BY MEGHAN MACKEY, INTERNET EDITOR
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| At 23, Ferns Ruby has won three world championships and two reserve world championships in jumping for amateur owner Ray Coutley. |
The story of Ferns Ruby and her son Navier Stokes started at a blackjack table long before Raymond Coutley even knew he’d be showing jumpers and winning world championships.
“I bought Ferns Ruby when she was 6 or 7,” Raymond said. “She was my first horse. Ruby didn’t know how to jump, and I didn’t know how to ride.
“It’s a funny story because I bought her with money I won off the blackjack table.”
That was in 1992. Shortly thereafter, Ray was approaching a fence while riding in a hunt field with friends when he noticed cattle grazing nearby. Ruby had never seen a cow.
“They said don’t worry, she’ll follow the rest of the horses over the fence. Well, she saw the cows as she went over the fence,” Ray said. “Ruby went 5 feet in the air, I went 6, I landed in the saddle, but they told me, you better show this mare.
“We started going to Quarter Horse shows and jumping and she took it from there.”
The pair qualified for their first AQHA World Championship Show in 1994. In 1997, they won their first amateur world championship in jumping. Ray said after they started winning at the World Show and the All American Quarter Horse Congress, they started going to United States Equestrian Federation shows as well, where Ruby has racked up more than $45,000 in winnings.
“When I first started riding her, I think we would actually scare people around the ring by how crazy we would get,” Ray said. “Now that I’m a little bit older, and she’s a little bit saner, we’re a little more cautious around the fences. We would scare people at times. But she would jump everything to the moon. She was crazy, but it worked well for us together as a team.”
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| Ruby's son Navier Stokes is following in his mother's hoof-steps by winning his first world championship in amateur jumping in 2007. |
In 1999, Ray bred Ruby to JC Regal Doc and the result was a bay colt called Navier Stokes.
“Naven was a hunter,” Ray said. “I started showing him in Quarter Horse shows and his first year of showing he went to the Congress in the Miller’s Hunter Classic and was eighth.
“But he’s not even 15.2 and the hunters just weren’t doing it for me, it wasn’t as exciting as the jumpers, so I just started him in the jumpers in March down in Florida and he has been winning on the USEF circuit. So I said I’m going to take Naven to the World Show.”
Naven carried Ray to the 2007 amateur world championship in jumping, but not without some stiff competition from his mama. With four faults in the jump off, 23-year-old Ruby placed seventh in the world.
Mother and son, who both experience a little separation anxiety when separated at a show, were back for the finals in open jumping as well.
“I always say, just stay between Ruby’s ears and hopefully I won’t fall off,” Ray said. “She’s very, very special and now she’s given me a baby that just won the world championship in the amateur jumping. “I’m just tickled pink to be showing her and her son.”
