that proved to be a little bit of a challenge when we got him home,” she says. The challenge was his exuberance, such as playing after a
fence. “He would jump a jump like a mil- lion bucks, and try to buck me off on the other side,” Hope continues. “He was quite proud of himself. He would jump eight jumps clean, then spin around or run off in the class. He would jump really, really high, and then play hard after it. If you could stick the jump you were hoping you could stick the landing too.” Ned showed Mickey as a jumper.
“What we realized is that as the jumps get bigger, he jumps harder,” Hope re- members. “It seemed like he put in such a big effort over the jumps, but he didn’t seem happy doing the bigger jumps. He would jump great but then he’d wear his ears not so good—and he was a friendly personality. So we said, ‘What do we do at this point? We can keep pushing him or we can find a job that we think better suits him.’” Mickey certainly wasn’t failing at being a jumper, but he’d
told his trainers in a variety of ways that he wasn’t happy jumping big and wide. So they wondered if he would thrive as a lower-level jumper. As a result, in 2011 he went to his next show in a differ-
ent role: hunt seat equitation. “A rider in our barn needed an equitation horse to borrow,” Hope explains. “So we quickly put some equitation braids in him and took him to Thermal as an equitation horse. As a trainer’s horse, you need to pay the bills sometimes. They ended up that year as Mid-Circuit Champion in Adult Equitation.” In addition, rider Molly Baumhoff won several equitation medal classes on Mickey. That year the Glynns met an amateur rider who turned
out to be perfect for Mickey. Hope recalls the matchup: “We met a lovely lady, Shelly Gambardella, and she was looking for a lower-level jumper that had a nice temperament. My first impression was that he was too much of a horse for her. Although she has a good eye, I worried that he would be too much. But the minute that horse had that lady on his back, he knew that was his job. He loves her and he loves her rid- ing. He now does the Amateur Owner hunters for her. We took a horse that was a scopey jumper to a horse that abso- lutely loves being a packing amateur hunter and is happy as a clam doing it.”
Nelson, who with Heidi Misrahy trains Shelly at Flintridge,
continues the story about trying Mickey at Thermal: “When we tried Mickey, we wanted a horse for Shelly that would be a next step up. We weren’t sure, hunter or jumper.” Mickey sold himself in the tryout by jumping big over an oxer. David
TOP: SVS Caramunde Z on course at HITS Desert Circuit. RIGHT: Stripped after his round, Ultime Espoir waits patiently for the callback for conformation judging.
32 May/June 2014
says, “The girl riding him jumped loose. The horse was so kind, he helped her back in the saddle.” “That’s important to Shelly because she’s an amateur. We wanted her safe. He was great with that. We bought him because you could see the jump he had, he was a good looking horse, and we knew he would be a step up,” he continues. David and Heidi were looking for a horse that would be a good learning experience for Shelley, who wasn’t in a rush to show immediately, and the bay went home with them to Flintridge. David praises Mickey for his jumper
background, saying, “He’s clever. He’s not one of those hunters that just plops around the ring. Riding hunters is a skill set many people will never be able to achieve. The point is you have to really ride.”
“The fun thing with Mickey is we can ride him like a
hunter one day, or the next day we can go out on the cross- country field. Jumping out there he can do bending lines, turns and other exercises,” he adds. “Buying a bigger jumper, he’s seriously overqualified to do what we do. There is plenty of horse to get Shelly out of trouble, such as missing a stride to a fence. He is crazy kind.” “Mickey is a happy camper. We’re doing something right if the horse will come out every day happy,” David says in closing. “That’s our biggest goal, to keep horses happy.” Shelly will begin showing Mickey in 2014. In 2012 and 2013, Hope rode him, competing in the High Performance Working Hunter division in a variety of California shows, with jumps up to 4 feet (1.22 meters). At Thermal 2013, Mickey was named the mid-circuit and overall circuit High Performance Working Hunter Champion.
ULTIME ESPOIR Born as Chelak Z (Chellano Z x
Laeken), this 16.1-hand 2001 stal- lion was approved by the KWPN in their strict stallion selection. In his performance test in the Neth-
erlands, he scored 8 for his jumping talent. Sire Chellano Z (Contender x Cor de la Bryere) is known as a top sire of international show jumpers. Ultime Espoir started a jumper career in Europe show-
ing in national shows. He moved to Scotland, where John French of Waldenbrook Farm in Menlo Park, California, tried him in 2012. John was horse shopping for client Barbara Chapin.
“John and I have a long-time professional relationship,” says Barbara. “There have been times that I have gone with him to Europe to look for horses, but this time I did not. John saw this horse and loved it.”
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