*Dakhota’s Charm*

Courtney and Lea Krueger bought Dakhota’s Charm(Coda) in 2017 as a birthday present for their respective 50^th birthdays.  Very quickly they learned a couple of things:

1. Coda was a fast and fierce competitor.
2. Although he was bought for both of them, he and Courtney are so alike that they bonded strongly and have retained that bond through the years.

Coda began his Ride & Tie Career at Big South Fork in the fall of 2017.  After a few races in which he was learning the sport, he began to dominate.  He won the second day’s race at Meadow Creek Mingle race that fall.  He would not come in less than first for the next six races.  He finished the 2018 season with 13 wins out of 16 starts.  In the East Coast Regional long course he threw a shoe halfway through the first loop while in solid second place.  Having to slow down on that loop and being reshod during the vet check dropped him to sixth coming out of the vet check.  He and partners Courtney Krueger and Mark Landers battled back to a very respectable third place.  The next day he won the East Coast Regional Short course.

In 2019 he tore a suspensory tendon in his right rear leg.  This was potentially a career ending injury.  The Krueger’s and he worked hard to rehabilitate him.  He missed all of the 2020 and 2021 seasons.

He came back in 2022 picking up where he left off by winning his first race back at the Giddy Up and Run race.

In 2024 Coda along with his human partners Courtney and Sarah Krueger were chosen to be featured in an Arc’Teryx Sporting Goods company documentary on Ride & Tie.  He demonstrated his “star power” by doing everything the film crew asked of him including racing a pickup truck down a dirt road with a camera right in his face.  The documentary is called “The Dance Card” and can be seen on the Arc’Teryx YouTube channel.

Like so many Ride & Tie horses, Coda seems to know and understand the sport.  In 2022 at Big South Fork Carrie Baris and Courtney Krueger were his partners.  Coda is a fierce competitor and often comes off a tie at a gallop.  At one point during the race, he came untied before Courtney caught up to where he was.  Courtney could see him standing in the middle of the trail impatiently waiting.  But he was waiting even though he was loose and he knew it.  He also knew that he was supposed to wait for his partner.  The moment Courtney mounted, he resumed his high-spirited competitiveness.  He won the race that day as well.