The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Horse trainers share generational know-how
Fairmount family’s work with walking horses a labor of love.
With the number of world championships he has helped bring home, you’d think Nick Price would be a little less humble. But when you ask him about his horse training, he points the success right back at the riders.
Price has been around horses his whole life. His father, Alan, is a horse trainer, too. Nick has been riding since he was a kid, and straight after high school he started working at Price Stables, the family barn in Fairmount.
“We’ve done really good. We’ve been blessed,” Price said. “I’ve showed a lot of horses in my life since I was a kid, but I never thought I would ever stand at the Celebration on the bricks as a World Grand Champion. I never thought it would happen.”
Now married with two sons, Price runs the barn together with his father. They have 20 Tennessee walking horses at their facility, all trained by the Prices. Many of those are champions, the two most notable being world champions Dobie Gray and Iron Door.
Rejoining the fold
Those horses are among the 10 at Price Stables owned by horsewoman Sarah Burks. She is a lifelong horse lover and equestrian. She won the Tennessee Walking Horse Celebration in 1982.
She got out of the horse business a couple of years later, and she battled drug addiction. Her biggest win is that she has been sober for 20 years as of March 19.
Thanks to the Prices, Burks came back onto the scene about seven years ago, and has been competing and winning ever since.
“She’s spent a lot of money with us and put a lot of time into it, and she’s stuck with me,” Price said.
Whereas some owners might get frustrated when their horses aren’t immediately where they need to be, Burks let Price take his time with her horses — and it has worked out for her.
“She said, ‘I want you to do my horse training’ and she gave me the opportunity to spend enough time with one to get it where I wanted it,” Price said. “And a lot of people don’t have that patience.”
She connected with Nick and Alan largely by chance. She went to a horse show and ran into them in the parking lot. Alan Price knew her, and said that he wanted to get her back on a horse after a long absence.
“He said, ‘I want to put you back in the show ring,’” Price said.
Burks initially declined. Her husband had died and she hadn’t been on a horse in years. Of course, a week or two later Burks bought a horse from the Prices. And then another. Now, she has 10 horses at Price Stables, and Price said she has probably owned about 100 off and on since then.
Burks knows everything about her horses, about their bloodline, personalities and how they’ve taken to training.
And she loves and spoils them — her horses look for treats from every person who walks past them. Iron Door, in particular, loves peppermints.
A perfect match
Burks and Price immediately hit it off, as she tells it. She loved the trainer she had back in the 1980s, but she says that she loves Price’s training even more.
“I couldn’t have done anything on those horses if anybody but Nick had trained them,” Burks said.
It’s certainly in his blood. Price first learned to ride when he was 5. And his dad learned to ride when he was a kid, too.
“That’s the only thing I’ve ever done,” Price said. “I graduated high school and headed right here and went to work.”
Price Stables focuses solely on training Tennessee walking horses. The training done to get that signature gait is intensive. It has taken Price years to get Burks’ horses to where he wants them, two or three years for Iron Door, specifically, but now that they’re there, they’re certainly winners.
“We got to doing good and winning, and now we go compete with the biggest and the best,” Price said.
But, of course, he does deflect that success right back onto Burks.
“She brought me something to work with,” he said. “If I hadn’t had those great horses to work with ... She’s done more than she’s let on.”
Price does have other clients, four or five others who have him train their walking horses. He said some parts of the year are busier than others, but right now, they tend to keep around 20 horses at any given time.
This time of year, they’re getting busy — and not because of extra horses. The Prices just got back from showing their horses, and will be right back out on the road next week to show again. They’ll be busy every weekend in April, showing off their walking horses in different competitions.
“I say we’ll do good this year,” Price said. “We got a new horse we bought last fall named Jose’s Power Broker, and he’s got a heck of a show record. And he’s a real good horse.
“So I would say we’ll have a really good year.”
He also has high hopes for Iron Door, who Price said was kind of “Old Faithful” because he always nets them a win. And while Iron Door is a champion, he’s also well-loved, and very much Burks’ baby.
“I’ll tell you what he is, he’s a big pet is what he is,” Price said. “We’ve spoiled him.”
And really, that goes for all the horses at Price Stables. They have large, clean stalls, good food, a facility that’s well-loved and well-maintained and trainers and riders who not only want to win, but also care deeply for their animals.