I have always loved horses. My history with them started when I was a little girl but my love for them; well I guess I was literally born with it. I have fond memories of my grandparents taking me on car rides in the county and just gazing out the window at these beautiful majestic creatures that I longed to know and have. I started taking riding lessons when I was four years old and continued to ride until I got into high school. I got out of horses then but my love for them never dulled, even for a minute.
I was first introduced to Tennessee Walking Horses in 2010 when I was 19 years old. I had never been around Walkers let alone ride one. I grew up on quarter horses but since it had been about four years since I had ridden relearning on the TWH wasn’t that difficult, or at least I thought. I bought my first TWH as a birthday present to myself for my 20th birthday. She was a beautiful 5 year old bay mare named, Hurricane Jazz, who was by the late The Jazz Man and out of a direct Coin’s Hard Cash mare. I had lots of friends that were raising foals so I decided that I wanted to get a “baby” to raise and then start under saddle, so then I purchased a yearling named Catch 22 who was by Ted Williams and out of a direct Gen’s Armed And Dangerous mare. I went on to get a Show Pleasure performance gelding who was lit up and he was by The Skywatch and out of a direct Pusher C.G. mare. His name was Man In The Sky, I called him Spook. In the spring of the following year, I bought 3 mares from Phil Snodgrass. Two of the mares were half-sisters and they were Pride’s Stormy Night bred on the top and one was Genius 9-5 on the bottom, her name was Blockbuster’s Mary Jane and the other was Blockbuster Babe who Triple Threat on the bottom. They were in foal to Collector’s Gold Coin and due that spring to foal. To top the deal off Phil gave me a three year old mare who was line bred Stormy Night whose name is Sultan’s Lady Liberty. That spring my mare, MJ foaled a beautiful chestnut filly on my 21st birthday and then two months later my other mare, Babe, foaled a coal black stud colt. I named the filly She’s A High Collector and the colt Cosmic Storm. Also during this time I was searching for a pleasure show horse to show in addition to my show pleasure gelding. I found one in Texas. His name was Pushover The Dollar. He was a Trail Pleasure show horse who was by Generator’s Silver Dollar and out of a direct Pushover mare. I had a pretty successful show career with those two that year. Spook was at another training barn and I would see and ride him during the week before I went home to ride Dollar. I would ride Dollar at night in the ring around the barn so I could practice for our shows. At the end of the year I made a couple decisions to do the fact that I was going through some things and I ended up parting with all my horses except the filly who I call Hi-C. That was one of the hardest decisions I had ever made. All of my horses got great homes so that made the decision a little easier but I missed them all a lot. I was glad that I still had Hi-C. She was just so special to me and I told her I’d never part with her and that there were a lot of things I wanted the two of us to accomplish together. I kept Hi-C as my only horse for about a year and then I decided to purchase a pretty little lit up Pusher mare named Miss Pusher Tie Dyed from some friends of mine who were getting more out of horses and into mules. Ty was in foal to a gaited Jack and due to foal the following spring. I rode Ty lightly in her second trimester and then I decided that I wanted to get a horse that I could work with and ride so I purchased a mare who I later renamed American Country Girl, from my friend Sarah in KY. Delilah was her barn name and she was by All American Cash and out of a Generator’s Silver Dollar mare. I had knee surgery I May of this year which was 2013 and after I was able to get back to the barn I put a lot of time into her and got her riding well and we would take lots of trail rides all over the 100 acre farm. At this time I also started ground work with my filly Hi-C. She was now two years old and I knew she wasn’t quite ready to be completely under saddle just yet so we spent the rest of that year lunging, learning her left and right leads, backing up ect. By the beginning of 2014 she was ready to be put under saddle. She could already do it all from the ground but it was time to see if my work paid off. Sure enough it did! The first time I got on her back she was perfect. It was like she had been doing this her entire life. I then wanted to see just how much she could do so we went riding through the pastures with all the other horses, through a creek and down the road next to several cars and back down the driveway and that filly never missed a beat. Needless to say I was proud of her! Proud of what I accomplished with Delilah and Hi-C, I decided that I wanted to expand so I purchased another performance show horse that is pretty well known. Her name is Showboat Annie. She’s by Generator’s Showboat and out of a direct Pusher mare. I retired Annie from the ring and introduced her to the leisure life of trail riding which she took very well to, although she always preferred being in a stall over being in a pasture any day. Her and Ty hit it off and became very close but not the soured type of close. I spent a lot of the days and evenings riding my horses amongst the others. I would ride a different one each day just so they all got some exercise, plus I just enjoyed being surrounded by them. I always keep my eyes out for a well bred mare that comes available for sale but when my friend Sarah in KY decided to sell her dapple grey mare who was by Main Power and out of a Bold Design mare I