KMSHA gives a hearty welcome to Peter and Jeanette Rellstab, our first European regional representatives from Germany. Thank you Peter and Jeanette for your contribution, we will look forward to your participation, and welcome you with open arms (and hooves!).

The Old Cowboy

by Peter and Jeanette Rellstab

The eyes of the little boy are shining bright. The old heavy farmer’s horse walks beside the farmer to the field to work. He carries on his back the little boy who obviously enjoys his ride through the nice Switzerian rural countryside.

The little boy was the 3-year-old Peter Rellstab who already then had a huge love for horses, which stayed for a lifetime.

His biggest wish during his childhood and teenage years was to own a horse but the family budget back in the fifties didn’t allow that and his father said more than once to Peter: "When you have the money you can buy yourself a horse." So, young Peter went to the different stables, groomed and fed horses, cleaned out the stables. His pay was free riding on the horses.

So the years went buy, Peter’s riding experience grew and when he as a young adult earned his first own money he bought – a horse. It was a young mare, a "Freiberger" the only original Switzerian horse breed. By that time Peter’s experience and knowledge with handling, training, and starting of horses was broad enough to train the young horse himself. And so, in 1985 he made the second place in the Switzerian Championship Western on his own horse.

Unfortunately the mare later on had an accident and could only be ridden lightly. Peter kept "Dani" his first mare and bought additionally, "Arabella" an Arab-Haflinger mare. He trained her for 3 years in western and then discovered a new discipline of riding for himself and his little Haflinger horse. Since "Arabella" was a tough little horse from the Austrian mountains endurance races seemed an ideal discipline for her and Peter. But since "Arabella" was only slightly over 14.0 hands and had short legs the bigger horses won over her by a long shot. But anyway, the two always were under the first five pairs finishing the race.

In 1991 Peter became a riding stable manager. He offered trail rides, carriage rides, and sledge rides to the guests and riders of this stable.

In 1995 and 1996 he went to Montana to work as a cowboy on the ranch of some befriended ranchers. Round-ups, brandings, and the regular cowboy work was done there and soon Peter was described by others as "a very good horseman and rider".

During his second stay in 1996 on his friend’s ranch another old rancher in the group of the cowboys was riding a gaited horse. The old rancher asked: "Peter, do you want to ride my horse?" Peter, always open to new experiences when it comes to horses, was very happy to accept the old ranchers offer. So spent a good deal of time in the saddle on this gaited horse and knew then that he had fallen in love with the smooth ride.

In 1997 Peter became representative for the gaited horses in the Pinto-Breeding-Association in Switzerland under the umbrella of the Pinto-Breeding-Association Germany. In this function, he took some judge clinics for Gaited Horses with the TWHBEA/Germany under the supervision of the US-judge Roger Hand. Peter held this position until 2001.

In 1998 Peter Rellstab went back to the US and toured 12 different ranches. The crop of this "Ranch-Tour" were three mares which he purchased and imported in 1999 as gestating mares to Europe. Out of one of these mares "Hyland Champagne" came the in Europe well-known golden-champagne TWH-stallion "Swiss Pride of Hyland" (Youtube-link: http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=t-pmvkWA9tg ), sired by "The Pride Piper". In the meantime Peter had built up his own riding- and breeding-stable and "Swissy", as Peter called the little golden-champagne colt, grew up there in Switzerland and was trained by Peter.

Due to private, health-related, and therefore economical reasons Peter had to dissolve the riding and breeding stable. The only horse that he could keep was "Swiss Pride of Hyland". Peter and Swissy relocated to Germany and Peter worked as a traveling trainer. He went from ridingstable to ridingstable to educate riders as well as train horses. Weekend training courses where offered, young and green horses where started and further trained, riders where instructed to be able to communicate with their own horse.

In 2005 destiny hit again: Peter couldn’t ride anymore, due to a condition in both knees. But Swissy needed to be ridden and he still was a stallion. So, Peter had a hard decision to make - if he didn’t want to geld this promising stallion - and sell Swissy with a heavy heart when the stallion was just 5 years old. Since Swissy had no living offspring by that time, the buyer renamed Swissy to "Pleasure’s Pot of Gold", denying the stallion’s place of birth and the very good training the stallion already had with Peter.

Thus, life brought Peter back where he once started as a youngster: He had no own horse. And worse than back then: He couldn’t ride anymore. Everything seemed to be over and past until Peter underwent knee-surgery twice and recovered completely. The ability to ride was back, his love for horses had remained all the time but again, the horse was missing.

Then one day in the spring of 2008, when nobody every expected Peter to own a horse, again, he found a picture, yes, just a picture with a little text, of a two year old KMSH-mare on the internet. He knew, this is my new horse. Problem: He was in Germany, the mare was in Canada and beside that, by that time he didn’t know whether she was still for sale. E-mails with the breeder at Gaited Meadows Ranch went back and forth. It took Peter only a little bit more than a week to make the decision to go over to the ranch to look at "GMR Miss Kitty" (Youtube-link: http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=1RcAGEeL12E ) to purchase her.

In November 2008, Kitty flew over to Europe and is now Peter’s first mare for his breeding-stock over here. Currently he is doing ground-work with her to prepare her thoroughly for later riding purposes and he is highly satisfied with the gentle temperament, the clear mind and the intelligence which the Kentucky Mountain Saddle Horse is famous for.

Peter Rellstab’s goal for the coming years and the future is to promote and represent this beautiful and versatile breed of horses here in Germany and Europe in a correct manner and so build a bridge from the American KMSH-lovers and enthusiasts to the German and European ones. Like an old cowboy once said to him: "Peter, take it slow cause we are in a hurry!"

Posted:  December 24, 2009