"It is more rewarding to do well on a baby OTTB than win on a fancy horse. Chappie and I came in 14th place and I was so proud."
Chapparra is a 2011 Indiana bred and raced mare, retired by trainer Charles Brown and owner Karen Ford. She had 27 starts earning roughly $42,000. She entered our program in the fall of 2016, and was adopted late spring 2017. Here's what her adopter, Sydney, has to say about their first summer together:
Since I have adopted Chappie I have learned so much valuable information about my riding and life in general. When I first adopted Chappie I was really excited to train a baby horse and that I had helped save her life. With Friends of Ferdinand she had done some jumping and gone cross country schooling, but she had not evented when I brought her to Holmestead Stables, where I board and train. I took her up to Massachusetts for the summer and there I got to ride with Hawley Bennet and Jeanie Clark.
I learned that i can’t expect perfection from her every time I sit on her. There was a point for about a week that when I would ask for a collected canter that all she would do was buck and try to get me off of her. This was a time where I was getting really frustrated with her which was making her worse.
We had our first mini trial two weekends ago and I was so happy with her. She was so good and didn’t try to do anything silly. We went double clear in cross country and in stadium. During the show I could see all of my hard work paying off. It was more rewarding to do well on a baby OTTB than win on a fancy horse. We came in 14th place and I was so proud.
Having Chappie has made me so happy. She is such a loving horse and tries her best for me everyday regardless of how difficult the work is. The main things she has taught me is to how a be a trainer and not care what place I come in. She has taught me to be patient and that things don’t happen overnight. That hard work does pay off and that it’s more rewarding when you are training your own horse. I couldn’t have asked for a better horse to train. I would like to thank Friends of Ferdinand for giving me such a lovely horse to call my partner and to bring up.
- Elle Welch