jumped at the opportunity to own such a great horse and thus that added Classy to my herd. She became the alpha mare and kept great order among of them all. We trail rode all the time, even in the winter. It was exciting to have enough horses for my friends to all be able to go riding with me and that’s how we finished out 2014. Since it was a dream of mine to have a horse farm where I raised foals, trained my own horses, showed them, and had a lesson program, I studied bloodlines and read all I could find on the Tennessee Walking horse and what to look for in the conformation, disposition and willingness to do their job. I spent many, many hours in the saddle with my horses trying different methods and techniques of training to try to achieve the goal I striving for with each horse. I learned so much from all of this and seeing my positive outcome with my horses so far I decided I was yet again ready to expand and try something new. In the beginning of 2015 I purchased a two year old filly who I named The Irish Princess. She was by The Golden Sovereign and out of an Irish American mare. I called her Lilly and she was the sweetest little mare I have ever met in my life. I had learned so much from working with my horses and I knew the only way to get better and keep learning was to keep on working with different horses. I decided I wanted to be an assistant trainer to a friend of mine and so I started working in his barn. I told him I wanted to bring my two fillies to the barn so I could learn more on them. So we brought Hi-C and Lilly to the barn and that began their formal training. During all this I purchased two mares from Swift Walking Farms, one a Gen’s Black Gin mare who was out of a Pusher All Color mare. I called her Sage. The other mare was a Tobiano mare that was Marshall Dillon granddaughter on top and Sun’s Delight D on bottom. Her name was Dillons Dixie Delight but I called her Dillon. I got these two mares for the purpose of breeding as well as giving them a refresher course under saddle. Both mares took going back under saddle very well. Things picked up at the training barn we had a barn full of customer horses and it was becoming more difficult for me to stay on top on working both my fillies so I made the decision to bring Lilly home from the training barn. I wasn’t happy with this decision but Hi-C was further along in training so it only made sense to bring Lilly home. I wanted Lilly to still have a job so I decided I would take her trail riding a couple times a week even if we didn’t go far I always enjoyed spending time with her. She was such an enjoyable little mare and had a head full of sense. Even though I loved having her I couldn’t help but feel she could do some much more and that she wasn’t reaching her full potential like this. In the mean time in the training barn the time had come for Hi-C and I had our first show together! I was so excited and nervous at the same time. I hadn’t shown since 2011 and this was her first time even being to a show grounds. She was more prepared than I could have ever imagined. We showed in trail pleasure specialty (adult riders) and we even went up against a World Campion horse. She was the youngest one in the ring but you would have never known. She did her job like a pro! Later that night we also showed in four year old trail pleasure specialty and we won!!! Our first show and our first blue ribbon! I couldn’t have been more excited that my home grown filly won me my first blue ribbon! It was a night I will always remember! Since I had Dillon and Sage going pretty well back under saddle I decided that it was now time to have them bred so that I could have a couple foals the following year. I decided that I would breed them both to the same stallion and his name was Texas Cash Exchange. He was a local stallion that was a great show horse and I figured that was a good place for me to start my breeding program. (Sage was bred first in June 2015 and was confirmed three months in foal in September 2015. Dillon was bred that September and was confirmed five months in foal February 2016.) In the midst of the getting my mares bred and showing I had been thinking about Lilly a lot and felt she could be put to better use in another home so I made the hard decision to offer her up for sale but it would have to be to a great home. I actually found someone wanting to trade Lilly for a retired performance show mare that was by The Jazz man and out of a Solidarity mare. I always wanted another mare to have for a lesson horse because at the time Ty was my only lesson horse and I was trying to start giving lessons regularly. So I decided to do the trade and sI planned a road trip to Alabama to meet Kathryn Scott and trade Lilly for Jazz. Before the trip was made another great mare became available. Her name was Jubilee’s Shatan. She’s directly by Pride’s Jubilee Star and out of a Suns Delight D x Mack K Handshaker mare. The thought of owning such an outstanding mare was just mind blowing and I was thrilled to learn that my friend Gwen was giving me the opportunity to own this amazing mare. Since I was going to pick Jazz up I decided I would pick my other new mare, JP up on the same trip. It was a long trip but it was well worth it! With this we welcomed Jazz and JP to our herd. While riding and working with Jazz, I had won a stud fee to WGC Line Item Veto in the futurity auction that year and I bred JP to him in December 2015. Veto had been a favorite show horse of mine for so long and I was going to have the first public mare bred to him. Excited doesn’t begin to describe me during her pregnancy. That spring I was working full time in the boot store and had been promoted to management so I did not have as much time to spend