Jerry Erickson Drives Un Forgettable to a Win in Senior Pleasure Driving at AQHA World

By: Brittany Bevis

Jerry Erickson park-gaited Un Forgettable, a gray stallion by Iron Enterprise and out of A Walk In The Sky, to a World Championship title in Senior Pleasure Driving for owner, Laura Te Grotenhuis. Erickson has had his eye on “Smokey” for the past few years and was thrilled to receive the offer to catch-drive the horse today.

“I was hired to drive him here, and I was kind of excited when they asked me,” Erickson says. “He is a really nice horse. I think circumstances have not [allowed him] to be as good as he could be. But, this year, they got a group of trainers that worked with him that were really good. Lee Paul Shinn taught him to drive and qualified him last winter. Bill Ellis has been doing the jumping, and Bill and David Connors have a really excellent program for keeping horses broke, happy and comfortable. Here, he was with Keith Miller. I don’t know Keith that well, but I’ve had to run to his stalls every day and everything looks really good! They’ve put the horse in a good place, so he was really quite easy.”

Because Erickson has been so busy with over fence classes here at the World Show, he relied on some help from his friend and fellow driver, Brian Holmes, to assist with preparing Smokey for the class today.

“Brian did most of the schooling on him,” he says. “He drove him every day, and I would drive him at night. Smokey is showing in the Senior Hunter Under Saddle with Nancy Sue Ryan. She was third on him at the Congress this year. The preliminaries are here in a little a bit. I’m getting a little nervous. If I was the rider, I would be having a fit that the horse wasn’t there, but she is calm and, as professionals, we are used to it.”

Eleven horses qualified to return to the Senior Pleasure Driving Finals this afternoon. Smokey was one of only two stallions in the class.

“Stallions get disciplined so much that they actually behave pretty good,” he says. “He’s been fine. I had that wonderful horse [who was also a stallion] named Sonny’s Hot Jazz years ago. I won twice here with him.”

Erickson did well today on another horse, placing third in the Junior Hunter Under Saddle with Cityboy or Cowboy, a horse he raised that is currently owned by Chad Sandoval. At the 2013 Quarter Horse Congress, Erickson drove the horse to a win in Junior Pleasure Driving, and Sandoval was named Reserve in Amateur Pleasure Driving.

Senior Pleasure Driving:

1-Un Forgettable/Jerry Erickson

2-Good Lukin Lark/Kevin Dukes

3-Leisurely Drive/Brian Holmes

4-Ride The Blue Sky/Lisa Ligon

5-Skys Blue Babe/Charlie Cole

6-Skys Moon Pie/Melissa Dukes

7-PF Sign Off/Julie O’Brien

8-Pr The Green Bay/Nancy Alto-Renfro

9-Totally Ironic/Leslie Lange

10-All That Remains/Lee Paul Shinn