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Bill Suiter grooms one of eight
horses currently housed at SunCrest Stables.
"To me it's thrilling," smiles veteran horseman Bill Suiter,
relaxing with a glass of iced tea on the back porch of his
lovely country abode, outside McKenzie, as he describes his workaday schedule
that begins at 5 a.m. "I figure the Lord only gave me so many
sunrises and I don't want to miss any of them."
His shaded veranda provides plenty of respite from hot
afternoons, as cooling breezes and the primal calls of peafowl
and guineas next door evoke an otherworldly atmosphere where
all is peace and calm.
The shady lawn stretches to the barn beyond, which is Bill's
first stop each morning. Stained green so that the natural
grain shows through, the barn provides shelter for his own,
sometimes half dozen horses (all of which can be bought) and
any being boarded while he undertakes their training.
It's also home to barn swallows that affix mud-pellet nests to
rafters from which they flutter to and fro, showing off their
distinctive, forked tails. In symbiotic fashion, they pay for
their lodging by eating flies and mosquitoes that venture too
near, while three new cats discourage mice from taking up
residence in the feed room.
The heady aroma of cedar shavings added to woodchip bedding in
the nine-stalled structure is refreshing, and a natural insect
repellant as well- so much magic before one catches even a
glimpse of the barn's principal inhabitants -peerless in
beauty, versatility and comfort of ride-the Tennessee walking
horses that are Bill's passion.
Following the provision of their ration of grain and hay each
morning, Bill fixes his own breakfast and sits at the patio
table outside with a cup of coffee. His wife Linda, director
of patient services as an RN (BSN) at Milan General Hospital,
is also an early riser. The two sleep in 'til 6 on Saturday
and Sunday, Bill says with a grin. But mornings, he declares,
when the sun is rising, and day's end as it sets in the west,
are the most peaceful times of day.
"I enjoy riding up over the crest of a hill and seeing the sun
coming up in the morning," he says, evoking memories of how
his farm came to be known as SunCrest Stables. The allusion
continues in the silhouette of a horse approaching a rising
sun that blazes from the gooseneck of his silver, four-horse,
slant trailer that doubles as a camper, tack and feed room for
trips to the Land Between the Lakes and other campsites.
Primarily a trainer of Tennessee walkers and other gaited
breeds, Suiter is also a consummate salesman. Horses seldom
remain in his barn more than a couple of months before
acquiring new owners. Suiter is confident in his sales thanks
to the premise under which he conducts all his business.
"I'm not your average horse trader," he says easily while
brushing wood chips from the silky waves of the mane of a
sorrel gelding. "I'm very selective: I only buy what I like
and what I would be comfortable with. The horse business is
all about customer satisfaction; you can't stay in business
selling horses that are unsound, unhealthy, or mean, because
word gets around," he continues, while acknowledging, "There's
no such thing as a perfect horse."
In fact, for that reason, horses sometimes stay on for a month
or more after the sale while Bill trains them for the owner's
purpose, typically trail riding, bird dog field trials,
hunting, pleasure riding, parades, or for show.
Bill's love for horses began at an early age as he was growing
up on a farm in Woodlawn, outside Clarksville, with his two
brothers, Doyle and Bobby.
"We had mules; we couldn't afford pleasure horses," he says
with a smile.
In summers, he worked for Arch Lyle, who owned a big farm on
the Cumberland River that had been passed down through
generations in his family. It was the type of plantation
estates that gave birth to the Tennessee walking horse; a
union of several breeds developed in the 1800s by large
landowners who wanted a horse they could ride comfortably over
their vast landholdings.
"He owned walking horses," says Bill. "I started riding young
colts for him and it just kind of got in my blood."
Bill bought his own first horse in 1969, two years after his
July 28 wedding when he, fresh out of high school, married
Linda Burkhart, whom he had met his senior year of high
school.
Bill and Linda Suiter at LBL's
Wrangler campground.
"That was 36 years ago and I haven't been without a horse
since then," he says. Like now, he'd ride them at shows, trail
rides and bird dog field trials and end up trading or selling.
"I got to buying and selling because I always wanted something
better than I had."
