Mike Walden eyes win at Tennessee walking horse show

“I’m Copperfield” and trainer Knox Blackburn take a victory lap at last year’s Celebration when they won the world championship 4-year-old walking stallion competition.

Mike Walden came by his love of horses honestly, taking easy steps behind his father, who founded Chattanooga Police Department’s horse patrol decades ago with donated Tennessee walking horses.

Now most Chattanoogans know Mike, also a former police officer, by his company name: Walden Security.

But Saturday night they may know him as the owner of the 2012 world champion Tennessee walking horse.

For the 51-year-old Walden, who knew when he was 11 that he wanted to own and show Tennessee walking horses, it would be a dream come true.

It also would feel sweet to Walden because he missed a chance at the walking horse world’s biggest prize in 2006 when he found himself at the center of one of the industry’s biggest blowups.