A First For Europe

By Terrie Heid-Brazier

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06 June 2008 15:11

Docs Summer Sky, 8-year-old mare bred by Sovereign Quarter Horses and owned and trained by Terrie Heid-Brazier for the past seven years, has become the first horse in Europe to achieve an AQHA Superior Open All-Around award (pending confirmation of official show results by AQHA).

Sky won her 50th Open All Around Championship at the East Coast Quarter Horse Circuit Spring Show held in March, Cambs. in late May. Of the more than 3.5 million living registered Quarter Horses around the world who compete in all 50 United States and 28 foreign countries, only three or four have achieved such an award in any year, and the AQHA Records Department has confirmed that none of the 62 horses who have ever won it are from Europe or anywhere outside the U.S. and Canada.

Says Terrie: “I’m elated and relieved at the same time that Sky has now finished what she started when she was just two years old, especially because she is such a temperamental mare whose performance often depends on judicious handling to ensure she stays calm and in a good mood. I don’t think many people realise the incredible amount of focus and dedication it has taken to achieve this, on the part of both Sky and myself, and a couple of years ago I didn’t even think it was a possibility.

"Anyone who shows horses regularly knows how hard it is to train a horse to be at the top of his game (and stay there) in even one event, but when you multiply that by 7 very different events, it becomes extremely difficult and quite stressful. I’m proud of the fact that Sky has never won her All-Around championships by being a ‘jack of all trades, master of none’; on the contrary, she has been the British AQHA High-Point Champion and World Show Qualifier more than once in each of 6 of her events (Halter, Trail, Western Pleasure, Reining, Hunter Under Saddle, and Hunter Hack), while in the 7th event (Western Riding) she has twice been High Point Reserve Champion and won the AQHA-UK Open Championship.”

The other necessary ingredient in this achievement has been phenomenal soundness; Sky’s conformation is so correct and she is so strong that she has never once missed an AQHA show in 7 show seasons. Sky will now be retired from Reining, Western Pleasure and Western Riding but will continue with her other events, as she still enjoys competing in them. “Sky has been so generous to keep performing for me in class after class, at show after show,” says Terrie, “that I want to let her take it a bit easier from now on.”

(Photo by Nathan Haynes, NRH Photography)