Though he rode some quarter horses and owned some draft horses
for pulling and driving in his younger years, he always
preferred Tennessee walkers, a breed many conceive as "the big
lick show horse" with their front ends built up on pads and
wearing chains to influence their gait. Not so Bill's horses
or the majority of the breed that is shod with regular
horseshoes and increasingly popular as their versatility and
ease of gait becomes known, especially in the northern and
western states, says Bill.
Early Tennessee walkers doubled as utility horses, used to
pull wagons and buggies and to plow the fields as well as for
riding. In fact, Strolling Jim, in 1939 the first world grand
champion Tennessee walking horse, is known to have worked the
fields prior to gaining fame.
"They are so versatile, they're used for trail rides, shows,
bird dog field trials, to hunt off of, and people are using
them now in a lot of ways as a quarter horse in barrel racing,
jumping, and working cattle," Bill says, adding that selective
breeding yields animals that range from 14 to 17 hands in
height and from stockier, more athletic varieties to those,
raised for show, that are finer boned with a smaller head,
classy and pretty.
"Gait is key," he explains. "They have a four-beat gait: no
two feet hit the ground at the same time and that gives a
smooth ride."
In other breeds of horses, two feet strike the ground
simultaneously. In trotting horses, for instance, the left
front and right rear feet hit the ground at the same time;
pacing is the same but lateral. A cross between trotting and
pacing horses produced the four-beat gait, he continues.
Throughout the flat foot walk, running walk and canter, the
rhythm of their feet never changes, only the speed is
increased.
"A true walking horse is born with a natural gait, but some at
times tend to be on the pacey side and some on the trotty
side," he says. "I can enhance their gait in training for a
smooth ride."
Some remedies are as simple as corrective shoeing since length
of toe and angle of hoof affect gait. Bill was himself a
farrier for some 30 years, but now uses local Amish farriers
to shoe his horses.
Headset-whether a horse sticks his head out too far, up or
down-also influences gait, and can be affected by dental
problems.
"If their teeth hurt or if the bit hurts, they won't set their
head correctly," he says, explaining that finding the proper
bit is often a matter of trial and error. "I usually start
with a snaffle and work up to whatever I need," but pain can
also occur when riders pull too hard or snatch and jerk at the
reins, he adds. "A lot of that is out of fear that the horse
is going to take off or go too fast."
Horses get "mean and stupid" and develop bad habits, like
cribbing and weaving, if left in a stall unexercised, plus
they can colic when subjected to changes in their routine.
Bill recommends, "The best thing is to set the horse up on a
routine schedule. The secret to a good horse is to
consistently train him and understand him. The time you spend
with a horse, you either teach him something good or bad; to
be good it has to be repetitious. If they get away with one
bad thing, it seems to stick with them longer and take longer
to correct that problem."
He gained his knowledge of horse training, he says, from "36
years of hard knocks, experience, and talking to a lot of old
folks who know.
"It's a continuous learning process," says Bill, who admits,
"I've been accused of being a horse whisperer, and you do have
to be calm natured around horses because horses are flight
animals: if anything scares them, their natural instinct is to
get away from it as soon as they can. Loud noises and sudden
movement tend to startle them."
Bill asserts two conditions are necessary in training or
having a successful relationship with a horse: they have to
trust you, and they have to respect you.
"They have to follow instructions and not walk all over you or
try to get away from you," he says, "It's just like training a
child, but a horse weighs 1,000 pounds with a brain the size
of a baseball. You can't take a two- or three-year-old horse
and expect them to instantly know everything; it's like
putting an eight or nine-year-old child behind the wheel of an
automobile. You also have to respect that the horse has the
ability to hurt us, not intentionally, but just by following
their instincts."
So much for the hard knocks portion of Bill's training
experience. Horses have sent him to the hospital about five
times in 36 years: he's had both shoulders dislocated, his
right collar bone broken, numerous rib breaks and cracks, and,
just last October, his left shoulder dislocated.
"I don't think that's too bad compared to professional
football players, or jet ski and boating accidents," he says,
laughing upon recalling a T-shirt with the message, "If you
can't be killed, it's not sport."
"My orthopedic doctor asked me last year if I enjoyed
pain-no-but I enjoy the challenge and you can't be afraid of
them; if you are, then you need to do something else. Most of
the time it's just one of those freak things that happen."
