It’s not every day you see a name like QL Gunsmokin Spinifex at the top of a 30-strong one-star eventing field. Sandi Palmer’s 14-year-old Paint gelding won the CCN1* at Camden earlier this year – proving you don’t always need a purpose-bred horse to get the job done.

They say that colour shouldn’t matter when it comes to buying a horse, but Sandi Palmer admits she purchased QL Gunsmokin Spinifex based purely on his flashy coat.

“I bought him sight unseen over the phone… I guess I just liked his colour!” laughs Sandi of how she came to purchase the gelding. “I looked at him and bought him as a three-year-old who’d never gone over a rail on the ground.”

By the US-import Strait Smokin Money out of Quirran Lea Miss Spinadol, QL Gunsmokin Spinifex was bred by Ken and Cathy Marsh at Quirran-Lea Stud near Gympie, Queensland. From Quarter Horse bloodlines, he’s deemed a Paint when it comes to registration purposes due to his spectacular colouring – as are his parents.

Sandi says she has always had a love of Paint horses. “I grew up out west on a cotton farm and we’ve always had horses, though my parents wouldn’t let me event… Mum didn’t like the cross country side of things, so we went show jumping instead. I had coloured show jumpers.”

Sandi’s family eventually sold the farm and got out of horses, and it wasn’t until just over a decade ago that she decided to get back into it as an adult – and this time, she was going eventing.

“I brought QL Gunsmokin Spinifex with the purpose of hopefully going eventing. The first couple of months were interesting because he wouldn’t leave rails standing up… he’d trip over himself,” she muses.

“The first couple of months
were interesting because he
wouldn’t leave rails standing up…”

“Once he picked it up and realised ‘I’ve gotta leave the sticks standing up and go over them, not through them’, he understood his job. I have taken him up through the grades and he handles it quite well. Maybe it’s just him… but it seems with Quarter Horses, you give them a job to do and they’re on it.”

Despite his lineage, QL Gunsmokin Spinifex – ‘MJ’ at home, a name he came with that Sandi hasn’t changed, explaining, “I was told it was always bad luck to rename them!” – has only ever seen cows across the paddock.

“He’s never chased any cows,” laughs Sandi. “He’s chased sheep… but that’s only because they got in his paddock. If you told him that was his job, he probably would be very good at it!”

A CROSS COUNTRY MACHINE

“He’s definitely a machine cross country and looks after me so well,” says Sandi. “Even at Camden [Equestriad, May 2024], we had obviously a bad lead up with all the wet weather and he hadn’t been out on cross country in quite a while. So, there was a few misses from me… but he just goes ‘I’ve got this, I know my job!’ It’s nice to know you’ve got a horse like that.”

Sandi says true to his breed, MJ is quite agile and well balanced on course. “He’s very coordinated… he’s definitely not a Gumby!”

Their first placing in the CCN1* at Camden Equestriad was the best competition result Sandi and MJ have had to date. “Before Covid we did a couple of two-star events, which he did really well, but then coming back from that – with the weather and everything else – we haven’t gotten on a roll to be able to get back to that level. Camden was actually his first competition for the year.”

When it comes to the dressage phase, Sandi laughs and says, “He’s got great Quarter Horse movement! Camden was probably one of our better tests; he was nice and relaxed. Maybe because we hadn’t been out in quite a while he wasn’t anticipating anything… that’s been my biggest problem with him, he’s too smart.

“When you go to competitions, it’s the same test nearly every time so I can’t practise the test in its entirety or even in little parts because he learns it. It only takes him once or twice and he’s like, ‘Right, I’ve got this. That’s what happens next’. So he anticipates a lot of the time.

“He’s got a good trot, although his canter is not the greatest because, like a typical Quarter Horse, he’s bum high and that little bit downhill, so when he’s against all those lovely big Warmbloods, the scores for his paces aren’t quite the same. But he definitely makes up for it with his cross country, and his show jumping!”

At Camden Sandi and MJ were fourth after the dressage and following a blistering cross country round, they were second heading into the final phase.

“We went to the show jumping and we had a rail down; he tried so hard but was tired and just rolled one rail. I went, ‘Well, we’re out of the placings’ and so I packed up and left. I was on the drive home and a friend sent me a message going, ‘Hey, well done, you need to check the results!’ It was a nice way to start off my delayed year!

“Denman Horse Trials will be our next one at the beginning of July, and then hopefully after that, depending on how we go, it might be back to two-star for Sydney Eventing in September.”

PENCHANT FOR PAINTS

“I do have a little preference for coloured ponies,” explains Sandi. “All three and a half of my other horses are coloured. I’ve got a little coloured mini and then I’ve got two Warmbloods from Kenlock Park down in Victoria. One of them I bought as a yearling and she’s coming up to three. Unfortunately, she severed some tendons in her leg as a yearling so she’s only going to be a broodmare. And then I’ve got another gelding in the paddock. He’s had a few little minor injuries but he’s coming back into work soon.”

Sandi says she’s noticed a lot more coloured horses out at events these days compared to when she used to compete as a kid. “It’s becoming a bit of a thing now. When I first started, you’d come into Sydney, because we were eight hours out west, and you’d get the looks with these coloured horses, like ‘Oh what’s that thing?’ Now, everywhere you go it’s becoming quite trendy… everyone wants one!”

Despite Paint horses being a more common sight at events, Sandi says she still regularly has people stopping to ask his name. “I say, ‘Just pick the longest name on the list… that’s him!'” EQ

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