When I purchased him, he had been trail ridden all over Kentucky and Tennessee.  From the first time I rode him, I knew he was special.  I loved his gait, disposition and conformation.  When I got him home my friend, Maye, rode him and fell in love with him also (I can barely get her to ride anything else now).  Then I decided to show him in our Florida shows.  Our shows that year were going to be 4 class A nationally sanctioned shows in 5 days.  A month before the shows I kicked Maye off him and rode him myself every day for that month.  I did not really expect to get much in the way of ribbons, but wanted everyone to see a truly traditional Rocky.  I had told several people to meet up with me at the show so I could introduce them to Rockies.  If they knew how to ride,  I put them up on Maverick in between our classes.  Much to my surprise, we came away with at least a first place each day.  The final day of the shows was at the Florida State Fair and saw one of the founders of the breed, Rea Swan, as our judge.  She must have liked him as well as I do because we got got first in Open Amateur Owned and Trained, and Florida Resident.  We also won the Amateur Owned and Trained Championship and Florida Resident Championship and got Reserve Grand Champion.  Not bad for a little trail horse that had never seen the inside of a show ring before that week.

One very special class for me that week of showing was when a friend of mine, Dan Word, rode Maverick.  You see Dan was suppose to show his horse that week, but it had been injured and could not show.  I had offered to let Dan ride Maverick when I found out about it, but another person, hoping to sell their horse, had gotten him to ride their horse instead (it did not give him a good ride).  There was a one day break while we moved our horses from Ocala to Tampa for the third and forth show.  I did not see Dan all day the third day and decided to give Maverick a break and only showed him in one class.  After bedding Maverick down for the night, I went back up to the ring to watch the rest of the show.  Several hours later Dan comes running up asking where Maverick was.  I thought it a strange question and replied that he was in his stall.  He wanted to ride Maverick in the western class.  I reminded him that he had never ridden Maverick and that it might be a better idea to practice that day and ride the next.  Besides there was only two classes left before the western class.  It turned out that Dan had driven about 200 miles that day just to ride Maverick in the western class and was then going to drive back that night so he could meet with a client the next morning.  How could I refuse!  Of course Maverick's stall was one of the fartherest from the ring and Dan's western tack was still in his truck out in the parking lot (I showed Maverick in English tack, but he is neck reined so I 'cheat' and while it looks like I'm reining English, I'm really touching the reins on his neck to neck rein him).  We ran and entered him, then dashed to his stall.  I sent Dan ahead to the parking lot to get the tack while I hit Maverick a few times with a brush to knock the sawdust off and then followed in the general direction Dan had disappeared in.  I met Dan in the middle of the road coming around the back side of the stables and we tacked Maverick up right there.  His practice ride was from there to the warm-up ring with me running behind shouting tips.  As we got to the warm-up ring the last horse was entering the ring for Maverick's class.  Normally you have to stop for the DQP to check your horse's feet for signs of abuse, but he waved him through and into the ring.  I stopped next to the DQP, panting, and commented 'you didn't check him?'  His reply was that he recognized the horse, especially when he saw me trailing behind him, and had checked him several times that week.  Besides he said, "I figure you'd kill the person that hurt that horse."  He was right, but I did not realize it was so obvious.  The class was a very big one with many well trained, stallions and seasoned show horses.  I figured he did not have a chance of even getting a ribbon.  I was wrong.  He got third.  Dan was beaming from ear to ear.  I was as proud of Maverick that day as I'll ever be.

Maverick's greatest gift though is as the farm's demo horse.  He is the horse that I put everyone on.  He is a great judge of a rider's ability.  I've seen him absolutely refuse to gait for people that did not have a good enough seat.  I've seen him walk like he was on egg shells when carrying 3 and 4 year old children.

