Cruiser is Who He was Meant to Be

Cruiser is Who He was Meant to Be




Way back when I bought Cruiser, I was given his papers. He is not registered as a Morab, but as a Half Arabian. I don’t even have proof that his mother was a Morgan. I just took the word of his previous owners. Quite honestly, they could have told me he was half St. Bernard, and I wouldn’t of cared. I fell in love with him, so none of it mattered.



I knew the name of his father, but nothing else. The papers only listed his parents. Over the years, I would check the All Breed Pedigree website and see if his father was listed. Well, last month, someone finally put his pedigree into the website.



If you have never looked up your horse, be sure to take a visit. It is here that I found out that Cole is related to the famous Standardbred, Dan Patch, and the Morgan I wrote about that was exported to China, Magellan. It shows lots of pictures of the ancestors, too.



Finally, I knew Cruiser’s Arabian ancestors. I started to look up all his grandsires. What I found was they were all foundation Arabians—mostly CMK Arabians. What does that mean? Cruiser’s father was bred to excel in endurance riding. Anyone who wants to successfully compete in endurance looks to horses with his father’s breeding.



All his life, I marveled on Cruise’s energy. I could take him on a 3-hour, fast ride and bring him home looking like he was just coming back from a short stroll—as long as you looked past the dried sweat, you would have never known. He just never gets tired and would trot all day. I always said he was my 100-mile horse. I used to pretend I was riding the Tevis Cup on Tevis day. I was disappointed the year it was canceled due to forest fires—and rode out on our own mini Tevis ride that day without them.



I never had the resources to take Cruiser out and compete him but was satisfied to ride him like crazy here at home—pretending I could compete if I wanted to. Now, I think I really could have.



Even now at 24, he has more energy on the trail than most other horses. Well, now I know he wasn’t a fluke. He is exactly who he was bred to be.