KABOOM
My 2003 horse shopping criteria = anything but: 1. big; 2. gray; 3. gelding.
Luci was my original purchase. She was a lovely warmblood looking thoroughbred and was really love at first sight. She was what people call a “heart” horse. She was incredibly quick and smart to train and she fit so well within the sport horse lifestyle. Sadly, Luci was ultimately unsound do to an injury sustained as a yearling. Luckily the race breeder allowed me to trade her out for another of his stock.
So naturally, the trade out was for a very large, very gray gelding. My new horse was everything I did not want. I hated him because he was not Luci and for the first 6 months I owned him I called him, “Stupid Gray Gelding”. His only saving grace was that he was Luci’s little brother. I had him on trial for a month but within the first two weeks he tried to jump out of his stall window and in doing so cut his anterior digital flexor in half. So much for a trial period. You break him you buy him?
A few months after the accident he was patched up and I was able to begin breaking him. He was a little dense to train but seemed really balanced. After about six months under saddle I started to feel his potential. He competed in three Novice horse trials as a 4 year old placing 4th at Crosstar, 1st at Holly Hill and winning the Area V Novice Championships at Las Colinas with a score of 23.5. Thus starting the best and most educational 8 years of my life.
Boom won at Novice with scores in the 20s, he won at Training with scores in the 20s and I then made the jump up to Preliminary in the fall 2007. Clearly, Boom was my horse of a life time and we were on our way. We easily finished 3 horse trials at the Preliminary level and then added a technical elimination to our record at our first CIC*. Sadly, in 2008, he suffered an injury in his pasture from which I was told he would not recover. I put my biomechanics and physical training education to work, took my time with his rehab and two years later had him competing at Training level again.
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