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It's Riches To Rags And Back To Riches For Horse

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By KEITH MORELLI

kmorelli@tampatrib.com

Published: March 10, 2009

CARROLLWOOD - Big chunks of Bodie's life are missing. The only clues as to what happened between 1998 and 2007 are the scars crisscrossing his face and body and the arthritis stiffening his joints.

Born into horse royalty some 15 years ago and destined for the show circuit, Bodie's life has taken many turns. He was chattel in a divorce, which led to years of hard labor pulling an Amish cart along hard highways in Pennsylvania. But now, he's back on top, proving that nice horses don't always finish last in this riches-to-rags-back-to-riches equine story.

Since setting hoof down at the Arbordale Riding Academy in October 2007, Bodie has been to six horse shows and has come back with four blue ribbons and the reserve champion title this past weekend at the Gasparilla Charity Horse Show held on the Florida State Fairgrounds.

Bodie is an American Saddlebred, a show horse breed, said Andrea Whiting, owner of the Arbordale Riding Academy in Carrollwood, where Bodie now resides. His life is somewhat easy now; he helps youngsters learn how to ride properly. It wasn't always so easy, Whiting said.

"He was going to be a European horse steak," she said.

Bodie came to the local stable through the American Saddlebred Rescue, which had managed to pull him from the clutches of a horse-meat broker in Pennsylvania two years ago.

In any event, Whiting got the horse from the rescue group, which paid maybe $300.

After she got the horse for $300 from a rescue group in October 2007, she named him Bodie. Whiting put an ad in a show horse publication, trying to find someone who knew of the horse's past. It wasn't long before she heard from Bodie's first owner, Diane Coker of Pennsylvania, who knew the horse as Kismet's Prime Time, or Prime for short.

"I'm the original owner," Coker said Monday. "I was going through the latest issue of American Saddlebred Magazine and I saw a close-up of a horse's head ... and I recognized him. This is a lucky story; that someone recognized the fact that he was an American Saddlebred. He was headed to the slaughterhouse.

"He is just a nice little horse," she said. "I'm thrilled he's in Florida. Everybody wants to know it when animals have a good outcome."

Reporter Keith Morelli can be reached at (813) 259-7760.

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