Above:Danielle Miller and Diva at weanling futurity back in 2000 Left: competing in a ranch horse competition, March 2010

"Diva" was foaled on April 28, 2000 in New River, Arizona. I was interested in buying her mother originally, but settled for the second foal out of her. Due to complications late in the pregnancy, Diva was born with an angular limb deformity. She had surgery at two weeks old to correct the problem. Diva's sire is an ROM halter stallion and futurity champion son of the great sire and 2x Reserve World Ch. halter stallion, Sock Broker. Rock Broker (sire) is out of a Macho Impressive and Coy's Bonanza bred mare. Diva's dam is linebred Tuffysthreebartwo, Tardys Tuffy One and Poco Bueno. Diva loved to show at halter. She won the weanling fillies class at the prep show we took her to prior to the futurities and first time out showed like a pushbutton. Although she was a small, late baby she did very well at halter through her 2 yr old season, won enough money to pay for herself and also earned two circuit halter titles. My original intention was to halter her for a while then use her as a broodmare. Unfortunately for Diva, by the end of her 2 year old year she went from taking Grand or Reserve almost every time out to not placing at all, or pinning at the bottom of a small class. The ALD came back to haunt her as she matured, and she was toed out in the right front. And, what should have turned out a 16 hand mare topped off around 15.1 hands.

With her halter career cut short and having sold off a couple of my performance horses, it was decided that Diva would be a western performance horse. We started her under saddle late in her 3 yr old year. She was, much to our surprise, an incredibly awesome mover. However, we were having major issues with bucking, rearing, biting, you name it, it was a problem to the extreme. Every time we rode it was like starting all over to get her back to a point where she was managable. I was even told by a reining horse trainer that my mare was meaner than any stallion they had ever dealt with and just not bred to be ridden. In all my years with horses, I had never been in this situation, owning a horse that everyone was afraid of - not only to ride, but to handle on the ground, in the stall or pasture. Then Diva wrote a letter to Pat and Linda Parelli and was invited to be a demo at one of their clinics in August of 2004. Pat proved to have a solution for every issue. Diva seemed to enjoy hamming it up infront of the live audience too! Not only did Pat play all seven games successfully with Diva, but his neice Amy Book, then only 16 years old, rode Diva with only one rein infront of a crowd of over 2000 people and even did a flying lead change! I am forever grateful for what the Parelli's did for me, and can only aspire to be a fraction as good with horses as Pat is one day :) Diva and I passed Parelli level 1 in December of 2004 and then passed Level 2 (officially!) in August of 2007. Since then we have spent countless hours completing levels 3-4, all the while attending clinics, riding bridleless, performing tricks, trail riding and showing- with success- in performance classes. Most importantly, I am having the best time that I have ever had with horses! Diva is now a once in a lifetime horse, a true partner for me. We can do anything, anywhere, with complete confidence and trust. My younger horses have had the benefit of being raised in our natural horsemanship program, thanks to Diva! Pictures below of Diva and Danielle Miller. Photography on this page by Bridget Little and Paula Anderson.