OklahomaHorses Magazine November 2021

November/December 2021 • OklahomaHorses 9 T he first time Susan Rosell saw a young mare named Spot, she felt a connection between them. It was March 1992. Rosell and her seven-year- old daughter, Brittney Ashton Rosell, were on a picnic with a friend and her young daughter, followed by a trail ride at Edsel Brashears’ riding stable near Coweta. The horse chosen for Rosell was Spot, and Brit- tney was riding Scout. Rosell asked Brashears if he ever sold any of his horses and was especially interest- ed in six-year-old Spot, a liver-chestnut quarter horse with a blaze face. She asked Brashears how Spot acquired that name (“I didn’t see any spots”). Brashears had chosen that name because the mare had two black spots on her right side underneath the saddle. Other than that, Brashears didn’t know much about Spot’s background. She had been born in 1986, had been a racehorse, had injured her right front foot, had spent at least two summers giving horseback rides at a Girl Scout camp, and had been well cared for. Rosell, who has had horses all her life, enjoys western riding. She soon bought Spot and boarded her at Mingo Stables while she and her husband, Bob Rosell, were building a house and fencing their property. Brittney took English riding lessons at Mingo Stables, and she and Spot learned to jump. Once while Rosell was waiting during her daughter’s riding lesson, a crew from Urban Tulsa magazine was looking for a horse to photograph with a bareback rider. Spot and Brittney were happy to oblige, and thus they became local celebrities, with their picture on the cover of the November 1994 issue. AWINNING TEAM In 1993, Brittney and Spot started to enter shows at riding stables. For the next 10 years, the two were a team, riding in many contests sponsored by the Hunter Jumper Exhibitors of Oklahoma and other organizations. For competitions, the Rosells expanded Spot’s rather prosaic name to the more fanciful X Marks the Spot. Brittney and Spot won a blue ribbon in their first hunter-jumper show. In western riding competitions, they participated in gaming (pole bending, barrel racing, and trail ride competitions). They won the High Point Senior class for students aged 14 through 18 at the Tulsa State Fair in 2002. At Jenks High School, Brittney was an officer for three years in Future Farmers of America, including president her senior year. She and Spot rode in the Jenks home- coming and Christmas parades with the FFA chapter, and her mother made match- ing saddle blankets for the entire group in FFA colors. Brittney was FFA Sweetheart her senior year and graduated from Jenks in 2003. A few years after that, Spot was again in the spotlight. Carol Lambert of KTUL Channel 8 News filmed Spot in a “Waiting Child” segment with two little girls who were hoping to be adopted. Spot, all dressed up in flowers and ribbons, was also a surprise guest at several birthday parties for little girls who were the Rosells’ friends. Spot enjoyed those outings and loved the attention. GOLDEN GIRL Fast forward to 2021. Yes, you have done the math right. Spot was born in 1986 and adopted in 1992. She is now 35 years old and doing remarkably well. And Brittney Ashton Paczkowski is now 36 years old, married with two young step- daughters, and operating Brittney Ashton Photography. She and her mother both still ride Spot. Rosell says, “Sometimes I ride her bare- back with a halter and lead rope. We play games. I put ‘horse cookies’ on top of bar- rels, and she picks them up and eats them as we weave in and out past the barrels.” Spot now has a few white hairs around her muzzle but is far from the proverbial old gray mare. She weighs 1,100 pounds and is 14.75 hands high. She “has good feet” despite her old injury, Rosell says, and is unshod. Spot has worn shoes only twice since the Rosells have owned her, once for some tough trail riding and once during her days of pole bending and barrel racing. Farrier Bill Austin trims Spot’s hooves every six weeks. Rosell says people ask her why her horse is still doing so well at her age. “I tell them it’s because I give Spot excellent care. She has senior feed, rice pellets, a probiotic soft chew twice a day, an oat-apple treat for her Sweet Senior Mare Has Special Bond with Family By Rowena Mills Photographs courtesy of Brittney Ashton Photography Marks the Spot