Meet Minnie

Written By Marissa Greenberg, DVM

If you’ve followed our articles for a while, you might remember being introduced to my horse, Shotgun, last year. Though Shotgun was a great horse, and I learned a lot, and did very well showing him, in March of this year, I made the difficult decision to sell him. This decision was not taken lightly- I had Shotgun for 5 years, and he was an important part of my life. But, to reach the goals I had for my horse life, I needed to upgrade to a horse with more natural ability and talent, and unfortunately, from a financial aspect, I could only do so if I sold him. Luckily, Shotgun went to a great home- he now lives in a nice pasture with a friend on an avocado farm in Oxnard, CA and has an owner that takes excellent care of him and just adores him.

Selling Shotgun allowed me to buy Minnie- a 3-year-old, female, Quarter Horse. Minnie has a lot of natural ability and the “wow factor” look that catches the attention of judges in the world of the reined cow horses in which I show. 3 year old reined cow horses show in events called futurities- where they are shown in 3 events- the cutting, reining, and cow work (in my class called boxing). Visit the National Reined Cow Horse Association website for more detailed information about these events- www.nrcha.com. From the time I bought Minnie in April, until the shows started in August, I spent almost every day I had off of work taking lessons and learning how to show Minnie to our highest potential.

Some of you may have wondered why I was gone several times in the late summer and fall-two of the three weeks I took off were for me to show Minnie at futurities. My first show was in August in Paso Robles. The first event was the reining, and I won this event. The second event, the cutting, I finished second. Though I didn’t do as well in the last event, my cumulative score for the three events left me as Reserve Champion in my class. This was a huge accomplishment for me and Minnie-as this was a much higher level of showing than I had ever done on Shotgun. The pictures in this article are from the show in Paso Robles.

This boosted our confidence to go on to our next show, a much bigger and more prestigious even in Reno, NV. This show, called the National Reined Cow Horse Association Snaffle Bit Futurity, was at the end of September. The competition was even greater there than in Paso Robles. In the first event, the cutting, I tied for first. In the second event, the reining, I didn’t fare as well. But in the third event, the boxing, we prevailed and won. Our cumulative score left us Reserve Champions again, something that I was just thrilled with. Being second in a large, national, prestigious event like this was like a dream come true for me, and I couldn’t be happier with the performances that Minnie and I gave. For me, this accomplishment was one of the highlights of my life, and made my decision to sell Shotgun and buy Minnie all worth it. It was a satisfying experience to have all my years of hard work and dedication to my passion results in success. To read more about my experiences with Minnie you can check out the article in SLO Horse News: http://www.slohorsenews.net/marissa-greenberg-dvm/