It’s just like Prince penned in his 1988 Billboard Hot 100  single ….. And the ride I say, the ride is so smooth. You must be a Limousine.

Redd Corvette (Smith), a 2021 chestnut gelding, sired by Allocate Your Assets out of Blue Couture, is indeed a “smooth ride.”

Purchased by Pamela Raad, of Middlebury, Connecticut, for a non-pro partner for herself and her daughter, Lauren, the athletic youngster is just getting his show career started but Falls Village, Connecticut trainer Jessica Noiseux is already encouraged.

“He’ been easy going to train and he takes whatever new things you throw at him,” she said. “We’ve been bringing him along slowly and just letting him grow and get strong.”

His breeder, Debbie Hodde showed Noiseux a video of Redd Corvette when he was just a yearling and it was love at first sight.

“I didn’t have the right situation for him at the time but I loved how he was made — how upright he was in his wither. I always kept him in the back of my mind and when we started to look for a horse for the Raads, I came across a new video of him. He was at the time in training with Beth Case so I reached out to see if he was available.”

Lauren Raad still remembers meeting Smith for the first time.

“My mom and I were going blueberry picking when Jess called us and said she was sending us a video of an amazing horse. I remember us pulling over on the side of the road to watch the videos and we just were stunned immediately,” she recalled.

The mother/daughter show team flew out to the National Snaffle Bit Association (NSBA) World Show in Tulsa, Oklahoma, last August  to meet him and try him out.

“We were too excited to wait, so the night we landed we went to the barn to meet him after dinner and immediately fell in love with his personality,” Lauren explained.

Every time Jessica and her husband and training partner, Ricky, found a potential horse for the Raads to try Lauren would administer her own special test.

“I would always give each one a hug around their necks and see how they reacted,” she said. “ Smith immediately rested his head on my shoulder and I just knew he was special.”

Jessica describes Smith as “playful, soft and athletic.”

“I call him exuberant,” she said. “If this horse misses one day of work, you know about it. He is a Dennis the Menace and he is always finding something to get into or some trouble to be a part of. He loves his turnout. In fact, I would say one of his quirks is how excited he gets if he sees other horses outside his window getting turned out before he does.”

But at the same time, Jessica says the youngster is so good minded quiet that he’s bound to be a successful show horse.

“I think his softness really sets him apart from others,” she said. “He is a big horse with tons of presence but he’s also sweepy and moves low to the ground. I think he’s appealing to a lot of people with different styles.”

Jessica will show Redd Corvette in 3-Year-Old Open Hunter Under Saddle and Novice Horse events this year. After hitting a couple of local AQHA shows for Pamela and Lauren to get some riding experience on him, they will show him in non-pro events at The Premier in Kentucky, the NSBA World Show and at the Quarter Horse Congress in October. Jessica will continue his career in 3-Year-Old Open Hunter Under Saddle and Novice Horse events as well.

Lauren says she and her mother try not to get too caught up on specific goals and titles. Her plan is to just love and enjoy every second with him.

“I do admit, however, that I’m  looking forward to eventually teaching him Equitation since that’s my favorite class,” she said.

That’s a goal she and Pamela are confident Jessica and Ricky can help them achieve. They have been working with the husband-and-wife training team since 2018 when they served as assistant trainers at Powder Book Farm.

Pamela Raad was born in Illinois and moved to Connecticut when she was in the fifth grade. Her grandfather raised Quarter Horses at his farm in Illinois and that’s where she got her start with horses.

“I would spend all my summers back in Illinois to be around horses,” she said. “My aunt taught me to ride and we would show mainly at local and state fair shows.”

After earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Business from the Mount Ida Campus of UMass Amherst in Newton, Massachusetts, Pamela married Marc Raad, an Internal Medicine Physician in 1991 and raised three children — twin sons: Michael, a finance manager and Jon, a criminal defense attorney; and Lauren, a 2023 graduate of the University of Connecticut with a degree in Human Development and Science. In addition to showing horses at a top level, she is currently working as a medical assistant for an occupation medicine office to gain clinical experience and hours for her application to physician assistant school.

Lauren sat on the back of a horse when she was just two year old and the rest is history.

“I started off doing local Connecticut shows,” she explained. “My mom would go to the barn to get the horses at 4 a.m. and trailer them back to the house to pick me up. No matter how much she had to juggle, she always made sure I had my hair braided in pigtails and with the prettiest bows to round it all out.”

For 10 years Lauren showed under the guidance of Gretchen Mathes and Geno Spagnola at Powder Brook Farm.  During that time she won six Quarter Horse Congress Championships, an NSBA World Championship, a bronze at the AQHYA World Show and many top five and tens at the Congress, NSBA/AQHYA/AQHA world shows.

“I came into Powder Brook Farm with my little paint pony,” she recalled. “My first start in the AQHA world was having the opportunity to show Fantastic Invitation for my early youth career. She was an incredible mare who, paired with the guidance from Gretchen and Geno, helped me build a solid foundation.”

Next Lauren teamed with Scooter Brown, a 2014 sorrel gelding sired by RL Best Of Sudden out of Always Invite Molly to finish out her Youth career and transition into Amateur competition.

“I worked with Ricky throughout the end of 2016 and the majority of 2017 doing the 3-year-old Western Pleasure  pleasure events with Scooter Brown,” Lauren said. “Throughout that time, Ricky grew to be like a big brother to me. He really pushed me to mature in my riding capabilities.”

In 2018 Pamela returned to the show ring with HotForYourHonor (Quincy), a 2013 bay gelding by Signature Of Honor out of One Hot Jazzy, to show alongside her daughter.

“Jess and Ricky helped Geno (Spagnola) find Quincy for me to show,” she explained. “We had great success with him and under their guidance I won my first (Quarter Horse) Congress Championship (in Level 1 Amateur Select Hunter Under Saddle) that same year.”

But even with all the success Pamela and Lauren have enjoyed in the show pen, that is not what drives them.

“Showing with Lauren makes it so complete,” Pamela said. “The ups and downs of showing and owning horses as well as the understanding of it all is so special when shared together.”

Lauren could not agree more.

“Toward the end of my Youth career with Scooter Brown, and even into the start of my Amateur years, I reflect back now and see how caught up I was with chasing titles,” she said. “My biggest goal for horse shows this year, and moving forward, is to focus on truly enjoying every moment with Smith, my mom, my barn family and the AQHA environment as a whole.”

Lauren says her mom is genuinely and wholeheartedly her best friend.

“Anyone that knows me/us will attest to that,” she said. “She is the face I will always look for first to find in the stands, on the rail or leaving the pen. I love watching my mom ride and simply be around the horses; she is a very talented and natural horsewoman. I get so excited and proud to watch her show.”

In fact, she says, her entire family has played an important role in her success in the show pen.

“My father has been nothing but supportive and encouraging throughout all the years,” she said. “It is a running joke that he may not understand much about the horses, but he appreciates one with a pretty tail. My grandfather has also been one of my biggest advocates for my passion. He drove his RV to shows all over the country in my early AQHA youth years and never missed watching any of my classes.”