We didn’t have a professional trainer. We were just a group of good friends who shared a love for horses. We didn’t rent stalls; instead we tied the horses to the trailer in the parking lot. We had to ask a complete stranger how to properly put on the Peruvian tack. But we walked away from our first Peruvian show with four high-point awards and qualified for the championship classes.
Old ladies travel in packs, and our group of friends was no different. Nicknamed “F Troop"; the group members were all fifty and older (although at one time we had two younger mascots).
In 2005, Leah and Tammy had attended the Northeast Peruvian regional show in New Jersey. Leah came home with a gleam in her eye. In 2006, the Northeast club and the Lagos Grandes (Great Lakes) club were holding a combined show at the Virginia Horse Center in Lexington, Virginia. Leah proposed taking Quixoté to that show. For a year, we planned and Leah budgeted. She bought Peruvian tack. She and Qui practiced and practiced.
On Friday, the first day of the show, F-Troop pulled into the parking lot of the Horse Center with Quixoté. The F-Troop members were quick learners, 20 minutes prior to ring-time, the team was
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Photo by Kim Stone