OUR HORSES
We have had many wonderful and well-loved horses over the years. Owning as many as 17 horses of our own at one time. We are now down to 6. We often bought horses to retrain and sell for trail and endurance. Our current horses are listed in order from youngest to oldest. Some of our current horses are retired from competition, but they are still rideable and each one has their own custom saddle.
Mescalero's Magik Moment
Registered Rheinland-Pfalz-Saar gelding, foaled May 18, 2013, barn name Magik. I purchased Magik from Dani Stout in 2021. Due to a major hospitalization on my part, I was unable to ride him for almost a year. He is 16 hands and bred for jumping. His sire Mescalero went to the Olympics in show jumping and Mescalero's sire was the great Voltaire, who won Olympic Gold for Germany. However he didn't appear to like jumping, so his previous owner thought he should be retrained for dressage. His first show was December 2023 in Training and first Level. In March 2024, we showed First Level only and won all 4 classes. In May 2024, we showed Second Level and received scores in the low 60s that I can use towards the bronze medal. He received a score of 61% at 3rd level test 1 March 2025. He has a great mind and is easy for me to train at home with lessons with Dani at Turning Point Equestrian. He knows all the 3rd level movements and we are working to improve the gaits.
HSC Encore
Registered Arabian Mare foaled May 7, 2006
15.1 hds, 900 lbs. Sired by our stallion, Envoy BBF++ and out of a mare with Padron, El Ghazi and Tornado in her bloodlines. Raised and trained by us, at 5 months under saddle, she was the highpoint sweepstakes Novice horse in her first NATRC competition. The next year she was Top 5 in the AHA Region 9 NATRC Open. She later did a few limited distance endurance rides, but it was then that we discovered she has a small amount of arthritis in her left front coffin bone, which only affects her after about 25 miles or 15 miles of fast riding on hard ground. We switched to trail riding in scenic areas then and she went to Cedar Lake, Robbers Cave, Pole Canyon, Fort Stanton NM and the Pike National Forest in Colorado. We also did team sorting for fun, which is her favorite thing. She pins her ears at the calves and really goes after them. I then became interested in Working Equitation, took Encore to 3 clinics and entered her in the Intro at Haras Cup, the largest Working Equitation (dressage and obstacles) show in the US (held in Houston), with over $100,000 in prize money. She placed 5th out of 7, actually placing ahead of 2 really nice Lusitanos. At the Shootout Arabian show in December 2019 she received a 65.8% at Western Dressage Basic Test 4 and a 63.1% at First Level Test 1. In December 2020 she received a 62.9 at Second Level Test 1. In 2022 she placed Top 5 at the Region 9 AHA Championships in First Level English Dressage. Also in March of 2022, she placed 2nd in Open First Level dressage, placing above the warmbloods at the Fort Worth Dressage Club Cowtown Classic. Encore believes she is the Queen and demands respect from all other horses, so we have to be careful who joins her in the pasture. She does best with geldings that know how to say “Yes Mam”. She is also intolerant of poor fitting tack and beginning riders, but she is well trained and very sensitive to the aids which is really fun at shows. She is mostly retired now, but we still trail ride and practice dressage.
Encore Photos
HSC The Shooter
Registered Arabian Gelding, foaled April 19, 2006
15 hds, 950 lbs. We purchased Shooter as a yearling from an Arabian race horse breeder. Shooter is very closely related to MW Mister Z and one of our best endurance horses, Mister Z’s full brother Doctor Z. He is sired by Czubuthan, the leading sire of race horses of his time and out of a daughter of Samtyr who has a chapter in the Arabian Legends book. Samtyr was the fastest son of *Sambor++, who is listed in nearly every polish race horse pedigree. Shooter is full of personality, if anyone enters the pasture he gallops full speed towards you. He loves treats and attention. He also gallops full speed to the barn at dinner time. In the pasture he can outrun every horse, including Doctor Z, Mister Z and a 15.3 hand horse called Fleet, a multiple stakes winner that raced on the track for 6 years. We never took him to a competition, but he has years of frequent trail riding. He prefers to lead and never spooks. He will walk along with the group, but is always ready to spring into action. We have taken him to overnight camping trail riding trips to Robbers Cave and Pole Canyon. He has also been team sorting. When Shooter was 4 yrs old he stuck his head under a pipe gate to reach green grass and set back suddenly fracturing his atlas and axis vertebrae. He was stalled for 8 months and it eventually healed completely. We were still able to train him and he is very rideable. He is a blast to ride for someone that likes a personable, energetic horse that loves people and loves to work.
