AZJL_Mar13

[COVER STORY]
Kevin
Rosenbaum and
Jackie O Whiz
(Rita) win the
Scottsdale Non-
Pro Half-Arabian
Reining Futurity.
Last month, in preparation for the
derbies put on by the NRHA (National
Reining Horse Association), she rode her
new Quarter Horse, Coronas in Hollywood,
at the Sun Circuit reining show
sponsored by the Arizona Quarter Horse
Association at West World in Scottsdale.
She returned to West World Feb. 14-24
to compete in the 58th annual Scottsdale
Arabian Horse Show, the largest event of
its kind in the world, drawing more than
2,200 horses from across the country.
Kevin and Danielle Rosenbaum in the early
days of their riding partnership.
26 MARCH 2013 | ARIZONA JEWISH LIFE
ough results for this year weren’t available at press time, last year her father, Kevin,
won the non-pro Half-Arabian reining futurity on Tina Turnaround, who also was a
top 10 Scottsdale Half-Arabian junior horse.
Two years ago at the famed Scottsdale show, Kevin won the non-pro Half-Arabian
reining futurity on Jackie O Whiz (Rita), the rst horse the family bred and raised.
Rita was the daughter of a mare the family bought as a broodmare. But when Rita was
just 6 weeks old, the mare died. Fortunately another nursing mare on the farm allowed
Rita to nurse alongside her own foal.
It was the rst time any of the Rosenbaums’ horses had even been seriously sick,
and it hit them hard. As successful as Danielle and Kevin have been in the show ring,
they say they consider their horses family pets. “ey know us when we get to the
barn,” says Kevin.
“It’s about loving riding. Showing is fun, but on Saturday it’s
about sitting around on a horse talking with your friends for
three hours.”
It’s a natural progression from Carl’s love aair at camp
long ago.
Carl’s love for horses led him to buy an Appaloosa gelding
when Kevin was about 6. Kevin spent many summers at the same
camp his father had attended – Greenwoods Lake of the Woods
in Decatur, MI. He says it was popular with his Jewish friends in
Chicago who enjoyed getting out to the country for water sports
and horseback riding.
“From that point on I loved horses and did shows all over the
Midwest,” says Kevin. His bar mitzvah gift was a hunter/jumper
that he showed till near the end of high school.
But Kevin quit riding for about 20 years while he helped run
his family’s record store in the Chicago area, where his dad also
worked as a concert promoter for 27 years.
e family enjoyed escaping to Phoenix for vacations every year, and Grandpa Carl
started to tell Danielle he would buy her a horse. When technology changed, Carl and
his wife, Joanne, closed the record store and moved to Scottsdale.