Show photos by Fine Photography (purchased)

This show really brought home to me the fact that Nooitgedachters, and in particular Arop Stud’s Nooitgedachters, are some of the most amazing horses in the world. Well, I always knew that, but I believe that about basically every horse I ride at some point, it’s just that this show meant my opinion is not as biased as usual.

First, we loaded two stallions and a mare in the same horsebox. One of the stallions is three years old. The other one had to stand directly next to the mare, with only the partition between them. The mare kicked the side of the box and spooked them, and then we all went off to Pretoria and they didn’t do a thing. I’d like to see that done with some of the warmbloods I’ve seen.

They all settled in nicely at the showgrounds, and then beautiful Nell went out and strutted her stuff and won every in-hand class she walked into – culminating with Grand Champion Purebred Mare.

We also did dressage, although after showing in the stallions’ championship class, we had exactly eight minutes to saddle up and warm up. As a result Nell’s baby brain was still all over the place, so we drifted down the centerline, spooked at C and bucked twice. Spooks throughout and all, she had some truly super moments and impressed the judge with her talent. We were third in Prelim, scoring 53.6%. Once she has shown a bit more often and figured out that dressage letters do not eat horses, I think she’ll pull out some awesome scores.

Raldu (long known to readers as the Storm Horse Junior) kept his feet on the ground and his brain in his head despite being a three-year-old colt at his first time off the farm, resulting in Junior Champion Stallion.

And Ryka, the Storm Horse himself, was Reserve Champion Stallion. The Mutterer handled him and I believe if I splash pictures of the Mutterer all over the Internet he might make me do another two-hour lesson of mounting without a girth, so here are some gratuitous photos of Ryka at home ferrying his little human around and being majestic.

It was an honour to show these phenomenal horses for Arop Nooitgedachters and, above all, for my wonderful, beloved, magnificent Lord Jesus. Glory to the amazing King.

For the previously unenlightened international readers: These horses are Nooitgedachters. The Nooitgedachter is a breed of small horse native to South Africa. It is a fairly new breed, originating in the 1950s from Basutho, Arabian and Boerperd stock. The Basutho pony is the main ancestor; a small, unbelievably hardy pony from the mountains of Lesotho. These ponies were agile and had enormous endurance, and were crossed with Arabs and Boerperds to add size, better movement, and better looks. The result is today’s Nooitgedachter, a well-moving, good-looking and undeniably tough little horse renowned for its outstanding temperament and trainability. It stands between 13.2 and 16.1 hands high and excels in showing, endurance, and lower level eventing, but is best known as a superb all-rounder.