Go Kaborr

There are a few horses I've owned and/or trained that have been extra special. I posted about one of them yesterday (Colonels Oak).
Go Kaborr- This little horse was at the Idaho Youth Ranch while I was The Horse Program Manager there. He was an Arabian. Now I had never been real impressed with Arabs but he was the kind of horse that could change your mind about the whole breed. He was the best kid's horse I have ever been around.

Go Kaborr was donated to the Youth Ranch when his owner went to college and did not have much time to ride. He had been ridden in 4-H and shown in some open shows, mostly English events. He was well trained and even though he was 20 years old I accepted him thinking we would be lucky to get a year or two of use out of him.
Every kid that went through the Youth Ranch riding program started out with Go Kaborr. That amounted to over 400 kids during the time he was there. He seemed to really like kids and had a lot of tolerance towards novice riders. Go Kaborr would only walk with beginning riders. When he thought they were ready to trot he would trot, but only when he thought they were ready. If he didn't, you could not make him speed up no matter what. When he thought they were ready to lope, he would lope. By the time kids were loping on Go Kaborr they were ready for another horse that took a little more skill to ride.
I borrowed Go Kaborr to teach my grand children to ride. Pictured are a couple of them at a kids rodeo a few years ago.

Go Kaborr lived at the Youth Ranch for 13 years, packing around kids until he was 33 years old. He was featured on the Today Show when Al Roker came out and did a show about the Youth Ranch.  After that he started to slow down a little and was retired. I like to think he died peacefully in his sleep one night. Anyway it looked that way. He was laying in his stall dead with no sign of struggle.





Gokey you were one of a kind. I hope those kids are treating you well in heaven.