Proven doesn’t always correlate to money or points earned…

If you know me at all you know that I love a good performance horse. I love watching everything from Western Pleasure to Jumping and all the classes in-between. You also probably know that I have huge dreams of my own success in the show pen and I’m often dreaming of the horse that is going to take me to those huge goals. But today when my husband and I were gathering and sorting cows I was sitting on the MVP of my string Slick, and it got me to thinking about how just because a horse hasn’t won money doesn’t always correlate to their value.

You see Slick is really my husbands horse that I have pretty much stole… he quickly became my go to mount and I would say is the best horse in my string.

Slick isn’t papered and if he was I’m thinking you would see more halter bloodlines and a whole bunch of no one’s ever heard of them before than any performance bloodlines. I think if we wanted to we could pick up the right lead but I’m not positive… If we were in the reining we would have to start stopping at the beginning of the rundown because we certainly aren’t going to be leaving any slide marks and are in danger of getting a back fence penalty.

While I guess it would be cool if Slick could do those things he is to busy taking care of me and helping us make a living. Slick is the horse that when the wind is blowing snow and it’s too cold to think you can saddle up and go get the job done without worrying about him blowing up. I’ve taken a million lessons but when I get scared I do literally everything that your not suppose to do and he forgives me every time (Well sometimes he does throw in a crow hop… but I don’t blame him.) When my good friend came out and rode him she commented that you have to ask Slick twice before he speeds up and while some would say it’s laziness, I think it’s because he has just gotten use to me. I’m not very aggressive and hauling ass across the pasture is not my idea of fun and Slicks waiting for me to ask twice is sort of like making sure that I’m ready. Slick always keeps his eyes open to make sure we take the correct path down and up steep hills, when were trying to catch something I’m not so sure I want to, and any other time I get scared and close my eye’s. We have picked up a check day-working together, rode hours in the hot sun to move baby calves into the shade to keep them alive, sorted and worked tons of pairs, doctored tons of cows and calves, brought in cows in the dark to pull calves and ridden many miles to check cows. He is essential to making sure we can get our jobs done.

So while Slick has never has, nor will ever win a ribbon, money or points, he is definitely worth his weight in gold and has won the MVP of my string. Slick isn’t the only one. I remember my first horse Skips Light Deck, he had been in five races and placed last in all of them but he taught a little girl how to ride and fanned an amber of loving horses into a raging fire. I remember Soxy, a really cute mare that we use to laugh never did anything right but, also never did anything wrong and was the horse I roped my first steer on. My husband has a super cool horse named Bay Boy that is all business and helps my husband get a two person job done when Slick and I aren’t feeling to punchy and we should have probably hired extra help.

I know that lately looking at sale catalogs and watching horse sale videos (I’m definitely not looking, I just like dreaming) I’ve been pretty critical of what the horses breeding is and what their parents have done and what they have done as well. While I still think that all of that is important it’s not the whole picture.

I sure know Slick is just as proven as my good red horse that has earned money and points. While my little red horse is my favorite horse and has taken me some amazing places and sometimes gets tagged in to do ranch work, I will not be saddling him up on those cold days, he will buck me off.

Do you have a horse that’s proven but not by the standard points and money earned sense? I would love to hear about them!