Flying To The Moon

 

When the news of a purchase of a promising equine star hits the news feed, expectations are high. But as horse owners know, what follows is always up in the air. For Paula Czapko, who purchased Flying To The Moon in the fall of 2024 from Angela Fox, her dreams and wishes are becoming a reality in the hands of trainer Aaron Moses.

By Delores Kuhlwein

Last fall when Paula Czapko purchased Flying To The Moon, aka “Leroy,” from Angela Fox, it was big news – and a big surprise for Paula.

“I go to Aaron’s every Saturday,” Paula had explained at the time. She’d seen her two-year-old Aaron has in training, and then she followed her usual habit of going to lunch at a Mexican restaurant with her dear friends.

“This time, my husband was with me,” she says, “and I got a text from Aaron, asking me to come back, and he also asked me if I had boots and spurs.” She was wearing tennis shoes, she says, but a few months earlier, they had fitted spurs to her tennis shoes so she could ride her two-year-old, so she was game to try it again.

But when she arrived, Aaron walked down to the stall and pointed to Leroy, a horse Paula describes as drop-dead gorgeous – a 2019 AQHA gelding by Extremely Hot Chips and out of A Diva By Moonlight, bred by Jeri Kay Lockwood.

So Paula rode Leroy with her tennis shoes and spurs, and “he just packed me and my little, short legs around. I rode him and got along with him great.  Even though I have five horses and a wonderful two-year-old, my husband, John, said, ‘I want you to buy this horse.’”

Aaron recalls seeing Leroy as a three-year-old with Brian Ale, and thinking he was one of the best horses he had seen in a long time.  “I have always been Leroy’s fan, and when I got the chance to get him in my program it was all I had hoped for. He is so talented and beautiful. I feel like we understand each other’s personalities, so we get along very well.”

He’s equally delighted that Leroy gets to remain in his barn.  “When the opportunity to purchase this horse for Paula came about, it was an easy decision. Paula has always commented on him, and we are so excited that we get to keep “Leroy” in the barn. He is an amazing horse, and we have had a very successful year,” Aaron says.

Paula is still pinching herself over the opportunity to own Leroy, a horse Dan Yeager really wanted to go to a person who was passionate about western pleasure – a description which describes her to a “t.”  She adds, “Aaron had already erased the current owner’s name and put mine on the card on the stall. I’ve been with Aaron for 3-4 years, and now and then a horse trainer comes along who is honest, talented, and fun to be around.  I think of him as one of my best friends.”

Aaron says he is grateful as well for John and Paula Czapko, “for all they have done for me and my program for several years now and being as spontaneous as I am. All of these people are the kind of people that you want around you on your team.”

Flying To The Moon with Aaron Moses For Owner Paula Czapko

The plan moving forward was for Aaron to show him in Junior Western Pleasure for the remainder of 2024, then in Senior Western Pleasure as of 2025. What followed was the stuff of dreams, with Aaron showing Leroy to a Reserve Championship in L3 Junior Western Pleasure at the 2024 AQHA World Championship Show. Then he kicked off Leroy’s six-year-old year with a L3 Senior Western Pleasure win at the 2025 Arizona Sun Circuit!

When Aaron added another title to Leroy’s ever-growing list at the 2025 NSBA World Show earlier this month, as the Champions of BCF 4-6 YO Ltd Open Western Pleasure, Paula and Aaron were all smiles.

Not only is Leroy a pretty horse due in part to his sire, Extremely Hot Chips, but he’s a happy one, too, says Paula, who was pleased with her Top 10 earlier in the show.  “He keeps his ears up and he doesn’t chew on the bit.”

Leroy’s success, Paula explains, has a basis in his breeding, but also in Aaron’s integrity and most of all, in his program. “He is the utmost top-notch trainer I’ve ever had – and I’ve had a lot,” reveals Paula, who says Aaron’s fairness with his horses speaks volumes.  “I’ve only seen him get after one of mine once when he tried to buck me off, and I have a shattered right shoulder, so I can’t afford to get bucked off.”

Paula concludes, “I love how he gets his horses flowing, with a good bit of life, and they’re not overdone looking.  He is the man.”

 

Congratulations to Paula and to the Aaron Moses Show Horses team!