1969 Voice Of The Tennessee Walking Horse 1969 April Voice RS

DENISE HARRIS FIGHTS DETERMINED BATTLE FOR OUR BREED IN PHOENIX 4-H CLUB PROJECT PAYS OFF EDITOR'S NOTE — The National 4-H Club repre sents the largest single prospective market for Ten nessee Walking Horses in the country. With over 400.00U youngsters involved in the 4-H Club "horse program" and a 10 increase in activity each year, we should be making a maximum effort to cultivate this market. We recently heard from a young lady in Phoenix. Arizona, who is using her Tennessee Walking Horse. LADY, for her 4-H Club project (see photo). Denise Harris is a freshman -,i ail School in Phoenix. She is a member i^the stud MavoricksTH C?ub* member of ihe N'oJthu Phoenix is a horse town. Every body owns one — at least that was what I kept telling my dad when I was trying to get him to buy me one. At first he said we didn’t have a place to keep one, then when we did buy property with horse privi leges his excuse was that we could n’t afford one right now. Secretly he was looking for a good horse for children who had no experience with horses. One Sunday he suggested that we take a ride, saying there was some thing in Tempe he wanted to check on. We had been eavesdropping on his phone conversations and knew we were going to look at a horse. Sure enough, there she was — or, I should say, there they were. For a bargain we could get a Tennessee Walker, eight years old; her week- old colt sired by LUCERITO, a Per- vian Paso; and a Morgan-Quarter- horse, nine years old, in foal by the same stallion. My dad is a pretty good horsetrader and knows good horses when he sees them, so right then and there we became horse owners. The fact that we didn’t even own a bridle, let alone a saddle, didn’t bother my sister, my brother or myself. This was in May, 1968. Up until this time we didn’t know there was any difference in the way horses rode. It didn’t take long to tell there was, though. LADY, our Walker, had never been trained and would break her gaits any time she felt like it. My father had ridden Walkers when he was a boy in Ar kansas and knew how to make her walk. He taught my sister Louise and me how to ride her and would yell at us when we let her break her gait. We didn’t like this at first, so we would fight over who was going to ride SATIN, our other mare. We could get on her and ride any way we wanted to. Finally, though, our efforts paid off. We love the smooth ness of LADY’s flatfoot and running walk. She still doesn’t canter well but we’re working on that. 30 Voice of the Tennessee Walking Horse

1969 Voice Of The Tennessee Walking Horse 1969 April Voice RS | Page 30