Courageous Lord (

foal A foal is an equine up to one year old; this term is used mainly for horses, but can be used for donkeys. More specific terms are colt for a male foal and filly for a female foal, and are used until the horse is three or four. When the foal ...

ed 2001) is an

American Saddlebred The American Saddlebred is a horse breed from the United States. This breed is referred to as the "Horse America Made". Descended from riding-type horses bred at the time of the American Revolution, the American Saddlebred includes the Na ...

horse who won the Five-Gaited World's Grand Championship in the World's Championship Horse Show three consecutive years.

Life and career

Courageous Lord is a dark

chestnut The chestnuts are the deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Castanea'', in the beech family Fagaceae. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce. The unrelate ...

gelding

ed in 2001. He was bred and trained under saddle by Mike Barlow before being sold to Lisa Jones as a four-year-old. He competed in a few horse shows that year but had a tendency to interfere and injured himself, meaning he spent his fifth year on pasture rest. As a six-year-old he was sold to Bill Richardson and Marsha Shepard. For a time after the sale, Courageous Lord was trained by Barlow, but when he was injured the owners put Courageous Lord in training with Merrill Murray, a Canadian native who lives in

Versailles, Kentucky Versailles () is a home rule-class city in Woodford County, Kentucky, United States. It lies by road west of Lexington and is part of the Lexington-Fayette Metropolitan Statistical Area. Versailles has a population of 9,316 according to 2017 cen ...

. Courageous Lord's first

horse show A horse show is a judged exhibition of horses and ponies. Many different horse breeds and equestrian disciplines hold competitions worldwide, from local to the international levels. Most horse shows run from one to three days, sometimes longe ...

with Murray was in Indianapolis and was described by Murray as "wild". His second was the 2009

Lexington Junior League Horse Show The Lexington Junior League Horse Show is an annual horse show held in Lexington, Kentucky. It was founded in 1937. History The Lexington Junior League Horse Show was begun in 1937 by Marie Kittrell as a way to make money for charity. The first ...

, where he won the five-gaited Championship. Murray and the owners entered Courageous Lord in the 2009 World's Championship Horse Show and he won the Five-Gaited World's Grand Championship. He repeated his win the next year, 2010, and again in 2011.http://www.kyforward.com/saddlebred-horse-trainer-merrill-murray-rides-for-a-living-for-fun-%E2%80%93-and-for-championships/ Courageous Lord was named Horse of Honor by the

United States Equestrian Federation The United States Equestrian Federation (USEF or US Equestrian) is the national governing body for most equestrian sports in the United States. It began on January 20, 1917, as the Association of American Horse Shows, later changed to the Amer ...

in 2012. The same year he was sold to Fox Grape Farms and put under the training of Steve Wheeler. Ridden by Wheeler, he won the Five-Gaited Grand Championship in the 2012 Bonnie Blue National Horse Show before going on to the World's Championship. There he won Amateur Five-Gaited Champion of Champions with owner Dr. Owen Weaver in the irons.

References

{{Reflist Individual American Saddlebreds