Photo Courtesy of PHJ/Jessica Hein

If you’ve ever been at a show and spotted a flashy looking horse sporting more than one color and doing well in the ribbons, chances are you’re looking at a Paint.

Whether you’re wondering if a Paint is the right horse to take you to the next level or you just want to learn more about this breed, come along as we meet three horses that are at the top of their game.

Final Design (Scout)

Competing in the jumpers was not the goal of Linda Fohl of Monticello, Florida, when she bred a Paint Horse named Final Design. She had been searching for a registered Paint stallion that could move like a performance horse. After training him herself, they started showing in longe line, and later on in futurity classes throughout Florida and Georgia. As Final Design grew older, Linda saddle broke him with the idea that he might be a good Western Pleasure horse.

“He wouldn’t lope—he wanted to gallop,” Linda recalls. When she realized that Final Design, whom she affectionately calls “Scout,” wasn’t destined to become the Western Pleasure horse she was hoping for, she hired local trainers Frank Barnett and Sonny Little to take over his training.

Once Frank brought him along enough to get started as a jumper, Linda hired Sonny Little of Havana, Florida, to work with him in eventing, despite many people’s doubts about his potential.

“When we started out, everyone said he couldn’t do it,” Sonny explains. The first year that Sonny worked with him, they barely competed, and the second year, he prepared Scout for Preliminary Level. When the horse and rider team went to eleven Preliminary shows, and won seven of them, they proved everyone wrong.

While under Sonny’s training, Final Design went on to become the USEA National Novice Reserve Champion in 2003, and was the top event horse for the Performance Horse Registry that same year. In 2005, Final Design competed in his last event at Red Hills International Horse Trials, where he received fifth before returning home with Linda.

It wasn’t until 2007 that Linda was approached by a young girl, Sarah Randell, who asked if she could show Scout on the hunter/jumper circuit. At the time, Linda was showing him in Levels 1 and 2, but she decided to give Sarah the chance to compete with him, which ultimately resulted in the pair receiving fifth place in the 2008 Marshall & Sterling League’s Children’s Jumper Finals.

Since graduating from riding Scout, Sarah has moved on to training with Leslie Burr Howard, who she’s now working alongside. “I truly believe that she is working with Leslie because of [Scout],” Linda says, partially crediting Sarah’s stellar horsemanship skills to her time riding Final Design. “He’s a very feisty horse, so he taught her how to stay on.”

Scout, who is now twelve years old, is currently working with Linda, and is beginning the next chapter in his career: dressage. Judging from his success in eventing and jumping, the sky seems to be the limit for this horse.

Countin My Options (Count)

According to Patrick McKenna, his acquaintance with Countin My Options, a seven-year-old Paint Horse, happened by chance. Patrick had started The Monarch School, a private boarding school, and wanted to include a riding program in conjunction with it. As someone who had only ridden “here and there” as a child, Patrick asked a friend to help him begin looking for horses.

At the time, Countin My Options, also known as “Count,” was a two-year-old whose owner needed to find a new home for him.

It was at that time that Patrick came along and saw potential in him as a lesson horse for his school. “We needed to have horses that could be around kids,” Patrick explains. “They couldn’t be spooky, and had to have a good temperament. Count fit all those criteria. He was very calm, so we took him on a trial basis, and it ended up working out.”

After buying Count, things ended up working out better than Patrick ever expected. Around the same time that he purchased Count, Patrick decided to further his equestrian education, and began taking lessons. As his thirst for knowledge increased, Patrick decided to begin training in dressage, and brought Count to Gail Redinger, a dressage trainer based out of Sandpoint, Idaho.

Standing at 16.5 hands with a long back, Gail describes Count as a fancy looking Paint with a little bit of knee action. She explains that he has the ideal temperament and build for a dressage horse. Despite his ideal build, it wasn’t always easy training him in dressage.

“He was basically a walk-trot-canter horse when I first started working with him. He didn’t have any finesse about him,” Gail says, recalling that she thought of him more as a trail horse at the time.

Patrick remembers that many people doubted that Count would ever become successful as a dressage horse. But when both horse and rider began winning at area shows, it became evident that this Paint was destined for greatness. That’s when Gail began pushing him even further, beginning to ride and compete him up to Third Level at six years old.

Four years after Patrick first purchased him in 2007, Gail was training Count to do flying changes, working pirouettes, and half passes, to prepare him for showing in the higher levels of dressage. The same year, Patrick injured his back, and was unable to continue his dressage training.

After his injury, Patrick brought Count to The Monarch School, where he is currently being used as a lesson horse. According to Gail, if Count had continued to school in dressage, he could have currently been performing at the FEI Level. “He would have made a wonderful horse at the FEI Level,” she says. “He could have a week off, and then just get right back into the groove as if he’d been ridden the day before. Those horses are worth their weight in gold.”

Jackslacyharlequin (Harley)

Pixie Keating, a well-known combined driving trainer based out of Aiken, South Carolina, knew exactly what she was looking for when she purchased Jackslacyharlequin, also known as Harley.

“I wanted a Paint mare small enough to be eligible to compete in the pony division in combined driving,” says Pixie. As a 14.1- hand Paint mare, Harley was exactly what Pixie was looking for. At the time, Harley had been used as a broodmare, and was purchased at eight years old, so Pixie had her work cut out for her. “Paints are flashy, and you get a lot of attention,” says Pixie. “But they better perform well. If you come down the center line with a flashy horse like a Paint, they’re more noticeable. They can pull a lot of weight, have good stamina, and are tougher than nails. They also have a good personality and a good work ethic.”

In order to prepare her horse for combined driving, Pixie hired Jean Paul Gautier and Suzy Cain to help her bring Harley along in both driving and dressage. Although it was challenging training a broodmare to become physically and mentally fit for combined driving, Pixie says that it was well worth the effort to get Harley to where she is today.

Pixie and Harley’s many accolades include earning second place in the Advanced Single Pony division at the 2008 Katydid CDE, and eighth place at the 2009 Live Oak International. Pixie is most impressed by how quickly Harley came along.

“Harley went from being a broodmare and getting broke to drive when she was ten to showing at advanced level when she was twelve,” Pixie says proudly. “That’s a major accomplishment in itself. I don’t think currently there’s another Paint competing at the International Level [in driving].”

Based on the inspiring stories of these three horses, Paint horses have proven to be versatile and athletic, and are capable of making it to the top level in a variety of disciplines.

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