About Ben
Ben or BTF Poised To Perfection is a 2003 APHA & PtHA Gelding out of Dignified Poise and by Drylees Bar Girl. Ive ridden Ben since I was 9 years old yet I still dont know what the BTF stands for. Ben is 17 hands tall with the laziest yet sassy personailty a gelding can have. Because of his small ears, cute muzzle and staggering height, this makes Ben not only a barn favorite, but an Instagram super model. Ben is an all-around show horse but I find his strengths in all of the western events. Our strongest and favorite class is showmanship. Ben and I just work like two peas in a pod in this class, which is funny because when I first started to ride him in 2011, we didnt click in showmanship so I ended up hating showmanship for a while.
I leased Ben for a partial year in 2011-2012. My parents recently put down my first horse I shared with my sister. They didnt have the money to go out and purchase a new horse right away. So my barn manger connected my mom with Bens previous owner. I had one trial ride on him. My god he was massive and so diffrent from the one mare ive ridden all of my life, but I couldnt help but fall in love. His owner urged my parents to sign me up for 4-H, and event though I had no will to be in 4-H, Im glad my parents signed me up.
After a tough year in my first year of 4-H, I had to give Ben back. I cried when I put him in his stall (for what I thought) was going to be the last time. I never thought I could have the connection and bond with such a horse. But I rememberd this one line from my favortie childhood TV show on Disney Channel, " Good Luck Charlie", which went, " If you love something let it go, and if it comes back, its yours forever"
In 2014, Bens owner gave my mom a call saying she was going to sell Ben. I was happy yet sad. I constanlty thought, " What if my parents could buy him" and "what if someone else did". She said I could ride him and show him to advertise him in a local APHA show. It was hard to do but I swallowed my emotions and agreed. I took him and showed him for the first time since 2012, and we finished top 5 all-around. People were interested but nobody purchased him. Six months later, just short after my 14th birthday, we ran into Ben and his previous owner. She was telling us that she was going through family issues, which caused her to struggle financally. That was forcing Ben's sale. She told my mom and I that she needed to get rid of him as soon as possible. So she literally gave him to us. Ive never cried tears of joy so hard in my life. Ben came back to me forever.
After two years of succsessfully showing him as I now owned him, my world came to a stop. In the spring Goldmine Circut show in Burbank California in 2016, Ben somehow injured himself. Still to this day I can only pin it down to trailering him. He was dead as a dog lame. I didnt know what to do. My parents dont have all the money in the world so for 6 months we slowly went to vet, to vet, to hopefully get some answers. I noticed change in his right leg, as if the left side of his cannon bone had swollen up. In November of 2016, we were finally able to get the money to get him to the Alamo Pintado Equine Medical center in Solvang, California. We couldnt get an appointment til January of 2017. In that appointment we discoved that Ben had broken his splint bone or his second metacarpal bone. It pierced into his supensory tendon causing that swollen effect. The only way to save him was surgery. My parents did have enough money for surgery. And 18 months later Ben made a full recovery. Yes that tendon has calcified, which menas he can no longer be ridden in super deep dirt, but that means he's still showable. In our first show back, which was the Kern County Fair in 2017, (yes he was somewhat still recovering but still showable) we walked away with Champion in FFA showmanship and Reserve Chapion in the Western 14-18 division.
So flash forward to modern day, Ben is a happy and spoiled boy, we show at smaller, more local based shows since his leg cant handle as much stress as it used to, and we have a good time!