ENGLISH PLEASURE ( SIDESADDLE & ASTRIDE)

Chris Glover and his handsome Silver Match were featured in our last installment, and here they return tacked up in English Pleasure style in a class for easy-gaited horses. Chris and Match competed for a long time with great success. The gelding had 287 lifetime starts with 43 wins before being retired. He was adopted and returned several times; then Chris bought him as a 50th birthday present to himself. At the time, he did not have much experience with horses and even less with riding, but was determined, he says, to make this new relationship work. Many lessons and hours in the saddle later they had their first success (in an arena-type trail class) at a Standardbred Pleasure Horse Organization (SPHO) show. They went on to win championships in SPHO and Ohio Standardbreds and Friends (OSAF) shows, as well as the Standardbred World Show.

Youth rider Elli Chandler also had great success with Match, winning in Western Horsemanship and Western Pleasure. In Match’s last full year of campaigning, at the age of 20 he was Champion Saddleseat Division, Champion Easy-Gaited Adult Division, CoChampion Easy-Gaited Youth Division, Champion English Division, Champion Western Division, and Reserve High Point Standardbred. He won ribbons in almost every discipline you can think of including Halter, Pleasure Racking, Speed Racking and even Pole Bending.

Chris reports that Match has served a Standardbred Ambassador for many years, representing the breed at parades and breed demos at both Equine Affaire and the Kentucky Horse Park.

He has participated in Breyerfest every year the Standardbreds have been invited. He’s a tremendous trail horse also, never refusing to go where he was asked.. including the Salt Pine Ridge Trail in Big South Fork Tennessee…a trail the locals said that they don’t even ride! “He has shown his mettle in the show ring” avers Chris, “just as he did on the racetrack.”

Shelley Volkman is sidesaddle aboard her gelding Rose Run Luther in this English Pleasure class for easy-gaited horses.