Touch’s Tornado

MFTHBA # 94-43696

Rex’s Golden Touch    X    Bandit’s Aunt Jemima

 

 

 

In October of 2005, I was lying in the hospital having just had my 6th spinal fusion.  A friend had brought me a stack of horse magazines to read.  Innocent enough, but those magazines rekindled my love and desire for horses that I had kept deeply buried for almost ten years.  I had gotten my first horse at age 12 and by 16 years old had a successful business training horses for other people.  But then at 23 I had my first spinal fusion.  This slowed me down but I was still trying to ride and train horses when I got married in 1990.  I hung in there for a few more years but by 1995 I had had a second spinal fusion and I realized that between my back and the financial stress of starting up a farm from scratch, I needed to give up the horses.  So for the next 10 years, I stayed completely away from horses and just concentrated on running our farm, raising just about every farm animal there is.  Needless to say, farming was not very conducive to maintaining a healthy back thus the 6th spinal fusion in 2005.  And that was when I realized I was working way too hard, having way too many surgeries and needed to change.  So once again I opened my heart back up for my lifetime dream of owning and training horses.

A friend of mine owned two Missouri Foxtrotters and swore they were “the best horses in the world”.  I had never even heard of the breed but a nice smooth gait, quiet disposition and a Quarter horse build sounded really good to me.  So I started checking them out on the Internet and ran across Tori for sale.  I found a lot of other horses too, but just couldn’t get Tori out of my head and kept going back to his ad.  So as soon as I could drive, we headed out to Missouri on Dec. 27, 2005.

And eventhough Tori had this long, shaggy winter coat that made him look like a huge, fuzzy Teddy Bear, it was love at first site.  And we seemed to bond right away.  We went out for a short trail ride in the Mark Twain nation Park with me riding Tori, my husband Glenn on a big gray he liked and R.L. and his trainer riding two other Foxtrotters we were interested in.  And you might have guessed it.  I took too big of a trailer and instead of the two horses we had planned on, came back with all four.

The real surprise though was Tori.  R.L. had just advertised him as a trail horse with a super foxtrot and disposition.  Which is probably all he knew about him since he had just picked him up at an auction a couple months earlier after his owner passed away.  I later found out that his past owner had purchased him at 6 months old and he had been his pride and joy for 12 years until his death.  The lady that actually bred Tori saw an article about us in the Foxtrotter Journal and contacted me to see if it was the same horse.  It was and she filled me in on how his owner was a friend and neighbor of hers and they had stayed in touch and her husband had even shown Tori some for his owner after he was taken ill.  She had always wondered what happened to Tori and was delighted that she had found him. We still keep in touch and I keep her updated on Tori.  She recently sent me this picture she found of him as a yearling.

I never even asked about bloodlines since I knew I wouldn’t know anything about them.  It was quite a pleasant surprise when I looked at his pedigree and found out he was sired by the multiply Grand Champion Rex’s Golden Touch.  So in 2006 I started showing Tori.  Luckily, Tori was an old hand at showing because I didn’t have a clue.

Notice the breast-collar?  I was quickly informed that you did not show foxtrotters with a breast-collar in performance classes.  Didn’t even have to wear the hat!  I had never used a bridle with a cavassen and had it so loose it was bouncing up and down on Tori’s nose, driving the Judge nuts.  And you should have seen me trying to figure out what to do with those ribbons.

And then the announcer said, “Bring ‘em in at a Foxtrot”.  A WHAT??  I knew Tori had several really smooth gaits that were different from anything I had ever ridden but I didn’t know one from the other.  But when that gate swung open and Tori heard the announcer, he just went into “auto-pilot”.  Whenever the announcer called a gait change, he automatically did it.  I was just along for the ride.  I did get to laughing when they announced “bring ‘em and line ‘em up”.  He hadn’t even finished saying it before Tori was heading to the center of the ring.  I think he could have done the whole class without me.  He was so good at this that he started listening to the Judge tell the Ringmaster what gait to call and would change up before the announcer got to say it.  Had to watch out for that!  And there was one class that I lost because I didn’t hear the announcer but Tori did.  Since I didn’t hear it, I corrected him.  Should have known he knew better than me.

Tori is also very competetive in the show ring.  It was soon obvious that he would pick out the best horse in the class and then try to get close to it and compete with that particular horse.  The better the horses were, the better he performed.  This competitive spirit combined with Tori’s high regard for himself did present some problems though.  I started noticing that he would be standing perfectly in the line up waiting for the class results.  Then they would announce the 1st place horse and they would exit the arena.  Tori would then start to toss his head.  Then when the 2nd place horse left, he would start pawing the ground and trying to move around.  And it you didn’t place by 3rd place you had better be ready, because he was leaving the arena whether you wanted to or not.  I later found out that his other owner had never placed lower than 2nd with him.  You would have thought he would have given me as a beginner a little bit of a break!!  Nope.

Another little “experiment” I tried with Tori was working cattle.  The Southeast Foxtrotter Assoc. sponsored a clinic in South Carolina with a couple of “Ropers” for Foxtrotters.  Tori was bored out of his mind while I attemped to rope the “steer”, but had no problem with me throwing the rope around his head.  Which was a good thing since I roped him more than the “steer”!

And you should have seen the look on his face when I took him in the pen with the calves to try “cutting”.  He was a good sport about it, but that look plainly said, “You want me to do WHAT!!  He was much happier in his more preferred element the next day when we showed at Fletcher again.  He made me very proud when he placed 2nd to a horse that has just won several Championships at Ava.

We did really good that year and ended up winning the MFTHBA High Point Championship for the Amateur/Novice division.

Because of a messed up foot (mine) I only showed Tori once in 2007 at the Virginia Gaited Jubilee.  I had talked to them at FOSH and convinced them to add classes for Missouri Foxtrotters because there were not any in Virginia.  I had been driving over 300 miles one way to get to a horse show with foxtrotter classes.  They told me they would do it this time, but it depended on how many foxtrotters participated as to whether or not they would do it the next year.  Well, I had got the ball rolling and was determined to make it work.  So I took 3 horses up there.  Tori and 2 others, Pride and Magic  that had never been to a show.  There were 4 of us riding these horses.  One was a lady from Connicuit that was a complete stranger but had heard about the show from a list we were both on.  She said she would be in the area during the show and wondered if she could come by and help out any.  Well, I was thrilled for the extra help and even convinced her to ride Pride in a couple of classes. Tori and I won the Western Pleasure class.  Immediately after that, I had major surgery on my foot and would end up not being able to ride for almost 2 years.  But I did let a youth rider, Star Moody show him at the Southern Classic in South Carolina that fall and she walked away with the Youth Championship.

Tori has pretty much just been a pasture ornament since that show, waiting for me to get healed up and released to ride again.  But he doesn’t seem to mind at all and is fat and happy and enjoying his semi-retirement.