Monika Zillinger

Hello! My name is Monika Zillinger. I’m 14 years old.  My very first horse was a paint quarter horse named Cowboy. My mom surprised me with him.  I had only taken a few lessons when I got Cowboy so riding him was a big deal. Every time I tried to canter I’d fly off the side into the dirt. Anyway, eventually we decided to buy an old schoolmaster Morgan named Monty. I did pony club on him for about 2 years. After that I got a young Hanno/Dutch mare that my mom bred named Sarah.                  Sara is the horse that got me into dressage. She’d go into a nice frame and go around happily. I’d just sit there and collect the ribbons! We did first level. Slowly over time Sarah developed a serious stifle issue. We did surgery on both her hind legs. All seemed good until one day when she backed out of a trailer she injured herself all over again. This ended her dressage career at 7 years old. This year she had her first foal.

My horse after Sarah was a thoroughbred named Archie.                                            He taught me how to actually get a horse round. We did training and 1^st level. Then, my mom and I decided that we were going to buy a schooled horse that I could do juniors on. So I missed a week of school, we flew to California to a trainer named Sue Eoff. I got to try all these fancy warmbloods and ride in a double bridle for the first time. In the end we chose an 11 year old Oldenburg mare who had done 4^th level named Lucy. Right before Lucy arrived from California we moved to Armstrong, Bc from Alberta where I switched trainers from Christina Seidel to Janine Little. Back to Lucy! She was the sweetest mare and I loved her to death. She was a cribber (which annoyed my mom like crazy) and some how always seemed to have a health problem.   I showed FEI children’s on her this year (2008) with the hopes of doing juniors next year. I had qualified with her for Nationals in Red Deer but she escaped from her pen and sliced a tendon.  We made the agonizing decision to put her down. It was the saddest thing I have ever known. A few months later my trainer found a horse named Diva in Washington. We loved her. She has some issues in her training but has a wonderful temperament so fixing her is easy. She is registered Hungarian Warmblood. I plan to do FEI Juniors on her next year. I also taught our miniature horse Brownie to pull a cart this year. It’s super fun!!!!  Hope to see you at the show’s next year with my new horse Diva.