Bayley Russell was browsing through the racing stables on the Hastings Park backstretch in the fall of 2016 the first time she laid eyes on Pathway to Yes.
The big grey gelding poked his head out and Russell, on a mission looking for a hunter/jumper prospect, immediately went to say hello.
“He gave me a big, huge, gross, slobbery kiss and I was just hoping he was for sale,” said Russell.
The horse’s owner and trainer, David Milburn, along with his partner Minna, said he was indeed for sale but also that the gelding, already a winner of over $100,000 on the track, had recently had tie-back surgery, a procedure that draws back cartilage in the back of the throat for easier breathing.
“I wasn’t sure about how serious that was, and I didn’t really want a horse with an issue.”
Russell, who was coming off several years of riding prospects who were “naughty,” or “mean” looked at some 30 other horses that day before returning home to Nanaimo, BC.
After plenty of coaxing from her husband, Cory, friends Holly and Amy and her Aunt Erin, Russell decided to take a chance on the now 6-year-old son of Lucky J.H.
But when her friend Amy went back to Hastings to pick up a horse she was purchasing, Pathway to Yes was gone.
“David had sent the horse to a farm in Langley to winter him and he said he thought he might race him again,” said Russell. “I told him I really wanted him and incredibly, they gave him to me.”
When Russell began riding Pathway to Yes, now named Parker, she was shocked when the gelding had a very awkward way of travelling.
“He moved like a sewing machine, it was just horrible,” said Russell. “He couldn’t even really jump either. And I couldn’t really get him going because our ring had flooded and froze for two months.”
Russell persevered, putting in many hours of flat work on Parker; laps and laps of walk, trot and canter to get the gelding more collected in his stride.
“Suddenly, he just completely transformed. He became an unbelievable jumper with powerful scope.”
In the spring of 2017, Russell and Parker visited their first horse shows. It was their second appearance at a show, in May, when Parker was already competing on a full jumping course complete with flying changes. He even won his first ribbon.
By the summer’s final show, Russell and Parker placed fourth of 22 riders in a big class on a grass course.
“If you told me a year ago that I would be in this position with him I never would have believed it,” said Russell. “He had raced just a few weeks before I got him, literally just off the track, but he is a smart, kind horse.”
Russell admits Parker is still the “hottest and most [cue] sensitive horse” she has owned but that she feels safe on the talented and personable gelding.
“I really think when we do something new, he goes back to the barn and thinks about it and the next day, it’s like he remembered.”
Russell, who works as a support worker for Bill’s Place for adults with brain injuries, even took 15 of the people she cares for to meet the gelding at her aunt’s farm.
“He’s a clown, always doing something funny with his face and his tongue. Some of these people went up to him with walkers and he was just giving them kisses and doing little tricks for treats.”
Russell has galloped Parker on the beach and even dressed him up as a unicorn for a friend’s child. There doesn’t seem to be anything the gelding doesn’t want to do to please his new owner.
“I can’t say enough about David and Minna and my friends and family for helping me get Parker,” said Russell. “He’s my heart horse, a horse of a lifetime.”