He has quite a few exciting tales of misadventures along the
way, including a buggy ride gone berserk and the incident last
fall that has him keeping his cell phone close at hand these
days. Nevertheless, he notes he has assured his mother and
wife, upon their worried admonitions, that if he is critically
injured while training, "Well, just know I went happy, doing
what I wanted to be doing."
Bill's charge last October was a four-year-old, blue roan fox
trotter gelding, newly purchased, whose owner had become
concerned when it jumped around a bit while his daughter was
riding him.
During training with Bill, the horse "acted squirrely" a
couple of times over five or six days of riding. Then, early
one morning, horse and rider started out easily along the
fence row behind the barn, when suddenly, Bill relates,
twisting and ducking his head in imitation, "he exploded like
a rodeo bull, wheeling and bucking. I stayed on him more than
eight seconds but I didn't get a buckle."
Bill is grim faced as he says assuredly, "He picked the hour,
time, and place to do what he did. That's the kind of horse
that will hurt you."
He called the owner and told him as much, offering to name a
second trainer if he was insistent upon keeping the animal.
But, he counseled, a trainer might be able to get such a horse
to ride well with him, but he would not be able to carry the
discipline over to a different rider.
"That was not his first rodeo, and it won't be his last," he
says. "Horses are like people: some are mild mannered and laid
back, some are high strung, and some are crazy. The people
that owned him had let him get away with misbehaving. I could
tell he was mad when I got on him that morning-he was tense,
bowed up. I sat there until he relaxed before starting out,
but it was up here," he continues, pointing to his head. "He
knew what he was doing."
Despite six weeks spent sleeping in his recliner, Bill says,
"The pleasure I get out of it highly outweighs the pain-and I
love meeting people-I've met a lot of wonderful people from
all over the country."
In the last three years, he has sold horses to residents of 18
of "the lower 48 states, from California to South Carolina and
Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan down to Georgia."
Many of his sales are repeat business from old customers or
referrals, like the horse scheduled to ship out to Wisconsin
on the Fourth of July weekend. The three-year-old was
purchased, sight unseen, after Bill determined he was the
right size and temperament and undertook six to eight weeks of
training to ready the horse for bird dog field trials.
Two SunCrest Stables horses went to Dallas, Texas, after being
bought sight unseen, and two to California. But Bill has
gained an important edge on the market with the use of the
Internet: his horses may be seen at www.agdirect.com where, in
addition to spectacular photographs, information about
agility, demeanor, and more can be found.
"I have people come from all over," he says, "I sold a horse
to some people in Montana-a 12-year-old walking horse-whose
pictures I'd put on there hooked to a buggy. A lady from
Montana called: her husband, who worked for the Department of
Defense, was in Mississippi for school. He was graduating at
the end of February and she was going to fly down a couple
days for graduation, and they were driving back through
Tennessee. They spent three or four hours here; we hooked up
the buggy and rode down Highway 124, meeting big trucks with
no problems, and they arranged for a commercial shipper to get
the horse home. Every horse I sell," he adds, "is always
current on vaccinations and I get a health certificate from
the veterinarian before they are shipped."
Buyers who test ride their horses at SunCrest Stables often
come away with more than a good horse; they pick up a good
saddle, too, after experiencing the comfort of the "trooper
saddles" Bill uses. The seat of the hornless saddle is
suspended on nylon straps and bars that run parallel to the
horse's spine for a more comfortable ride for horse and rider.
Bill explains the horn used by cowboys for tying off their
ropes and such is really unnecessary for most styles of
riding.
Bill displays the trooper
saddles he uses that result in a more comfortable ride for
horse and rider.
"You ride a horse with your hands and legs: if you grab hold
of the horn, your horse is out of control," he says, besides
which, he continues, "if the horse rears up and falls over
backward, I don't want that horn coming in my stomach, and
I've seen people hit their face on the horn when a horse is
bucking."
Bill and fellow horseman, Sandy Lemons, organized the West
Tennessee Gaited Horse Show, held May 21 at the Carroll County
Civic Center in Huntingdon. Bill's daughter, Lisa, and
four-year-old grandson, Hayden, were among the competitors.
