Jo’s Joy – Oil, 2008, sold

Rodeo SS++// (Desperado V x AA Ebony Star) was born a long-legged, spunky black colt on March 27, 1998. Misunderstood by many, he journeyed many miles and traversed multiple hands before settling into his current and final home with me in Virginia in the spring of 2003. Rodeo is a 16-hand purebred Arabian who is jet black in color, has a white star on his forehead, and has a band of white around the coronet band on his hind right leg. He exhibits a muscular, sporty body, soft, liquid eyes, a refined, typey head, classically-tipped ears, and demonstrates slow-cadenced, free-flowing, elegant gaits.
As Rodeo was bred to be a western pleasure champion and was given a name that is synonymous with that discipline, it might be surprising that he has excelled in the arenas of dressage and sport horse. Granted he has garnered five national championships in dressage and sport horse under saddle, these accolades have not been awarded without first endeavoring trials and tribulations. As unbefitting as his name may seem, Rodeo has certainly lived up to his moniker by displaying his bucking, rearing, and other “rodeo-esque” antics at the most astonishing and inopportune times. He has chosen the show ring as the ideal venue in which to dump me on multiple occasions, he has displayed his extreme grace and elegance in the middle of a dressage test by getting all four of his legs tangled in the plastic chain that defines the perimeter of the dressage arena, he routinely selects the most prestigious horse shows of the year to break out in full-body hives for no determinable reason, and he believes that national championship victory laps are, by far, the most appropriate times to gallop uncontrollably around the ring leaving me clinging to the saddle for dear life.
Diagnosed in April of 2006 with Equine Protozoal Myeloencephalitis (EPM), a progressive, degenerative neurological disease of the central nervous system, as well as a fracture of the fifth cervical vertebrae in his neck, it was uncertain as to whether or not Rodeo would ever return to serviceable soundness, much less if he would ever re-enter the show ring. However, after a year of intense and diligent treatment, rest, and rehabilitation, Rodeo made a successful return to the show ring the following spring, and went on to win three national championships in dressage and sport horse under saddle at the 2007 Arabian Sport Horse Nationals.
Rodeo is unique in the fact that while he is an incredibly silly horse and his curiosity usually gets the best of him, he possesses a heart larger than any horse I have ever met. The endurance that this horse exhibited while being transferred over the years from trainer to trainer, owner to owner, and barn to barn, and his strength and courage to overcome such debilitating injury and disease all the while remaining wholly trusting and understanding of the humans in his life speaks to the size and depth of Rodeo’s heart, an exceptional trait that I have encountered in few horses in my life. Rodeo may be a horse, but he is also my best friend and confidante. He will always have a special place in my heart, not only because of his accomplishments, but also because of his beauty, willingness, grace, and spirit as a horse.