It is safe to say that photographing Georgia with Paddy & Dessie at Olive Hill Sport Horses in Lexington,KY when I was traveling through Kentucky on my annual road trip last year was an absolutely blast. Just by looking at their portraits I think you will be able to tell that both Paddy & Dessie have the goofiest personalities, and truly must have been golden retrievers in a previous life because they are both giant cuddle bugs, Paddy likes to lick people to death and Dessie prefers to put everything in his mouth.
Master Class, Paddy, is an 11-year-old, and Discreet, Dessie is a 5-year-old Gelding. I guess you could say that Georgia has a thing for Irish Sporthorse Gelding. Georgia and her boys train with Diana Conlon.
One of Georgia’s favorite memories of Paddy is from when they originally bought him in Ireland. Georgia said the famous, “no one in our family needed a horse”, and all of those horse lovers out there know exactly what that means! Georgia’s friend convinced her family to take a look at this spunky, fiery, completely full of himself 4-year-old. Georgia said when she tried him they were free jumping and he was bucking wild being completely full of himself clearing the fence every time. The jumps slowly went a little higher, until he decided he was bored and needed to turn around and jump the 1.20m oxer backwards! He hit the fence and knocked it down (no biggie, all was fine) but from that moment she fell in love with his spunk and determination and just “had to own him”. To this day, this story still cracks Georgia up because he is now one of the calmest and collected horses she has ever been around.
Georgia says that both of her horses are mouthy but not in the traditional sense, in different ways. Paddy will lick you to death if you let him and he’ll also happily stick his tongue out for a photo. Paddy also isn’t afraid to let you know what his opinions are on bubble baths. Dessie being younger is so inquisitive and this usually results in him putting anything and everything good or bad in his mouth. We joke daily that we are still pacifier training him.