Lisa, Scott and Hayden Little live in Woodlawn.
Concerning his only grandchild, Bill says, "He's rather
special." His stories of Hayden, in fact, rival his horse
stories in interest and excitement.
He recalls that recently, when he went to Woodlawn to pick up
his daughter and son's horses for a trail ride planned for the
next day, Hayden tugged at his sleeve and cautioned, "Now
Granddaddy, no selling and no trading."
Bill's son, Bryan, and wife, Laura, live in Bentonville,
Arkansas, where he works for the Conwood Tobacco Company,
handling Wal-Mart and Sam's accounts nationwide.
Bill's daughter and grandson,
Lisa and Hayden.
Bill's son, Bryan.
"He rides also but he's not as passionate about it as my
daughter," says Bill, who himself spent 15 years in the retail
auto business in management positions and another 15 years in
banking and finance before, three years ago, deciding to do
training full time.
"I don't know how I ever worked," he marvels, relating two
hours spent feeding and cleaning stalls twice a day, plus six
to eight hours in the saddle, not to mention mowing, bush
hogging, fence projects and the like.
Bill and Linda are also active members of the Church of
Christ, where both teach classes from time to time and he is
one of four or five alternating song leaders.
"I enjoy it-I love singing gospel music," he smiles, sharing,
"Back when we were kids my grandmother (Mary Elizabeth Suiter)
would sit us out on porch and make us sing."
He started singing in church when he was 11 years old, the
same year he was baptized in the small country church of his
youth.
The Suiter family is tightly knit and Bill enjoys relating
tidbits of history, including how he was named Billy Bryan
Suiter after his grandfather, William Jennings Bryan Suiter,
and how his maternal grandfather, Radford Chandler (whose wife
was Blanche) was a blacksmith in Indian Mound, Tennessee.
Bill's mother, Lucille, still lives in Woodlawn and his
father, Earl, a farmer, served four years during World War II,
then worked at the arsenal in Milan until disabled by a stroke
at the age of 58.
"He rode horses 'til he was 70," Bill says proudly, "Many
times I've had to help him up into the saddle."
His father's death in 1993 gave Bill an enhanced awareness of
his own life: "It took me until I was almost 50 to realize
what was important in life," says Bill, who will be 56 in
October. He laments time lost when his children were young and
he worked 50 to 70 hours per week.
Bill and his mom, Lucille
Suiter.
In a thoughtful tone of wisdom, he recites from memory an
email he received wherein an elderly man explained to a busy
young father that, when he was 55, he'd realized the average
life is made up of only 3900 Saturdays. He'd immediately
ventured to several toy stores to collect 1,000 marbles-one
for each Saturday until his 75th birthday. He placed the
marbles in jars and removed one each Saturday, in one version
of the story making a stepping stone of the marbles at the end
of each year. More to the point, he began spending more time
with his family.
"It's amazing how you go from thinking you have so much time
to realizing you have so little," the story goes.
In fact, the old man had that day removed his last marble. The
story ends, Bill relates, with the old man's confident
assertion, "I'm on borrowed time, but I've been blessed."
Bill counts his own blessings as he recalls that, shortly
after he got his first horse, his brother and father got
pleasure horses as well and started riding with 30 to 40
people who would meet at their house and ride along the
Cumberland River on Sunday afternoons, their jaunt abbreviated
by a picnic lunch on the riverbank.
When the children were young, he and Linda, with a homemade,
two-horse trailer, would throw an air mattress in the back end
of the truck for a weekend of camping.
"That was our style of camping then, before there was water
and electricity at campsites," he says, recalling camping
ventures and trail rides at various farms.
"You can't get on the roads now; it's frightening to get on
the road on a horse today. Cars will run up on you and they
won't even slow down when they meet you."
Their camping is enhanced these days, however, by 99 miles of
marked trails and 300 camping sites at the Land Between the
Lakes' Wrangler campground as well as their dual horse
trailer/living quarters that he calls their "home away from
home."
"I've been blessed," Bill says, echoing the older man in his
story. "Going into the horse business full time was not an
easy decision. I did well in my career and made good money,
but I knew, 'If I don't do it now I never will...' God has
really blessed me."
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