Kay Gale and Clear Creek Slim

Team #93

Kay had a period of trail riding as a teen.  She was an avid regular rider with no formal instruction, traveling country roads and woods.  Then she started college and a long hiatus from riding occurred as life happened.  Graduate education, further training, marriage, five children and career filled the time.  After her youngest daughter finished college and got interested in eventing, Kay became a part-time groom helping at shows.  This was her first exposure to dressage.  Along with a week at a Wyoming ranch run by an eventer that included all-day trail rides every day in the area of the continental divide, this led to choosing to have regular riding become part of life again.  Dressage looked interesting and challenging.  Her daughter offered some basic instruction with a borrowed horse.  It was enough to convince her that she was ready to get her own, and the search for an appropriate horse began. 

At age 60 she found Slim who had been competing (at 2nd level) in dressage, knew his way around an arena—a “been there, done that” kind of horse. He had an imposing ring presence, was kind of a show-off.  It was clear that he thought highly of himself.  He would regularly lengthen his trot down the center line on entering the arena – almost as if  “mugging” for the judge.  The partnership started there, at first with help of her daughter, then Kay met trainer Nancy Sobba, and has continued with Nancy’s patient instruction and support since then.  In addition to the difficult business of trying to learn how to do this “ dressage thing”, Kay and Slim were able to have a good time and not take themselves too seriously.
       
Slim is a playful horse– chews leather, likes to lick & nibble & try new foods.  He has accepted offers of French fries from a child who wanted to share with him.  He likes lemon drops and Gatorade.   At one show he ate hay belonging to his next stall neighbor, thoroughly cleaning it up, which the other horse’s owners thought was cute and funny, saying “he’s just so charming”.

Kay is a member of the Arkansas Dressage Society.  She has earned USDF rider performance awards at both Training and First Level.  Throughout this time, Slim has been an amazingly forgiving and reliable companion.  As an example of his calm nature, he watched a lawn chair blow past the dressage arena during warmup – flipping end over end – right next to him, and didn’t even blink.  He’s 16.2 hands tall, wide as an aircraft carrier, which takes some getting used to, but it has been worth it, given his consistent performance and personality.  Both horse and rider have gotten older and somewhat arthritic, which has interfered with riding when either one or both of them would be “lame”.  For the past year or more, they have not competed.  This year however they are back on track.  As Slim turned 26 this year, they had made it to 100+ years combined. They qualified for the Century Club September 11, 2011, at a schooling show at Lucky Acres Stable in Jacksonville, AR.  Their partnership is continuing.