About a year after I showed Maverick, I injured my right leg severely.  I had ruptured the ligaments in the lower part of the leg and had to go around in a wheelchair for almost two months.  I could stand if I had to, but it hurt a lot and did damage the more I was on it.  During that time, my friend Mark came down from KY with his horse.  Of course I was not going to let a little thing like a bum leg stop me... especially when I had a horse like Maverick to ride.  I reasoned that I would only need to stand long enough to tack the horse up and get on him.  Of course he knew as soon as I got up on him that something was wrong with me.  About a half hour into the ride we had to cross some water.  Mark went first and just charged on across the pond.  Maverick on the other hand carefully felt his way across it.  Mark turned and watched and then commented, 'that horse sure is taking care of you.'  I realized that he was being very careful not to do anything that might make me lose my balance at ALL.  Any other horse would have taken advantage of the fact that I did not have the full use of one leg, or they would have gotten upset because I was riding differently then normal, but not Maverick.  Instead he decided that on that day he needed to baby sit me!  I'm not sure that I like the idea of my horse deciding I needed baby sitting, but his heart was definitely in the right place.  We rode for several hours that day and Maverick was extra careful the whole time.  On the way back to the barns, Mark commented about how smooth my horse was...  he did not know the half of it.

Another memorable ride happened earlier that year... before I injured my leg.  We had trailered over to Tillis Hill, which is part of a state forest.  The state's Rocky club was having a meeting and trail ride that day.  It was cold (January) and the only ones that showed up for the trail ride were myself and my friend Maye.  She got to ride Maverick that day and I rode my mare Jewel.  When we got back from our ride, several of the club members had arrived for the meeting.  Two of them were an older couple that loved the breed, but kept buying the wrong horses for their level of ability.  Maye offered to let the wife ride Maverick.  At first she was somewhat timid on him, but she soon got more comfortable and was gaiting him around the parking area.  I rode over to talk to the husband for a minute and we watched his wife riding.  Suddenly he drew in his breath and then asked in amazement 'did you see that?"  His wife had lost her balance for an instant and would have fallen off most horses, but Maverick had stepped under her and continued on as if nothing had happened.  So that day Maverick gained two more members to his fan club.

At times I let Maverick come live in my yard.  He loves that.  He comes and meets me when I get home as I get out of the truck.  He also hangs out at the porch hoping for some attention.  If Maye or I have not ridden him for a few days then he will walk up and stand next to the porch looking at you... almost begging you to get on.  One day (when I was not home) Maye took him up on his offer.  Without so much as a halter or even a haystring she climbed off the porch onto his back.  Now that he had her, he did not know what to do with her.  She said that he just wondered around with her on his back for a few minutes and then went and stood in a corner of the yard until she climbed off.

Of course I don't get to ride him as much as I would like to.  My friends all call dibs on him first.  I don't mind.  I've told them many times that I don't consider myself to own a bad horse, so I'm perfectly happy to let them chose their mount first and I'll pick from what is left.  I'm confident that I'll still be riding a good horse.  Their reply is usually something along the lines of 'good because I'm riding Maverick.'

Maverick has now found a new job... teacher.  He is currently teaching a friend of mine's kids how to ride.  They are having a blast and I think he is kind of partial to them too.  At this time, he has only allowed the oldest daughter to gait him.  Of course the other girls want to gait, but he has so far refused all their attempts.  He was pretty unhappy with us the day we decided to put their mother, Korrin, up bareback and sit one of the kids in front to gait.  I think he would have liked to give us a lecture in safety!  After we were done that day, I helped set all the kids up on his back for a picture.  He gave me one of those 'you have got to be kidding' looks and stood absolutely still until I had taken the picture and helped all the kids down. 

Needless to say, I've had a lot of people over the years try to buy Maverick from me.  I even had one lady try to buy him out from under me at a trail ride.  So if you think Maverick may be the perfect horse and you just can't live without him, I'll add your name to the bottom of the list, because he is the perfect horse and I have no intention of giving him up.  Even if I did, you would have to fight Korrin's girls for him.   They recently declared him to be worth a million dollars, so be prepared.  Of course you are always welcome to come visit him.