Christy Lynn Hart
Director of Equine Services at Hiwassee College
christylynnhartdressage.4t.com

Christy Is Truly a Lover of Horses – All Horses

It matters not to her whether a horse is a fancy Warmblood and cross-bred. She lists among her favorite horses a mix of breeds. At the top of the list is Maestro, affectionately known as Mouse, a Morgan/Quarter Horse/Thoroughbred cross with little Morgan ears. "He is by a Morgan stallion named Jubal of Hideaway and is out of a Throughbred/Quarter Horse mare named My Derby Princess by the Thoroughbred stallion, Prince Alsace. Mouse is the horse that I trained to Fourth Level. I bought him on payments from a friend. He was six and very green and very tense. He would run away in whatever gait he was in, and he curled behind the bit at the slightest touch of the reins, but he had a trot to die for!"

Mouse taught Christy quite a bit because he was no easy ride. "He was so tense, and his canter had lateral tendencies. My current trainer, Tami Crawford, used to say that Mouse had a $55,000 trot and a $5 canter. It was such a mix of ups and downs with Mouse. He could go in and win with a 72.50 percent and then get eliminated from the next test for jumping out of the arena when his nerves got the better of him! Tami used to say, 'Christy, I don't know if he'll let us train him any further,', but then he would. She must have said that fifty times!"

Despite being a challenge, both Christy and Tami are proud of how far Mouse managed to go in his training before founder stalled his career. "Tami will tell you that Mouse is the poster-child for what love, patience, and dressage training can do for a horse." Although now mostly a trail horse, Christy said that on a good day, Mouse "can do a line of four tempis or an extended trot."

Tami Crawford's Grand Prix Horse, Dakota Broadened Her Horizons