Our Horse Sense
My name is Tiffany Deal and I have been working with horses since I was a small child in the panhandle of Florida. I was raised out in the sticks with only my horses for company. The first horse that I bought with my own money was an Appendix Quarter Horse named Vana in 1990. This mare was bad. She had been kicked off of most every race track in south Florida, and was now being used on backwoods brush tracks for match races. She had no sense at all, which was a dangerous mix with my own inexperience. Somehow we both survived. That old mare carried me through the hay-day of brush track racing in the Florida Panhandle where I learned to jockey race horses. She also carried me through innumerable riding lessons with my now deceased trainer, Reese Richardson and many other greats like Lauren Belcher, Jerry Cook, and Jimmie Ellis.
Vana and I spent a good part of my early 20’s at playdays and rodeo’s scattered throughout south Alabama and Florida running Barrels. That old mare taught me so much. She is now in a place of honor in my heart and our pasture….eating.
I have extensive experience and training in the saddle. Whether it is team roping, training Western Pleasure horses, jockeying horses on the brush tracks, judging at field trials, Reining or Barrel racing I seem to have toyed with it all!!!
I began giving lessons at the ripe old age of 14 to my neighbors and family. By the time I was 25 horses had grown into my main source of income. I found a love for running summer camps at our previous farm in Florida and look forward to someday doing it here in Statesboro.
My husband Bunny Deal, is a native of Statesboro. He has lived here the majority of his life, has always had horses and is an avid rider. His theories are often a little ‘crack pot’ but always seem to work out in the end (don’t tell him I said that). Through the last 35 years Bunny has ridden more great horses than most people should be blessed with. He rides an average of 20 hours per week and never seems to tire. He loves to judge fox field trials and is a very notable and respected judge. He has been invited to hunts as far away as California and as prestigious as the All American Field Trial. Bunny has judged everything from Beagles to Coon dogs and is more knowledgeable than most folks would ever imagine due to his humble presence.
