My wife Sylvia and I, by almost any standard, are considered small breeders. We have only been involved in horses since 1989. Soon after my retirement from the Police Department in Washington D.C., we acquired our first horses. The idea was to have a couple of horses for us to enjoy and ride in the mountains of West Virginia. In the summer of 1990 my wife saw a nice quarter horse mare for sale that was in foal. Well, why not, so we bought her. The foal, a filly, was born the following year and of course, we fell in love with her. As the foal became a yearling, we decided to show her at our first quarter horse show in Lexington, Va. Boy did we get an education. The things that you need to know can’t be found in the rule books of the AQHA. Needless to say we bombed. It is an experience that we will never forget. The one thing that did not bomb was our desire to learn to show. We met several nice people at the show and they really helped us out. The lessons we learned from these people were not forgotten.

As the next few years passed, we were able to become competitive to an extent in showing horses. The main thing we learned was to find a trainer. Well, as many of you are aware that have been involved in showing horses, that is an experience in itself. A lot of good money was thrown after bad before we found someone that we could depend on in getting our moneys worth.

During the summer of 1997 we acquired a quarter horse stallion, Oronoco, a son of Goldseeker Bars. We had gotten interested in the riding events, mainly western pleasure, and he was a producer of a World Champion western pleasure Paint mare, Orkiepaintedme. He seemed to fit the bill for our purposes. We had bred to this stallion for a couple of years prior to getting him so we were familiar with the great attitude that he produced in his off spring and the natural athletic ability they seemed to possess.

The breeding season of 1998 went pretty uneventful. Having never handled a stallion before, it was a learning experience. I had the advantage of having a neighbor, Richard Lehman, who was standing an Arab stallion. He had been involved in horses pretty much all of his life so he was experienced enough to help me out and I was able to learn from him.

It was that summer that some friends of mine brought in a paint mare to be rebred. The foal at her side, a paint colt, was a product of my stallion from the previous breeding season. When I first saw this colt, a sorrel tobiano, the name Gorgeous George came right to mind. I inquired of my friends if this colt was for sale and they were not sure as to what they were going to do with him. The day the colt turned 3 months old, I received a phone call and my friends wanted to know if I was still interested in him. Before they had a chance to change their minds, I went down and bought him. We named the colt Gorgeousorkie, we call him George for short.

The day we weaned this colt and brought him home was a true experience. I started to wonder what I had gotten myself into. He went ballistic. He drug myself, son and neighbor all over the place. We finally got him under some type of control and into a stall in my neighbors barn. At this point he started rearing and throwing his legs thru the bars in the stall. All I could think of was this colt breaking his front legs. We managed to get him out of the stall and back onto the trailer to be taken over to my barn. I have a thick mesh type of screen on the stall, it appeared to be a little safer under the circumstances. George finally settled down and had a quiet night. The next morning, when I checked on George, he was as quiet as a mouse. He has been that way ever since.

My intentions with George, from the day that I saw him, were to show him in western pleasure and keep him as a stallion. He spent the first winter at our house pastured with a couple of old wise brood mares. We figured if he was going to be a stallion, then he needed to learn some respect. The winter went fine and George got an education from them.

In the early spring of 1999 we wanted George to go to a trainer and spend some time showing in yearling longe line. The trainer that I wanted to take George to was mainly involved with Quarter horses and wasn’t sure how many, if any, Paint shows he was going to attend. We were given the name of another trainer. Well, as in years past, a lot of money way spent and nothing was gained. By the late summer of 1999, we had decided we had wasted enough money and brought him home. Frustration set in, here we had a colt that was a natural mover, how do you get someone to notice him.

