Your Name: Nicku
Age: 31
Location: Livermore, CA
Primary horse’s name: Pongo (show name: Appy Hour)
Age, breed, pertinent info: Pongo is a six-year-old Appaloosa gelding out of the Confetti Farms line of Appaloosas (his grandsire if Choklate Confetti). I purchased him as a yearling and trained him up patiently over the past few years myself with the help of a couple of fantastic coaches. He spent last season (his first season out) showing at Beginner Novice level.
Level currently competing: Novice
Short term goals this spring/summer: Pongo came out guns blazing for our first cross country schooling of the year at Twin Rivers this year. He decided that Novice too easy and ending up playing over most of the Training level course with ease and courage! However, our short term goals are to compete in one or two Novice events this Spring. We want to continue improving upon our strong dressage scores and layer on a little speed cross country (safely of course!) so we can move up to Training.
Year-end goals: Complete our first Training level event.
Overall goals? I would love to take Pongo up to the Preliminary level. We’ll see what life brings us and if we can get there! I believe any day where I have a sound and happy and healthy horse is a blessed day, so we take it one ride at a time.
What’s the best thing you’ve learned recently? Any big epiphany or light-bulb moment? What are your strengths/weaknesses? I’ve spent some time clinicing with Hawley Bennett-Awad recently and she truly challenged me to expect more out of myself and my horse. He’s not a baby anymore, but a powerful horse who really can be trusted to do his job and do it well. Our weakness is Pongo is a little bit big for me (I am 5’2″ and he is a hunky 16.3). It’s important that I am strong and in shape so I don’t get pushed around as he gains strength and confidence. I have to really hold my upper body up tall and back and keep my leg strong and on to be effective up there. Our strengths are our trust for one another. Having trained him myself, he’s pretty ‘customized’ to my style (for better and for worse, ha!) and we have a bond that is unlike any I’ve ever shared with another horse which definitely helps us out on course, it’s pretty special.
Favorite eventing moment/story? (can be anything, something you did, felt, witnessed, realized…?) Hands down, finishing our very first cross country course at Ram Tap. I teared up as I realized the little spotted baby horse I plucked out of a field in upstate New York had just completed his very first event with bravery, gusto and a clean go around to boot!
Check out Nicku’s blog HERE!
