Kristin Gaines

Hi! My name is Kristin Gaines. I live in Oxford, MI. I will be attending Oxford High School in the fall of  2005. Our house is on 10 acres and there is about 80 acres of vacant property behind us that we enjoy walking and riding our dirt bikes and four wheelers on. One of the activities that I enjoy is: riding my dirt bike and four wheeler. Another thing I like to do is, to participate in my 4-H events. This year I am taking Willie, my new horse, to the Oakland County 4-H Fair in Davisburg. We are participating in all kinds of classes. I also love swimming in our pool.
I saw the 2002 and 2003 Congress reining tapes, and from then on I was very interested in it. My first horse, Phoenix was not able to do reining so we sold him. The next horse that we had was a 2 year old Quarter Horse mare. Her name was Lakota. She was a reining prospect, she was a very good 2 year old and she tried her best every time I rode her. She was going blind and she had a birth defect, which turned into a major problem so we had to put her to sleep. The next time I went out to the barn, my trainer told me that one of the horses needed to be worked so she gave me the owner's number. My mom contacted her and the owner said that her daughter was in Europe, so the horse needed to be worked. It worked out perfectly because I needed a horse and he needed a rider. His name was Thunder and he was an Arabian Saddle bred cross. He was one of the best horses I every rode. He loves to canter and go out on the trails. When we found out that his owner was coming back, we started really looking for a reining horse. With my past experiences with babies, I was looking for a finished or mostly finished reiner. That's when we came across Willie. We went to Matt Lantz's farm to look at a couple of horses. I rode Spotless and another horse, but I liked Willie the best. We bought him and I went to my first reining show on May 7 & 8th of this year.
Willie is a 5 year old chestnut gelding. His registered name is Go Time Willie. He is a wonderful horse, and I would not be here without him. Willie likes to act like a clown. He likes to push my grooming box around the aisle and pull everything that is in my box, out of it. He is not in training, but I work with Debbie Ford. This is my first year showing, Willie and I show Youth 14-18.
The thing that I enjoy most about reining is have the experience of a great ride, then getting a good score. For next year I would like to stay in the top 3 in the Youth Division in MRHA.
The memory that stood out in my showing experience was my ride on Sunday at the Liberty. I had a really good ride and I got a 71 for it. I really love being on the Youth Team, it is a really cool experience. I am in a 4-H club, but you can't even compare it to the Youth team! We do some pretty neat things on the team. Our coach, Emily, has been very supportive and is a great coach.
I would like to thank my mom, dad, and brother for being very supportive. I would also like to thank my trainer Debbie Ford for helping me get where I am. I would like to thank Matt Lantz for helping me at the Liberty, when my trainer couldn't be there, and all of the other people who helped me.
We got my second horse Lakota from Ohio, and when we went down to look at her we spent the night at a hotel. On our way down there my other trainer, Debbie Wiesner, was telling us how when she went to go look at a horse, she stayed at a hotel just like the one we were staying in. The beds sagged and the hotel was not that nice. We came into a city and it was in the middle of nowhere. So we kept on driving, it was not getting any better. We past a hotel, we thought there might be another one up farther. Nope, we were wrong! So we had to turn around and head back the way we came. We pulled in and parked behind some cars, with plenty of room for them to back up. We had just got out of the truck when this older gentlemen came up to his car, he looked at his car and then at the horse trailer. He then looked at us and yelled, "You aren't going to leave that THING there are you?" When he said "thing" he meant the horse trailer. My trainer gave him a strange look then said, "Yes sir we are going to leave that THING there." After he got into his car and drove away, we all started laughing. When we went to go check in to the hotel, it was really hard to understand the person at the counter. We got into our rooms and my mom and I looked at Debbie then back at our beds and we just laughed. The hotel was not that nice and the beds definitely sagged, just like Debbie's story.