George spent the fall of 1999 in our barn. The time was spent doing a lot of longing and ground work. We hoped that someone could be found that could develop him. I contacted Garland Quarter Horses and Paints. I had taken several horses to them in the past and was always satisified with the results that I got. One quarter horse gelding of mine had actually won a two year old western pleasure futurity in southern Maryland under their guidance. When I had been there in the past, the business was run by the father, Tommy Garland sr., his son Tracy was doing most of the actual training and riding. You had the eye of the father and the talent of the son working on the horses. Great combination! Things had changed since I had been there in the past, Tracy was now running the business with Tommy pretty much semi retired.

I discussed my situation with Tracy and what I wanted to do with this colt. My other concern was to find out how many Paint Horse shows he was planning to attend. I knew that he was mainly involved in training and showing quarter horses and that there may be a conflict. He assured me that he was probably going to attend 5 or 6 shows. My goal at this time was to get George his open ROM in western pleasure. His plans seemed to suit my purpose. In October Tracy had me bring this colt to his facility so that he could look at him move and decide if he would take him. Tracy liked the colt and we agreed to put him in training the first weekend in December 1999. George was a May 1998 foal so he was quite young, the agreement was to take it easy on him the first few months until his body matured.

We took George to Garlands in December. I received a phone call from Tracy’s mom, Bonnie, a couple of weeks later. She said that George was already walking, jogging and cantering with ease. I made my first trip down to see him the beginning of January 2000. Tracy was almost apologetic when getting the colt out. George was already loping like a horse that had been in training for months. He kept swearing the he was taking it easy, everything was coming natural to George.

By March George looked like a junior horse when riding. Tracy made a statement to me that a monkey could ride this horse and George would make him look good. He tried to encourage me to ride him. I assured him that I was too old to ride a 2 year old, I didn’t heal as good as I had in the past. Besides, I had only ever ridden a horse western pleasure once at an open show. I have to admit, it wasn’t a pretty sight, the horse looked good but the rider had a lot to be desired. Most of the riding in the past was left up to my wife Sylvia, I was content to be the groom at the shows.

In April Tracy finally convinced me to get up and give it a try. I couldn’t believe what a nice ride that I had experienced. My thoughts were that maybe a monkey actually could ride this colt. I decided to go to Garlands and take a few more lessons on him.

Our first two shows coming up were in May, Diamond 7 Ranch in Dillsburg, Pa. and The Delaware State Fairgrounds in Harrington, De. George and Tracy were ready but I still hadn’t convinced myself that I could do it. After these first two shows, George already had his Open ROM in Western Pleasure. Tracy kiddingly told me, "well you got what you wanted, I guess you will be taking him home". We jointly decided to try a few more shows. Our next show was at Frying Pan Park, Herndon, Va. The decision was made that I should jump in the saddle and give it a try. The days that led up to the show, I was a nervous wreck. My biggest fears were that I was going to fall off the horse while showing or embarrass Tracy in some way. Well on show day, it came time for my novice amateur western pleasure class. I was surprisingly calm, I went out and rode George and placed first under 3 of the 4 judges. I was really proud of myself. I rode the horse out of the ring and got off of him. It was at this point that I became nervous, my legs turned to jello and I almost fell to the ground. Needless to say this amused several people. It was at this show that several individuals started to refer to me as "Mighty Joe Young". A name that would stick to me the rest of the show season.

Over the next few months we took George to many more shows. His points in Open western pleasure, Novice Amateur western pleasure and Amateur western pleasure started to accumulate. In August I received a call from Tracy, he wanted to know if I had seen the August issue of the American Paint Horse Journal. George was the leading two year old in open western pleasure in the nation. Sylvia and I were flabbergasted.

Sylvia and I discussed what are plans were to be for George in the future. Living on a retirement income, our finances were starting to get low. Just the few shows that we had already gone to had really put a strain on us. We decided that this may be a once in a lifetime experience, we were going to give it a run to the end of the year to see just where George was to end up. I discussed our desired plans with Tracy and he agreed to try and help us as much as he could. Sylvia and I knew that Tracy had a barn full of horses, it was important that his time not be taken from the other customers. We had experienced that ourselves in the past and knew the hard feelings it could cause.

