Back in the saddle
Mustang shines as trainer recovers from riding accident
By DAVID LOWE Staff Writer

Sandy Schaffner offers son Tyler Schaffner some words of encouragement before he rides his father Dave Schaffner's mustang Larry and dog Cletus in the Extreme Mustang Makeover. The younger horseman rode in place of his father, who is recovering from a riding accident.

Area resident Dave Schaffner couldn't travel to Fort Worth to show off his mustang Larry in the Extreme Mustang Makeover.

By the time Larry finished his performance, though, the audience could see clearly the effects of Schaffner's time spent training the mustang.

After Schaffner sustained major injuries in a Sept. 12 riding accident, his son Tyler Schaffner drove 17 hours from South Dakota to see his father and make sure Larry made it to Fort Worth.

Because the elder Schaffner, Larry's official trainer, was unable to ride the mustang in the competition, Tyler Schaffner could not compete for the contest's $25,000 prize. Judges let him show off Larry to the capacity crowd at the Will Rogers Equestrian Center, though, so Schaffner could demonstrate his father's work in preparing the mustang for an obstacle course, a trail course and a reining pattern.

PHOTOS BY GABE WOLF Tyler Schaffner, left, relaxes with his father Dave on the elder Schaffner's new cedar porch, which friends built while he recovered from horseback riding injuries. Dave Schaffner already is planning to enter the September 2008 Extreme Mustang Makeover, and he is trying to convince his son, a South Dakota resident, to compete alongside him.

Larry's best move came when Tyler Schaffner rode the mustang over a high platform with Dave Schaffner's dog Cletus on his back, turned Larry around and walked him back up the platform. The manuever drew hearty applause from the crowd, said Dave Schaffner's wife Sandy, who traveled to Fort Worth to watch Tyler and Larry.

"It was like a wave of people standing up and cheering," she said. "It was just amazing."

After arriving from South Dakota, Tyler rode Larry just four times before the Sept. 22 show. He could tell the sortings and other practice sessions his father put Larry through had prepared the mustang to handle crowd noise.

More than anything else, Larry's poise distinguished him from the other mustangs in the show, Tyler Schaffner said.

"Every other horse, when (the audience) got to clapping, they'd scatter," he said. "He didn't even notice."

After the show, Dave Schaffner received a phone call in the hospital from judge J.D. Yates. Yates wished him a speedy recovery and told him although Larry did not compete officially, he outmatched all the other mustangs at the show.

"That probably healed him 50 percent right there," Mrs. Schaffner said of her husband. "He was living for that show."

Next year's competition is spurring his recovery, as well. Schaffner vows to enter the 2008 Extreme Mustang Makeover and already has thought of ways to improve his chances of winning.

The trainer plans to begin working his mustang immediately, rather than waiting until mid-July to begin rigorous work, as he did with Larry.

Although Levi Garrett has taken care of the many horses on Schaffner's property south of Lampasas while the trainer recovers, Schaffner plans to limit his own work to just six horses and a mustang next summer. Reducing the number of horses he boards will allow him to devote as much time as possible to training the mustang.

"I will be 100 percent -- just a little less gutsy," Schaffner said.

The trainer also knows he will have the support of friends, family and fellow horsemen as he recovers. The Mustang Heritage Association agreed to donate to the Schaffner family the $10,500 Larry fetched from a San Antonio buyer -- who hopes to turn the mustang into a polocrosse mount -- at the Extreme Mustang Makeover auction.

Friends from Lampasas have organized a horse raffle and other fund-raisers to help pay the family's medical expenses, and they finished a four-stall barn and a cedar porch for Schaffner while he convalesced.

"The people down here in this community are so generous," Schaffner said. "It's just unreal how they've all come together."