Brenda's Stories Page 3

Brave Or Foolish

Brenda and Perfection's Charming Lad B.

continued by Brenda Zeigenbein
continuation of previous story entitled, Match Made In Heaven

I've had the opportunity to ride and show a few pretty good horses over the last ten years since that "Match Made In Heaven". One of them was our stallion, Perfection's Charming Lad B. Lad is sired by Toddy's Perfection and his dam is a Ben Blue mare. We bought Lad from Mitchell Burris in 1991 when he was a two year old. Mitch brought Lad to Clarence to train. Mitch said he wanted to sell Lad and told Clarence how to price him if he found a buyer for him.

Lad was pretty pacey and to break up that pace, we had to hardtrot him over poles to square him. That was my first experience of riding over poles. Somehow Clarence convinced me that I needed to know how to do that. The first time Mitch came to see Lad rode, he went home sick. He just couldn't stand to see him in that big, ground jarring hard trot. His next trip to the barn, Lad was foxtrotting and starting to square in his walk. Mitch went home happy.

Clarence and I both were really starting to like the horse and we were interested in buying him. Mitch wanted quite a lot of money for him and Clarence was having to think long and hard. I said to him, "If you have the money and you want him, why don't you just buy him?" Finally, Clarence called Mitch and told him he had a buyer for his horse. By this time Mitch had about changed his mind about selling him. He said he meant to tell Clarence when he was at the barn the last time that he wasn't much interested in selling him but if he did sell him, it was going to take more money. They talked awhile and since Mitch hadn't told us that, he eventually agreed to let us have him.

Clarence showed Lad the year he was two. I showed him quite a bit when he was a three year old. We won Reserve Champion under three judges at the St. Louis show that year. We got third in our preliminary class at Ava.

The next year I wanted to ride in the costume class at the Celebration but the only horse I had to show was a two year old and they can't show in anything but two year old classes. We hadn't rode Lad all summer and we had bred a lot of mares to him. I finally convinced Clarence to let me ride him. We started riding Lad about two weeks before the Celebration. The night of the costume class rolled around and Clarence was pretty nervous. As he lead Lad up to the DQP, he said to me, "Whatever you do, don't get him bumped or jostled and don't line up too close to the other horses". I was terrified - not because I was worried Lad would act up but because of riding sidesaddle. If you haven't rode one of them things before, it can leave you with a pretty insecure feeling and I hadn't practiced enough to feel good about it. Lad did great! I'm really not sure if I was brave or foolish - riding a stallion in a class like that but he was a real gentleman. That says a lot for his temperament and disposition and fortunately for us, he breeds that into his colts.

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