with my horses as I wanted so Chris came up with the Idea to move a few of them down to GA to his house so that they could be kept under a closer eye. Since Dillon and JP were due later that year to foal the two of them along with Ty made the trip to GA to their new home. Since we were getting married in May we decided that I would go ahead and move down to GA with Chris so that I could be there when the mares foal and then once everyone was settled in we would start working on our barn so that we could bring the rest of my horses down from Tennessee. As the months passed we noticed that Dillon was not filling out like she should so we decided to have her looked at by our vet, To confirm our fears, Dillon had lost her foal at some point in the last couple months. The news was hard to hear but I decided to move forward and get her going back under saddle even better and later I made the decision to sell her to a young girl names Sara. Dillon was her first horse and Sara loved her so it worked out very well for everyone. We spent many hours out there but we weren’t moving as fast as we had hoped so I found a nice boarding place not too far from the house and we moved the others there until our barn was ready for them. A couple months later JP foaled a big beautiful black stud colt on October 25, 2016, and I was over the moon in love with him. We named him Athelstan after my favorite character from the TV series Vikings and his registered name is Override The Veto. We stayed up all night just watching him and JP but the next morning we made a gruesome discovery that Ty had fallen fatally ill… She had eaten some maple leaves and got Toxicity. I immediately called our vet who came out and put her on IV fluids and took some blood and urine samples back to the lab to be tested. Within an hour we got the new that if she did not receive emergency care she would not make it. Ty was taken to our vet’s new hospital branch where she had a blood transfusion the next morning and for the next week had to be monitored constantly due to the fact that when giving a blood transfusion they have to add some chemicals to keep the blood from clotting but that causes the horse to colic for a few days after the infusion. To be honest her chances were slim at best and I was scared I would be faced with having to say goodbye to my beloved sweet little Pusher mare. That entire week I was a wreck luckily Dr. Barrow and Dr. Fenn at Barrow Veterinary Services did an amazing job not only of taking care of Ty but of giving us updates on her a couple times a day. As the days passed she would improve and then hit the bottom again but they did not give up on her and neither did we. That Friday I got my morning call from Dr. Barrow who had some good news for us. Ty was doing much better, still uncomfortable from the medicine but doing much better. They kept her though Monday and since she had not coliced since Friday they said she could come home on Tuesday!! That’s right! She beat the odds and she was coming home to us!! With Ty back home and JP and Athelstan doing so well I wanted to bring the rest of my horses down from Tennessee but our barn was not finished yet. I found a boarding place close to the house and we decided that we would keep Classy, Hi-C and Jazz there until we could bring them to the house. I also found a gorgeous lite shod show mare that I decided I just had to have. She was by Generator’s Santana and out of a Generator’s Papa mare and a beautiful Chestnut color with a stripe. Well sure enough I bought her and gave her the barn name Luna. She went to my friend Gary’s barn and spent a couple months there getting back into shape and we brought her to the house with the other three mares in January. Now that all my horses are at the house I decided it was time to get down to business on my lesson program. I already had a couple girls that were interested in lessons so we got to work right away. Desiree and Alexis started their lessons in January and this started my lesson program. I have had a couple students come and go but my original two Desiree and Alexis are really coming along, especially Desiree. She has learned to ride Ty, Classy, Jazz and Hi-C!! That is really quite an accomplishment seeing as how these mares are all so different and have different motors and require different hands for their gaits. Desiree has really progressed with Classy. She has been working on her flat walk and running walk and gets the best results on Classy. I think she is ready to spend more time on Jazz and work on her gaits. My goal with my lesson program is to get more kids involved in our industry. I think horses teach kids so many valuable lessons and can help them overcome issues that they may be struggling with. I hope that when my program grows and expands that I get some students who want to go to shows with me and show what they have learned with these horses to the industry and the whole world. I want them to have the knowledge and skills to ride any Walking Horse they want and be strong and confident enough to chase their dreams and make them a reality. Our industry loves to see kids grow up with these horses and we love and cherish those bonds that are formed between them. My goal is to make it more “doable” for others like myself to get into this industry. I have had a long journey so far but it is only getting started. I am proud of where I am today. Proud that I overcame my trials and that I never gave up on this dream. That is what I want readers to take away from my story. I want them to know they can do this! Follow your heart, chase your dreams, work hard, and never give up until your idols become your rivals.
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AuthorNatalie Johnson |