Shooter Photos
HSC Strike Force
Registered Arabian Gelding, foaled Apr 15, 2005
15 hds, about 900 lbs, large boned, excellent hooves, grey, Sired by Envoy BBF++ out of a Russian mare, TF Platena. TF Platena came from Bill Stokes Arabian Racing Stables. His dam is sired by the race horse Samborzelsta by *Sambor++, and out of a *Muscat daughter. She most closely resembled the National Champion, Muscat. Hank kept Striker as a stallion until he was 7 yrs old and we decided not to breed anymore. Hank was 68 yrs old when he started Striker under saddle. So, he did not compete him as hard as he did his previous horses. By 2014 Striker had completed 14 limited distance rides with Hank and 3 50-mile rides with me. Hank often rode him in the back of the pack at a slow pace when he was coaching beginning endurance students, placed Top 10 in 6 rides and in 2014 he rode him in the Blue Bonnet 25-mile endurance ride and placed 1st with a ride time of 2 hours and 38 minutes. After that we did a lot of quiet trail rides and he was Hank’s main horse for all our scenic rides to the mountains in Colorado, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. He is very sure footed and well trained, easily crosses creeks and bridges and opens and closes gates. He became the favorite riding horse of our oldest grandson after he “graduated” from riding ponies and quarter horse’s to being able to ride Papa’s Arabian. Hank has also had a lot of fun with him doing team sorting. In 2017 Selena did a couple of schooling shows in Intro Dressage with scores ranging from 64% to 67%. His last 2 endurance rides were a 30-mile ride at Pole Canyon, placing 10th out of 31 horses in 2019 and a 25 at the LBJ Grasslands in 2023. He is a great example of what Envoy produced, athletic, great mind and fun to ride. As a bonus, he has never had an illness, injury, or lameness of any kind.
Striker Photos
MW Mister Z
Registered Arabian Gelding, foaled March 6, 2001 to August 12, 2024
15.2 hds, 1050 lbs, Grey Arabian, sired by Czubuthan out of an imported Russian mare. We purchased him off the track. We watched him run his last race at Sam Houston race track. He was a stakes winner and raced for 3 years. He was pretty tough to ride as a stallion, so we froze semen because we liked him so much and then gelded him. He was difficult to retrain. It took us a year to get him to stop “leaping out of the starting gate” whenever you asked for canter. He also had one major accident after the next and 2 colic surgeries, which always seems to happen with the favorite horse. He was always enthusiastic about everything he did. He gave you 110% every time you rode. Unfortunately he was so intelligent that as soon as he understood what you wanted, he often thought he knew a better way to get to the end result. In endurance he was impossible to rate and ran away in every ride; one ride he galloped for 10 miles before he could be brought down to a trot. We spent many hours trying to train him to be manageable at a ride, but unfortunately no matter what, in his mind it was a race and he was determined to win regardless of what the rider wanted. So, I decided to buy and compete on his full brother, Dr Z, instead who turned out to be the best endurance horse I ever owned. I decided to try dressage with Mr Z. He was really athletic and the patterns challenged his brain. The first clinician, Sherry Guess told me he could do upper level easily. The 2nd clinician, Pamela Fowler Grace, rode him for 5 minutes and told me he could do Grand Prix and that was before we were ready for a training level test. We did a year of schooling shows because he initially thought we should outrun all the other horses at the show, in addition to big leaping spooks and bucking in frustration when he thought we did something incorrect. Thanks to Mary Mahler's coaching, we eventually showed at Sport Horse, Training Level and First Level with scores in the mid 60s. His best scores were the lengthenings of course. Our first show was my first time to show in the Open as a trainer and I was nervous about the switch from Amateur to Open. In his first class, he tied with the Regional Champion for first place and Mr Z won the tie because his collective marks were higher. If I hadn’t gone off course we would have won without the tiebreaker. So, I owe him that boost in my confidence. I was never nervous at a show again. I was never able to practice the test at home because he always memorized the patterns. Unfortunately, before we could show at 2nd level he tore the deep digital flexor tendon and was permanently lame. His son, owned by Cindy Mettes, Bantam Z was awarded Arabian Horse Assoc. Distance Horse of the Year for 2021. He also won the NATRC Presidents Cup.
Mister Z Photos
Envoy BBF++
Last but not Least our Breeding Stallion
Due to his advanced age our stallion is no longer available for breeding, but we are still proud of his accomplishments.
Grey Arabian Stallion
Birth Date: 05/11/1995 Height: 15.1H AHR # 0525646
- Legion of Honor and Legion of Merit – with points in Racing, Endurance, Halter, Sport Horse In-Hand, and Hunter Pleasure
- 2005 U. S. National Top 10 Sport Horse Stallion In-Hand(Score of 84.5 and 1st place on Judge Rick Cram’s card) (32 stallions were in the class)
- 2002 Champion Hunter Pleasure
- 2000 Region IX Top Five Halter Stallion
- 1999 Texas Accredited Race Colt of the Year
- 1998 Texas Accredited Race Colt of the Year
- 920 AERC Endurance Miles
- Produced very trainable, beautiful, athletic, Arabians & Half-Arabians competing in Dressage, Sport Horse, Endurance, Competitive Trail, and Jumping