We hear all the time about horses at the top of the sport, but what about the next generation of equine talent? EN’s Got Talent introduces the future superstars of the sport, interviewing riders about how they’re tackling training with these youngsters. Have you spotted a spectacular young horse at an event you think should be highlighted in this column? Tip me at [email protected].
Carrie Meehan and Cavalier. Photo by WNC Photo.
This series has been dominated by warmbloods, Irish horses and Thoroughbreds since I launched it last fall. So when Cassie Boehm told me her good friend Carrie Meehan had a 5-year-old buckskin Appendix Quarter Horse gelding that was turning heads on the midwest eventing circuit, I had to know more. Carrie found Cavalier, better known as Rusty, in an online ad mere weeks after she moved from Virginia back home to Kansas early last year. From what she could cobble together about Rusty’s history, he was bred through the University of Arkansas breeding program and sold as a western pleasure horse at 2. A year later, he came back to the university because the owner thought he was too tall, and he was sold again at 3 to a women who wanted a trail horse, which didn’t end up working out either.
“Apparently, he had thrown her and broken many bones in her body, so he had been sitting around in a pasture for five months when I found him,” Carrie said. “When I came to try him, he was barely 15 hands — now he’s close to 16.2 hands — the owner was too scared to get on him first, and he couldn’t do anything but walk and trot while staggering around the arena like a drunk person. And he’d never seen a jump in his life. But I fell in love with him and bought him that same day for a measly $2,500. All my horse friends said I was stupid for buying a ‘western horse,’ but I knew there was something more in there, so I decided to take a chance.” The gamble paid off handsomely, as Rusty successfully started his eventing career at beginner novice a few months later and has steadily cruised to training level.
Carrie Meehan and Cavalier. Photo by WNC Photo.
It’s not every day you see a buckskin at events, and, sure enough, Carrie said Rusty always draws a lot of attention wherever he goes. “Every event I go to, I have a minimum of 10 people come up to me and ask me what breed he is or tell me how beautiful he is or ask me if he’s for sale,” Carrie said. “I guess it comes with the territory of owning a buckskin in a world full of browns, bays and greys! I think what’s the most striking about Rusty is people don’t expect an Appendix to have the movement that he has. It’s always fun to see the surprise on people’s faces when he starts trotting around in warm up. When I can convince him, he’s got the most amazing floating trot that can keep up with the best warmbloods out there, and he definitely has the body type of a warmblood, with a little bit of the Quarter Horse ‘big booty’ thrown in there.”
While Rusty inherited more of the Thoroughbred movement, he has a Quarter Horse brain, which Carrie said can be a blessing and a curse. “He’s been a lot easier to train because of that — nothing really phases him, and I never have to teach him something twice,” Carrie said. “The only way it’s a bad thing is because Rusty doesn’t have blind, stupid bravery like a lot of the Thoroughbreds have in the eventing world. Once he understands something, he’s as brave and game as they come for anything I throw at him, which is why he’s been such a rocking cross country machine.” But when Rusty doesn’t understand a challenge, the obstacles can be difficult to overcome, as Carrie discovered after their move up to training level this past May.
Next week on EN’s Got Talent:We’ll meet the monsters Rusty encountered at a particularly scary blind drop into water while running training level at Queeny Park Horse Trials in June. Carrie and Rusty parted ways, and she has since dropped him down to novice level so they can work on regaining confidence and trust in their partnership. “Because Rusty has such a good brain, it’s so important to lay the ground work for him at this stage in his life, because once he understands the more complicated questions, there is no telling how far he can go. He literally gets better every time out. I know he loves what he’s doing, and as long as it stays that way, we will just keep trucking up the levels.”
