She strides confidently alongside her baby, as hundreds of eyes watch the duo from behind bars. The bond between Tiffany Barta and Sundance is obvious, since Sundance is very loyal to her trainer, and causes Barta to swell with pride as they take second place in the Junior Mare division.
Barta is a member of the Raider Riders, a club that has partnered with the organization Thoroughbred Ponies to provide students with horses to teach them discipline and give them the experience of competition.
“It was my first time showing and it was really cool,” Barta said. “She was perfect.”
Although Sundance showed very well for her first time, Barta said she can be a brat sometimes.
“We see them every Sunday from 3-4 and we train them and a lot of the times she has temper tantrums,” Barta said. “She’s fussy and just got a little too hyped up. [It was her] first time around other horses.”
Unlike Sundance, Barta has been around many horses. She had never trained a horse before, but had lived near a horse farm where she helped out and gained a confidence around horses through her experiences on the farm. But her connection with Sundance may be short-lived because of a possible adoption in Sundance’s future.
“Once they’re adopted, they go to their owners, and we can’t train or see them anymore,” Barta said. “I am sad because she may be adopted soon, and I don’t wanna lose her because she’s so cute.”
Freshman Mar’Quavious Vaughn and his horse, Caramel Corn, was another Raider Rider member that competed and placed at their first Open Horse Show on Sunday, April 6. The team placed sixth in both Pony Halter and Senior Gelding Halter divisions alongside seasoned professionals. Pony Halter is a competition when horses are led by hand and judged on appearance. Senior Gelding Halter competition is the same except specifically for older male horses.
“It’s not really fair [that professionals get to compete], but then again, they get easy points for doing shows like that,” Vaughn said.
During the moments between showings, Vaughn experienced some adrenaline.
“I was really nervous,” Vaughn said. “I didn’t know if I’d wanna do it or not, but since I got a taste of it, I wanna do it again.”
Vaughn and Caramel Corn have had a pretty simple and understanding relationship in spite of Vaughn’s incident earlier in the year with another horse.
“The first horse I had bit me on the thigh,” Vaughn said. “He just grabbed [my thigh] and it scared me, so I decided to switch to Caramel Corn.”
Vaughn knew how to handle the aggressive horse and remained calm and collected throughout the encounter.
“When a horse tries to bite you, or does bite you, you’re supposed to hit it on the nose like a shark,” Vaughn said. “He was using me as a scratching post [at first], and I was like okay, you can scratch your head on me, but then it came out and bit me on my left thigh.”
But Caramel Corn has proven to be a very calm, very cooperative senior gelding, or older male horse. He was slow to start off on the run with Vaughn, but quickly picked up the pace for the judges.
“We got there and he wanted to run, so I thought I was going to be getting a lot of points for this,” Vaughn said.
Horses are extremely perceptive creatures, said Vaughn, so they feed off of their trainer’s emotions as well as other horses’.
“He was a little anxious when I was, and then I calmed down and he did too,” Vaughn said. “He did very well in competition, and I’m glad I got to compete with my Raider Rider family.”
The Raider Riders that competed and placed at the Quinlan Open Horse Show on April 6. From top right: Rachel McIntosh and Sassy place second in the Senior Mares division; Tiffany Barta and Sundance placed second and Delaney Grob and Brandi placed third in the Junior Mares division; Mar’Quavious Vaughn and Carmel Corn placed sixth in Senior Geldings division. Photos courtesy of Raider Riders sponsor Rachel Carey.