Noble Guardian Retires! Yep, the real Noble Guardian has retired from a lustrous career. as a Hunter.  Below is the beautiful tribute written by his owner about his retirement. 

 I have a special announcement to make.. As you all know, Alvero was my first horse. He took me from schooling 2' to 4' (showed up to 3'). He was the absolute best first horse I could ever ask for. I have so many memories with him that I will cherish for the rest of my life. He taught me to be a good horseman, competitor, rider, and most of all he taught me how special it is to have a bond like we have. The bond we have is something irreplaceable.

He joined the family June 4th, 2014, and we immediately hit it off. I remember my trainer looked at many horses for me before we found Alvero, and for odd reasons they never worked out. I know now that was for a reason. I got a phone call one day in May of 2014 from my trainer saying “Hey, we found a horse for sale that I think would be a good fit for you, want to come with us while we pick him up for a trial?”, and the rest is history. Over the next few days, I took lessons with him and I loved him. I remember thinking “am I making the right choice?” when I said yes, and it absolutely was. We took to each other immediately. I was his and he was mine. I remember waking up in the morning every day and I couldn’t wait until I could see him. During that time (2014/2015), I was struggling with severe depression, and seeing his face every day was what kept me going. Without him, I don’t know if I would be here today.

We immediately found a rhythm together. My first show with him I remember walking out of the flat class with the blue ribbon, and the pure happiness I felt was unrivaled. We kept showing and getting better and better over the years, and now I have a whole box of blue and champion ribbons I will forever cherish. Not only was he an incredible first horse, but the show ring is where he absolutely shined. When you took off the martingale for the flat class he would flick his toes extra, when I made a mistake he would do his best to hide or fix it, and when we put in a good trip, he absolutely knew it. It was really hard for me to retire him from showing knowing how much he loved it, but he was almost 21, and it was very important to me to retire him sound. He had given me SO much and taken care of me throughout the years, and it was my turn to take care of him.

Just a few show highlights from over the years:

IHJA Limit Medal Finals 3rd Place- 2014

Chicago Equestrian Hunter Derby Winner- 2015

IHJA Child Mini-Medal Finals Winner- 2016

WHJA & IHJA Children’s Hunter Year End Champion- 2018

Showing in the Brownland Farm Hunter Derby- 2019

Showing at HITS Ocala- 2021

And numerous blue and champion ribbons throughout the years

I'd like to announce a very happy retirement to my Noble Guardian, you've more then earned it

(I believe all of the dates on the photos are correct (I tried lol), and they're in no particular order, but they're just a "few" of the hundreds I have from us over the years"

 My Birthday Boys! They had a blast for their parties. 

                                                YUM! YUM! I love birthday treats! 

Corey, too! He's turned a whopping eleven years old and is now an adult horse. He doesn't like it much, being a kid is so much fun. 

Hey that's my hat!

 Ready for book signings... I got a chopper, a horse, and a Tbird! Just waiting for a publisher!

In the Story: Horseshow Jumps

Vertical: Poles stacked on top of each other, with no spread or width. A straight upright jump.

Oxers: Sometimes called spreads are actually two verticals with a distance between them to make the jump wider than one verticals.

Square Oxer - both poles are set at the same height. COREY! yes, this is my horse going over a square oxer with my trainer. He looks great! 

Ascending Oxer or Ramped Oxer - each pole is higher than the previous.  Or the Descending Oxer, or a Offset Oxer, where the poles are lower than the previous.

Triple Bar Jumps: Are three vertical jumps together. The first rail is usually the lowest and the next higher and the last higher. Though looks imposing, it is an easier jump for the horse to make.

Liverpools: Are made to appear like a pool of water on the ground. In some cases, it is real water. In Noble Guardian, it is real water and James William seems to land in it every time. 

Combinations: are a group of fences, usually verticals and oxers. They are placed at close distances, usually one to two strides apart. This one is three verticals. 

Show jumping level ranges from 2'9" to 5'6" high.

Grand Prix jumping is 5'6" and over.

In the Story: Show Time!

At a horseshow, all the barns have banners up, not only to identify themselves, but they also use the backdrop to hang ribbons. When the Nethers go to their first horseshow, Kyle had a banner made to announce their new endeavor, Noble Heights, named after his mother's champion horse.

There's a lot of excitement in the air when arriving for a horseshow. It's a fury of unpacking, setting up, unloading horses. Each stall has to have wood shavings, water buckets hung and filled, hay nets, and of course...horses!

My Boys at the Show

Zorro

Corey

Corey is always so nosey when I go into Zorro's stall.