The Incredible Chadwick | A Legendary Horse Story

By: Jackie Hahn Winans

The Sky’s The Limit, so keep reaching for the stars!

Many years ago, after losing my other horse, a friend of my husband asked If I wanted her daughter’s horse in which she had lost interest in. I thought about it long and hard wondering if I could handle the pain of losing another animal down the road, something made me say yes. It had been many years since the lose of my dear Peanuts, but I needed to take a chance and GO FOR IT. The new member of our family was only 1 1/2 years old, I had never raised a baby before, But I went in head first! His name is M.C. Chadwick covered in mud his coat dull from a long wet winter. My husband & I picked him up Dec 88′ and walked him down to our new home at Damoor Farms.

He was going to be my Show Horse, but not allot of other people felt the same way, he is an Arabian but at that time he didn’t look much like anything. People would say. “He is going to be too small for you”, “He will never be a show horse” “He will never be what you want” etc… Well we showed them!

We worked hours on end to polish his coat. We took long walks on the trail since he was still to young to ride. He became my best friend (next to my husband that is) He trusted me and I trusted him totally. There was never a time he didn’t try to do what I asked him to do, even if it made no since at all to him. We spend many of hours working on turning him into a Western Pleasure Horse, which requires hours & hours of doing the same moves over & over again. We then worked on obedience which is even harder. We then started working on teaching him how to pull a cart, he picked up on that right away also but those same people would say, “he is never going to make it” I turned the other cheek and went about my DREAM never giving up my Spirit. I was going to prove them wrong and show them what a wonder show horse he could.

Well we were ready to go, his beautiful shiny Cherry bay coat, with a long mane and a tail that was almost 3 feet dragging on the ground, people would stop and look and him with there mouths wide open, he was a sight to see. people would say “oh my god, He’s beautiful”

We started showing in 1993′ and the first ribbon we won was 2nd place out of 15 people, he went on with a bang, we were undefeated in 6 division until 1998′ in which we stopped to take a break for a while. He won PERFORMANCE HORSE OF THE YEAR IN 1997′ Nothing can ever replace the sound of people yelling when they call YOUR name as the Blue ribbon winner! and all your friends are there with you cheering you on.

So don’t ever let anyone tell you, you CAN’T do something.

Where there’s a will, there’s a WAY!

I now just teach him tricks & ride him on the trail, or ride around the block with him pulling the cart.

He is 16 years old now, and people still stop and stare, It’s take Drive, Teamwork & Love to win at anything in life.