First Drive

In 1999, I was excited to arrive at my parent's farm in Central NY as I was going to get to drive the new horse I had heard about. As soon as I arrived I hitched up and headed out, except we only took two steps before the horse stopped. Sure enough, examining the harness showed a buckle done wrong. That fixed we were off again. After a few turns around the pasture we headed off to town over bridges, railroad tracks and rumble strips. None of them caused a moments pause, that is until we reached home. There my mother asked how the horse was doing. I was full of praise, telling them all that we had done. My mother replied with "That's the first time he's ever been to town or on the road. He's fresh off the track."

That was the start of my relationship with Draken. Believing that if I just asked, he would be up to the task. In the eleven years since then he's won three SPHO national championships along with numerous regional and local awards.

It hasn't always been the easiest path, but it's certainly been worthwhile. Draken excelled at marathon and cones from the day we got him from the Morrisville College Standardbred Racing Program but with an average road gate of 13mph, slowing him down took many hours of trail driving, particularly on the part of my mother, Joyce Haak. In 2001, we attended our first show together (Lorenzo) but it wasn't until 2005 that we decided to enter the pleasure driving ring. That year Draken realized what this new thing that we were asking him to do was and he went from not placing in pleasure classes to winning his first SPHO national pleasure driving championship. Today, at age 18, Draken has received comments like "I've never seen a horse listen to you like he does" and "The horse really wants to do well" from some very well respected judges.

If you were going to sum up Draken, it's not what he does that makes him special, it's the presence and personality that he brings that makes him a living embodiment of the Standardbred spirit.