I went to the APHA web site and wrote down a list of shows that, if planned right, we could afford to go to. I went to Tracy and Bonnie, we reviewed the list. Some of the shows had a conflict with other customers so they were dropped from the list. Now we had a plan and we were going to try and see this thing through to the end of the year.

Over the course of the summer we attended APHA Zone #7 shows in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, New Jersey, New York and Maryland, returning to some of these states many times. Along the way we met some of the nicest people that you would ever see at horse shows. The list included trainers, judges, fellow competitors and especially the folks running the shows.

George’s western pleasure points and accomplishments started to accumilate as the summer came to a close. Tracy had shown him at the Roanoke Valley Open Horse Show in Roanoke, Va. He was the first Paint horse that anyone could remember to have ever won the western pleasure championship. At a Zone show in Allentown, N.J. he won the JoAnn Cook Memorial Award in two year old western pleasure, he was also the Circuit Champion in two year old western pleasure and novice amateur western pleasure. George won Futurities at the Pennsylvania Paint Horse Club in Dillsburg, Pa and the Garden State Paint Horse Club in Mullica Hill, N.J.

All of our shows to date were in APHA Zone 7. Within our Zone there were some real nice 2 year olds. One, Youdontknowjackzip, was ridden by Glenn Patterson a trainer out of Canada and the other that I liked, SB Zippin Loot, was ridden by Marty Dixon a trainer out of Delaware. When these 3 horses were in a class together, it made for some tough competition. The only way for us to find out what George was made out of was for us to travel to another area of the country and see some of the other two year olds. The two that I especially wanted to see were Zips Triple Play and Hesa Perfect Zip. They were showing in the mid west area of the country. At this point, both of these horses were ahead of George on the APHA Honor Roll current standings for two year old western pleasure.

In October we took him to Wichita, Kansas to the World Wide Paint Horse Congress. Most of the 2 year olds that were listed in the current issue of the Paint Horse Journal as being on the Honor Roll were there. At the Congress George and I came away Reserve Champion novice amateur western pleasure. I had tied Norm Meyers out of Texas, the current leader on the Honor Roll in novice amateur western pleasure. Norm won the tiebreaker and we settled for Reserve.With Tracy riding him, he was Reserve Champion of the Open two year old snaffle bit western pleasure class. I was really proud of our accomplishment, George had competed against some of the best in the country and he held his own. After returning from Kansas we had a total of 311 western pleasure points. I went to the APHA Web Site and looked at the statistics in reference to the APHA Honor Roll, we were pretty high in several categories. Sylvia and I talked and we decided to see if Tracy was interested in hitting some of the late year shows down south. I was interested in trying to keep George in the top ten in the Honor Roll. Additionally, I knew that we were going to stand George in the year 2001 so I wanted him to have some exposure down south.

We went to shows in Perry, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi and Tampa, Florida. All of these were 4 judge shows. In December we had finished our showing. George and Tracy had won the open 2 year old western pleasure Futurities in Perry and Jackson. We had brought our western pleasure point total to 409, 142 Open, 171 Novice Amateur and 96 Amateur. Probably the best show that I personally had during the year was in Jackson. I had placed first under all 4 judges in Novice Amateur Western Pleasure and Amateur Western Pleasure.

Looking back over this last year, I have so many people to thank for making this such an enjoyable experience for me. My wife Sylvia, who could not attend most of the shows because of our horses at home, thanks. The Garland family, for putting up with me the whole year, thanks. To the people who worked so hard at all the shows that we attended, thanks. To all the APHA Judges that we showed under, thanks.

I sit back now and reflect on the 2000 show season. Maybe we didn’t win a National Championship but we did come away knowing that we had one of the best 2 year olds in the country. As it turns out, Tracy was right. A monkey could ride this colt, Mighty Joe Young ended up in the top ten of the APHA Honor Roll in Novice Amateur Western Pleasure.