The Dart: Galloping toward a better life

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

By Marcie Young
Charlotte Observer Staff Writer

NEWTON -- Taquitz trots casually along Boston Road's hard gravel. His white mane bounces in the crisp fall breeze, and his hoofs clatter on the pavement in cadenced clicks.

"Hear the rhythm of his footfall," says Taquitz's owner, Don Posey. "That beat. It sounds like a locomotive."

Posey watches hired trainer and friend Paul Marlowe calmly grasp the reins as the Paso Fino horse delicately and quickly lifts one hoof at a time in a four-beat gait.

The Dart landed in Newton, where Posey and Marlowe were out in the cold weather Monday training their Paso Finos, horses with Spanish roots and, unlike their Mustang relatives, never wild.

"(Paso Finos) were never feral, so their instincts are closely aligned with people," said Posey's wife, Joy. "That's one of the nice things about them as a breed. They like people."

The way the Paso Finos move, 68-year-old Don Posey said, is what distinguishes them from other breeds. The faster footwork makes for a smoother ride, compared with the loping gallop or trot of the more common quarter horse.

The Poseys have big dreams for Taquitz and the other Paso Fino horses they breed, raise and show through their company, Willaway Paso Finos. They hope for good competitors, for a good bloodline and for calm horses people can ride.

"You want to keep the breed affordable for the backyard buyer, as they call them," said Joy Posey, 59.

Like the backyard buyers, the Poseys were amateur horse enthusiasts when they moved to Newton in 1995.

They had been living in California since the 1970s and were getting tired of the earthquakes that consistently rocked the West Coast. After a massive quake in 1992 hit two miles from their Los Angeles-area condo, they were ready for a change of scenery.

North Carolina is not prone to major earthquakes, and that, with the promise of four seasons, rolling hills and the opportunity to raise horses, was enough for the Poseys.

Neither had owned horses before, but Joy Posey clung to the childhood memory of cleaning stables in exchange for riding lessons, and Don Posey had always enjoyed the rides he took on rental horses.

Not long after they moved to Newton, a nearby Paso Fino breeder got in touch with Don Posey, an attorney, about handling a few legal matters. The couple decided to take a different kind of compensation.

"He paid in horse," Joy Posey said.

Since then, the Poseys have built a business breeding Paso Finos, raising them and showing the animals at competitions across the Southeast.

Marlowe has been working with Taquitz for three months, trying to calm him and turn him into a champion show horse. While Taquitz has competed before - and done well - Don Posey is hoping Marlowe will be able to mellow the horse's brio, a Spanish word loosely translated as spirit.

"Paso Finos have a lot of brio," Don Posey said. "That's where you get the attitude and the power but sometimes a horse will have so much brio they can't control it."

Marlowe, the son of horse breeders in Virginia, has been working with Paso Finos for 14 years, when his parents gave him one of the horses for his high school graduation.

He's trained the breed full time since 2002, and his own horses have won top titles in competitions, including a nod as the 2006 national champion in Perry, Ga.

Working with the Poseys' Paso Finos, he said, is liking working with his own. "When we get into the horse world, we're just one big family," he said.

Usually, Don Posey said, they keep about eight horses on the 4-acre plot of land. It's not far from the county's Justice Center and is an unlikely neighborhood for horse breeding, with subdivisions and an old landfill surrounding the property.

But for the Poseys, who always hoped for a few horses and some land, it's a perfect place for their company..

"Where there's a will, there's a way," Don Posey said.


The Point of the Dart

The idea behind the Dart is simple: We're looking for the kind of news the media don't usually report. We throw a dart at a map of one of the counties in the Catawba Valley, and we'll write about what's happening at that spot. We hope this feature will bring out stories that too often are ignored and will help you meet some of your neighbors in the region.


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