Book Summary Continued
Kendall is devastated and frantically tries to figure out how to keep her horse. She finally comes up with a plan she thinks might work. She tells her parents that she’ll give up everything else she does, sacrifice all her time with friends, do whatever it takes to learn to train Ravi, and do all the work herself if she can keep him. Her parents see her determination and decide to let her try despite the deep financial hardship it brings.
Kendall is now on her own training Ravi. She watches natural horsemanship videos and asks her former riding coach and Ravi’s previous trainer for advice as she struggles to advance his training and teach him the basics of being a show horse.
One professional trainer calls Ravi a pasture plug because he’s too small and not bred to be a winning show horse. Others tell her to get rid of him because he’s not good enough and will never win. And, they tell her she’s too young to train her own horse. But, Kendall is determined that he can be a champion.
Her bond with Ravi deepens, even while she’s bullied by and has trouble connecting with other kids. She’s unaware that she has ADHD, but she knows something about her isn’t normal. Her mind is a jumble of noise, and she has trouble focusing, but all goes quiet when she sits on the back of her horse where she’s able to focus on all the tasks required to train and successfully show a horse.
She struggles to train Ravi throughout 2012 and 2013 when they begin to have moderate success in the show ring. With no money for a trainer, top-line show tack, or fancy show clothing, Kendall makes do with old, used tack and clothing. Even so, she realizes how fortunate she is to have a horse and to be able to compete.
Kendall learns to trust her own mind and instincts. The girl who can now command a 900-pound animal determines that other kids and even adults are not intimidating after all and cannot prevent her from achieving her dream of being a champion rider.
By 2014, Kendall sets her sights on winning the Youth English High Point Championship through United Horsemen of the Carolinas, and statewide open horse show organization (open to any breed). After a rocky start to the 2014 show season and challenges beyond what she ever imagined, her hard work with Ravi pays off when she defeats the bullies from her previous barn along with other youth riders to win the championship on the horse no one else believes in.
After an injury, Ravi is out of competition for the 2015 show season, but family members help Kendall lease a Quarter Horse who, along with the horse’s trainer, teaches her to compete at higher level breed shows where horses, riders, and trainers are a big step up from where she’s competed before. Kendall is pushed to her limits physically and psychologically as she meets the challenge of showing at top-level Quarter Horse shows.
During her senior year in high school, Kendall is determined that Ravi can compete at higher level breed shows, too, so she sets her sites on the Palomino Youth World Show held in July of 2017 in Tunica, MS. Adults at her barn grow jealous of her success with Ravi, along with other horses she’s riding, and threaten Kendall, saying they’ll stop her from going to the World Show. She’s forced to move Ravi to a new barn a few weeks before the show because she’s afraid one of the adults will hurt Ravi out of spite.
After weeks of intense training and fundraising, Kendall finally has the money she needs for the trip. When she and Ravi arrive at the World Show, her heart is bursting with pride for the smallest horse there who has brought her to this arena and given her a chance to be a world champion.
Without the help of a professional trainer like all the other youth riders have, she and Ravi prove what a girl with ADHD and a throw-a-way horse can do by winning a Reserve World Championship and two National Snaffle Bit Association championships. Kendall is overcome with emotion at competing successfully at this show with her horse, the little pasture plug she calls Ravi.
Ravi’s Goin’ Gold is not like the fictional girl-with-a-horse books where the girl miraculously trains a wild horse in two weeks and then wins a championship. This true story details the nitty gritty, day to day grind of what it takes to train a spirited, sometimes naughty young horse and the internal and external battles Kendall fights to prove everyone wrong.