lily M around the lead line... They had braided him up and the two of them were quite a pair.... All I could think was - what a good guy... The atmosphere would have had me spinning and he just looked proud to be doing the good job....

At his first OUEA horse show, we selected Fred to pilot riders around the entry division. Our assistant coach at the time, Amanda, was warming him up and Fred refused to work hard and do a single lead change for her. She tried and tried to force him to do a complete flying change but he would just change the front and skip the back. We told entry riders to prepare for a simple change today but then, he of course surprised us. Fred did not miss a single flying change with any entry rider in the division that day. With every single entry competitor, it was like he knew, he knew who to save his energy for and who was going to need his help the most to be the winner.

We had an adult walk trot rider on our IHSA team. She was 4ft10, and had never really done much with horses in her life and so Fred and Lisa became wonderful friends. She spent whole semesters riding around on our wonderful guy, making mistakes and practicing her first canters and cross rails. At her first horse show completing a real 2ft course with eight jumps, she had Fred. Lisa didn’t know, but Fred was ready to be the winner. He did every lead change, picked every beautiful distance and allowed Lisa the opportunity to have fun and hang on for the ride.

We really believed he knew when the rider on board needed help and when they were fine to make their own mistakes. Even when you were making mistakes he was never rude about it, there were no consequences, he just waited for you to figure it out and let you try again.

Despite his age, he acted like a keen 4 year old in the barn first thing in the morning. He was so excited to see his humans, eat his breakfast and head outside to play and hang out with his friends. He would gallop around and play fight with the other synergy schoolies, all while being our senior citizen.

I always joked that I couldn’t ride Fred because I tried too hard to tell him how to do his job. I was too much of a meddler, would get in his way, and screw up his plans lol. There was a lesson in October that I was riding Fred and we were practicing over what I would consider a difficult enough course to manouver. I finally found the way to let go, sit in the passenger seat and let Fred take me for a ride and it was one of the most incredible things in my life. He showed me where we were leaving the ground, he knew the striding, knew the pattern, all of the tasks at hand were completed and all without my help. To feel that in a horse is an incredible feeling, and I will never forget him.

Its so wonderful to have memories about Fred in the lead line classes, adult amateurs, OUEA entry divisions, 1.20m jumpers, equitations, derbies. There was nothing Fred couldn’t do."