Lois Pienkos and Keen (IA)
Team #865: Lois Pienkos and Keen
From: Central City, Iowa
Ages: 75 & 26
Combined Age: 101
Test: Third Level Test 3
It was a GREAT day!
I had so much fun! I’ve been looking forward to doing a Century Club ride for several years.
Keen is very special to me. I’ve owned him his entire life—I bought his grand dam in 1976, and my daughter was there when Keen was born. His sire is a Connemara. I bred his mother to a pony breed, hoping for a smaller horse, but that didn’t quite work out—Keen ended up bigger than his dam!
When he turned six and it was time to get serious about training, I was intimidated by his 16.3-hand size and some of his “pony games.” I knew I had two options: sell him or learn to ride him. I wanted to keep him. So, we traveled with a friend to three multi-day Jeff Griffith natural horsemanship clinics over six weeks. That was the beginning of quite a journey for Keen and me.
My dressage trainer of sixteen years, Anne Cizadlo, has nicknamed him the Energizer Bunny—and that bunny would very much like to be in charge of the ride! The fact that I was a green rider didn’t help, but I’ve persevered over the years. Anne has given us hundreds of lessons.
After my breast cancer treatments in 2009, we began spending the winter season in Florida to “live the dream.” We progressed to Third Level, and I even earned a bronze medal score on him. And then—we aged. Over the past five years, I’ve had multiple injuries, surgeries on my left femur, and a hip replacement. Keen was also unsound last summer, but fortunately, front shoes and pads have made him comfortable again.
Now, both of us are sound and finally old enough to do this special ride and join the Century Club! The icing on the cake was that our ride also earned a score toward my bronze medal.
It was a GREAT day!
Photos by Joanna Jodko
