LOCAL GIRL TAKES TOP HONORS IN WALKING HORSE COMPETITION

FRUITLAND -- Fourteen-year-old Martha Ann Huck can't help but feel a rush of emotion every time she hears the song, "Happy Trails."

It was the song they played in January at the funeral of Gary McCauley, a man she considered as close as a grandfather. And it was the song they played much more recently when she and her horse, Boy He's Outrageous, won the Youth World Tennessee Walking Horse Grand Championship in Lewisburg, Tenn.

"When they announced my name I went over to the Center Circle and I smiled very, very big," Martha Ann said. "And they wanted to play an old-time Western song, so they played 'Happy Trails' and I just started crying."

Boy He's Outrageous, an 11-year-old coal-black stallion, and Martha Ann have been together nearly their entire lives. Martha Ann was 3 when she watched Outrageous born into the world in her father Bud's barn.

That familiarity helped them win the highest award a Tennessee Walking Horse can claim. They beat out 303 entries over a three-day period for the title, which was awarded to them in front of a crowd of 28,000 spectators.

"There are cues or signals that a rider gives a horse to get him on the right lead," Martha Ann's mother, Becky Huck, said. "Martha and Outrageous, they'd been trail riding for years and they knew how to lope across a field wonderfully and beautifully; but not any sophisticated cue when getting on the right lead going in a circle.

"So they learned it together. They were a team but they needed a little polish."

When she was preparing for competition she worked with Outrageous to develop their communication and coordination. She did that with the help of Kathy Matthews, who taught her the cues, and Rhonda Schaeffer, who taught her jumping.

Martha Ann, who is a freshman at R.O. Hawkins Junior High School in Jackson, has taken care of Outrageous for the past seven years, feeding him, cleaning his stall, exercising him and keeping him clean and healthy. The Grand Championship Award was a testament to their relationship.

"I used to ride him around the field all the time, just jump on him bareback," Martha Ann said.

"She's the only one who can ride him," Becky Huck said.