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MyEquusBlog.com – An Overview from 1970 to 2009 – Mecca, Sunny and RockiI married my son Jason’s father, Mark Ellerbee, in early 1970 while I was still a student at FSU. We moved to Nashville in the summer of 1970 and Mark got a job with the Oak Ridge Boys as their drummer and as backup vocalist. (Listen to the Oaks on Youtube – Mark sings while he is playing drums at the end of the song – he’s the one with the long wavy hair Jason was born at the end of 1970. After I had another son in 1973 (who died in 1988), I bought my own ¾ Arab/ ¼ Quarter Horse cross, 2 ½ year old stallion (originally named Major, but I changed it to Mecca) which I trained and showed locally. I showed my horse and other horses in Western Pleasure, Equitation and Hunt Seat, even placing 11th in the hunt seat class at the 1978 Appaloosa Nationals on a gorgeous black, blanket-spotted stallion I rode for a client. I also rode another gorgeous Palomino stallion in Western Pleasure and a young 16.2hh Appaloosa gelding in Western Pleasure and Hunt Seat. In 1980, Mark and I divorced amicably and I moved back to my home in Jacksonville, FL (without Mecca – I sold him the year before I moved from Nashville since I had gone back to college to finish my degree). In 1983, I finally completed my college degree in Computer Information Systems (CIS). I didn’t ride during this time as I was always in class, studying, in the computer lab doing assignments, working part-time at the college as the Psychology department’s system analyst, and taking care of my small children when I was home. (I was lucky to have my mother take care of them when I wasn’t around.) After I graduated and started working in my career, I occasionally rode friends’ horses off and on. I married my husband Jerry Rehkopf in 1991 and he made the ‘mistake’ one night of telling me that I should get a horse when I was ardently explaining to him how a horse canters on their leads. So, the search began and I finally got another horse – an ex-racehorse Quarter Horse named ‘Sunny’. I began riding him in Dressage and later in hunters and jumpers.  Teri & Rocki, First Level Dressage I sold him in 1995 just a couple of months after I got my mare which I named Glenord’s Rocket Dancer – Clan Butter Glenrod’s Glened x Rocket To Antares – ‘Rocki’, as a 2 ½ year old. Rocki’s sire (now deceased) was a champion Budweiser Clydesdale and her dam was a racing TB/Appaloosa, with her bloodline going back to Native Dancer, hence her name, Glenord’s Rocket Dancer, barn name of Rocki (spelled with an ‘i’ at the end so it’s female sounding, lol). Claire Lee, of what is now Haddenloch Farm (used to be Dexter Farm), first backed Rocki while I was healing from having 6 cracked ribs from a fall off of Sunny when I missed a tight turn to a jump (a perpendicular jump that was higher than I was used to and looked too late to next jump, so I turned Sunny into the jump standard and fell onto the hard sand – ouch!). I had experienced a couple of other falls on the fast Sunny with associated injuries, so I had to promise my employer that I wouldn’t jump anymore, at least not competitively or in a clinic. I got my American Warmblood mare to ride Dressage and English Pleasure (I did jump her in low Hunter classes after she was backed and after I had trained her to ground drive with me running behind her, but again, after the previous falls and injuries from Sunny, it was better that I ride Dressage instead); she has been the best horse I have ever had. She will do anything and she was bomb-proof even when she was a baby. Rocki is still with me at 16 years old and is still wonderful and in her prime (Clydesdales mature late – Rocki was actually lazy until she turned 10!). Just a few years ago,I learned how to ride correctly, i.e. how to really ride Dressage and give with the arms/elbows, meld with the horse, inside leg to outside rein, half-halt, etc. Boy was I excited when I finally felt this for longer than just a few minutes! I called my trainer, Kathy Daly of KDEquine Training, and excitedly told her that I now knew what she had been trying to get across to me for the past 5 years! So, instead of taking 45 minutes to warm myself up while confusing my horse by hanging on the reins and not let him/her go forward INTO the reins, I can get on and have a great ride in 20 minutes, both my horse and I warmed up almost immediately. Rocki really thanks me now… all I have to do is to ‘think’ a movement and Rocki will comply… ahhhh… as was said, a true horse fanatic! 1 Comment to MyEquusBlog.com – An Overview from 1970 to 2009 – Mecca, Sunny and RockiI am testing my comments for my new blog setup Leave a comment |
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May 20, 2009