Ambassador Interviews: JoBeth on Finding a New Horse
Our ambassador, JoBeth, joined our team from Tennessee! She has recently been
shopping for a new horse, and was able to chat with us on the process, as well as knowing she found the one!
Horseplay: What made you decide you needed a new mount?
JoBeth: Well, my former show partner had to be retired due to injury and I wanted to finish out my last few youth years. And nothing my trainer had really "fit" with me and what I was looking for, so the horse hunt began.
Horseplay: What was your shopping process like?
JoBeth: It felt like it took forever. I had begun shopping before we even knew about having to retire my old horse, but once the serious shopping began it was definitely frustrating. Mostly because nothing I was finding seemed to fit what I was looking for, or they were way out of my price range. Everything had something I couldn't get past, or didn't even catch my eye off the video. It was rough to say the least, I felt like I was never going to find a horse.
Horseplay: How did you end up finding Gracie, and knowing the was the one?
JoBeth: This is actually quite the story. So, I had been scrolling through a sale group on Facebook and saw a comment that my mom had replied to asking for more info on the horse. This is about 2 months into serious horse shopping. And so I decided to scroll through the comment section of this post just to see if anything caught my eye. And then I found Gracie (called Olive at the time). The comment had a video attached and I watched it out of curiosity and ended up falling in love with her straight off the video. I started messaging back and forth with the trainer who had her and actually texted my mom right after seeing the video saying "Look at this mare, I really really like her." She was the only horse I had liked off the video enough to even go try her. So, my mom and I went on a road trip to try her the first time and I was in love with her, which is funny because she actually bucked a few times when we were jumping. So, a few weeks later we arranged for me to go try her again. And the second time just solidified what I had thought. I knew she was my next show partner from the first time I met her.
Horseplay: That's awesome! Does she had any similarities to your old horse, or differences you have to work through?
JoBeth: She's like the complete opposite of my old horse. However, when I'm riding them, they both get easily overwhelmed if something goes wrong. So with my old horse, I didn't really know how to handle that, but with Gracie it's easy for me to just stop, take a breath, and give her a second to think before I go again.
Horseplay: Are you working on anything specific with her right now?
JoBeth: Overall, I'm preparing for our show season to start up. A lot of that includes refining things like her lead changes and her flatwork. She's also still pretty green to the fences so I've been really working on making any fence schooling we have a positive experience. I've been working a lot on getting her to stay consistent to the fences and not want to rush, so we've been doing a lot of exercises to help her relax.
Horseplay: What are your goals for 2018 with Gracie?
JoBeth: This year my goal is to take her to the AQHA Youth World Show and to the All-American Quarter Horse Congress. Of course, I'd like to place at both but my main goal is just to get there and not have anything tragic of disastrous happen and be able to go in the arena and show. I'm kind of just taking it slow this year since it's our first year showing together and my comeback year. But of course, I want to go and do well.
JoBeth, thank you so much for giving us a peek into your shopping process, and finding the right horse. We love your steady, patient approach to working with your new mare! We hope you have many happy rides together, and a wonderful show season!
