DEMOCRACY KS | 10 YEAR OLD HANOVERIAN GELDING | CORPUS CHRISTI,TX

Dino, Democracy KS, is a Hanoverian Gelding. His sire is DeLaurentis who is by DeNiro, his dam is Gwendolyn who is by Wallstreet Kid. He was bred by Karan Schwencer of Windswept Hanoverians in Maryland.

Oh Dino. You are a special boy. I don’t think I will ever forget the first time I saw you at the Region 9 USDF Championships at Great Southwest Equestrian Center. I knew of Chloe from our days showing when we were younger, and we have recently reconnected while plotting and planning a secret proposal for a mutual friend of ours. I made sure to make it over the the ring to watch her show, because I had heard so much about Dino or as he is sometimes called “Dino the Dinosaur.” He did not disappoint, he has the most expressive personality from the warm up till the time she finished her test, Dino was sure to make his personality known to everyone that was watching him. Lets just face it, he is a handsome fella and he knows it…and wants to make sure everyone sees it!

Chloe decided she wanted to ride when she was four, she found a phone book and looked up horseback riding. Then forced her mom to call the number, that was 21 years ago.  Today she is a phenomenal dressage trainer in Corpus Christi,TX and runs CEC Elite Training. Oh, and I can’t forget she has a pretty awesome Instagram feed where you can keep up with all of the exciting things that she is doing! Chloe says her favorite thing about riding is, building a relationship with each horse, “it is unlike anything else.”

Now back to Dino, he a giant. Seriously he is 17 hands. But he tends to thinks that he is much smaller than he actually is. I’m pretty sure he would actually prefer to sit in Chloe’s lap. He truly thinks he is a champion, hence the wanting everyone to watch him at shows! In all honesty, he is a giant teddy bear and wants all of the attention of everyone in the barn, at the shows, or anywhere he goes. He LOVES to have his ears rubbed and even smiles when you scratch them, but the funniest habit of his is when he has a scratch. If he is in the cross ties, he will tell everyone he has an itch by stretching out and demanding that he is untied so he can either reach around and scratch his tail with his teeth or itch his ears with his back hooves (just like a dog). He is a pretty special big guy.

Dino is schooling PSG at the moment. Chloe says, “My favorite thing about riding him is he keeps me on my toes. I never know what I’m going to get when I ride him and he always keeps it interesting. But he is so fun and gives the rider an amazing feeling when he is going. He will try his heart out for me but also plays games to keep things interesting.”

Chloe attended college at Johnson and Whales University  in Rhode Island, and actually found Dino through one of her professors. “One of my previous professors owned him and called me when I moved back from Germany because she thought we would be a perfect match. So I bought a plane ticket and had 24 hours in Rhode Island to decide if I wanted him. I went out as soon as I got there and tried him, when I walked in the barn I saw a very pretty, adorable black horse. He would have been happy to just cuddle but that’s not how it works when you want to buy a horse. I took him to the ring and hopped on, he was pretty straight forward but green, had great movement and was quite fun. I then went to my hotel for the evening before trying him again in the morning. In the morning I got him ready myself to get to know him better and he was so sweet and loving I was sold at that point. I got back on him and was able to build on what I did the day before which made me happy about his ability to learn. I got off and told her I wanted him and now we are here two years later!”

Chloe says that the one word to describe Dino would be “Lovable,” and I would have to agree, but I think he is more of the lovable class clown. His favorite treats is Sour Spaghetti, yes, you heard that right! Oh, and Carrots. He gets a night time carrot every night at bed time.

Dino’s biggest accomplishment over the past year has been working through his baby craze at shows, he has gone from being eliminated for dangerous behavior at shows to going in the ring like a grown up show horse all in a year’s time. As a matter of fact one of Chloe’s favorite memories of Dino is “Our first time back in the show ring after a long road of being eliminated and going back and starting over. He is a tricky horse and it took some time to figure him out but once I did our bond grew more than I ever thought it would. I absolutely adore this horse.”

Chloe’s best kept secret (well not anymore 😉 ) is to take is slow with training. “Make sure and warm up every horse long and low, it makes a huge difference when you pick them up.”

Make sure you read more about 365 Days of Horses, and don’t forget to apply for you horse to be featured on the blog and receive a complementary Black Background Portrait Session.

Don’t forget to check out more of the CEC Elite Training crew including Skittles, Frankly, Smokey Jo, Willo, Ziggy, Kingston, and Kaleo.

 Karinda K Equine Photography is a Corpus Christi equine photographer located in Montgomery, TX. Karinda creates timeless portraits of you with your beloved horses, and other farm animals. Serving locally Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin, Texas communities. KEP also serves Wellington and Ocala, Florida, Lexington and Louisville, Kentucky, Aiken, South Carolina, Tryon, North Carolina, and Norco and Woodside, California and their surrounding communities.