July 4th Weekend Fun!

We had a great weekend in Ocala, FL at the FRHA show! Suprisingly, it was not too hot!



We have three beautiful youth girls who are relatively new to showing in the reining. They each had their own successes this weekend.

First, Cassandra Saldi had an excellent run Saturday morning in the Youth 14-18 class. She ended up finishing in 2nd with a 69 1/2! This is her best yet! We are so proud of her, she has been working hard and riding her mare everyday! Here she is with her proud Mommy and nephew...



Morgan Burns also had a great run on Saturday winning the Novice Non Pro class with a 71! She is looking great with her new horse Oakie! Morgan is also been riding and working very hard to reach her goals.

Caroline Blackshear had a great weekend finishing off on Sunday with 2 amazing rides! A 72 to win the Youth 14-18! And before that a 71 put her in the lead for the Ladies class. Great job Caroline!
We are also very excited to mention her 3rd Place finish at the CRI Competition in Oklahoma City last week at the NRHA Derby. She won the bronze medal and a trip to Kentucky for the Finals!



Lucas McCullough, the one lucky boy youth rider (he gets to hang out with all these cute girls) had a great run on his gelding, Bobby in the youth class.

Elissa Roberts also did well showing in the Ladies both days with First and Second places!

And Congratulations Kay Simpson who rode to a nice 69 1/2 in the Rookie on Sunday giving her a top five finish!

And last but not least, Jeremy Zangl did quite well on his horse Stormy earning a paycheck.....way to go Jeremy!

Green Riders are Rockin' !!!

This season... this year... just keeps rockin' on and we are counting our blessings all the time. With many businesses around the country struggling we are so thankful to be very busy. Josh is doing a great job and earning his keep daily! Thanks also to Brooklyn who is such a faithful steady worker and doing a great job in the barn!

I have not taken time to get on here and blog about our last couple shows so tonight Esther set me up and here we go!

Our Green reiners are doing so awesome! Kassidy Long has now won two Green 1 plaques at the NRHA shows in Ocala and the fun part is that Ashlyn Harper is right there neck and neck with her!
They were first and second on Saturday with Kassidy just edging out Ashlyn by a half a point! They were 70 1/2 and 71! Isn't that great?!

On Sunday once again Ashlyn won the class! Way to go Kassidy and Ashlyn!

Kyndall Harper also had a great weekend winning the Limited Non Pro on Saturday and tying for the win again on Sunday with her friend from south Florida, Danielle Cohen. The girls agreed to be co-champions and Danielle won the flip for the trophy. Congratulations girls!!!

Josh also had a good weekend showing several times. He showed Jeremy Zangl's stallion "Stormy" and Marti Daugherty's gelding "Jac". Josh got paychecks both days! Good job!

Now.. on to the green riders showing for the first year at the cow horse shows! Megan and Malerie Whitehurst are having a great year! Megan is leading the southeast region of the country in the Youth Limited as well as for the FRCHA and DRCHA. Last weekend in Sarasota both girls rode real well... Megan won her first Limited Non Pro class and Malerie had her best runs of the year on her mare in the green 1 class.

Gwen Ajar also showed for the first time in several years at an NRCHA show and was third place in the Limit Non Pro class which was great!

We have some great young horses in training right now and we are really excited about the future and the horses that will start their show careers in the next couple years! I keep thinking of ideas I want to blog about including spot lighting some of these young horses. I will do my best to get that done soon!

See you all soon! Brad

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I'm So Proud of Kyndall !!!

You know its kind of funny but I always feel that one of my jobs as a horse trainer and coach to all you riders is to kind of put myself out of business! In other words to get you all to be so good at this that you are self sufficient! I guess I'm glad there are always young horses coming along to train so I can keep making a go of this! Here is what I'm talking about.

This weekend I took five horses and headed to Sarasota for a cow horse show.. that all went well... Luke was 2nd in the non-pro and Meagan and Malerie Whitehurst both did a great job showing their horses... Meagan is leading the Southeast Division of the country in the youth limited class and was 3rd in the Limit Non Pro! Malerie was 6th in the Green One and really had a nice ride in her second cow horse show ever!

... the biggest story of the weekend however is that JB and Bonnie Burney took their granddaughter Kyndall Harper up to Perry Georgia all by herself to the NRHA show there and showed her horse Chicken four times. Kyndall and Chicken won the Youth 13 and Under both days and bigger than that they won the Limit Non Pro both days!! Two pewter trophies and a couple hundred in paychecks and all without me there!! I couldn't be more proud of that!!! That tells me that Kyndall has really learned how to do this whole thing including preparing her horse to show and getting thru without me hovering over her the whole time!!

Another added dimension to all of this is that Ckicken has been off for almost two months due to a bruised sole.. he was really lame. The vet had told Kyndall before the Florida Classic that it would probably be OK if she brought Chicken and showed him there cautiously. Kyndall made the decision to leave Chicken home and let him have another few weeks of rest which I thought showed a lot of maturity on her part. And now I guess we could say it all paid off in the end!

I try my best to bring each of my riders along in their abilities and realize that someday they will become pretty self sufficient. As least that is my goal with every one of you that rides with me. I just hope it doesn't happen to all of you at once!!

Way to go Kyndall.. you make me very proud!!! Brad

Fixing a Mistake

A couple posts ago, I had included an amazing video of little Ashlyn riding "Chic O Lana" But, the video did not work for most people. I decided to make it easy and post it on Youtube! Below, you will find a repeat post, but this time the video works.

Also, look for upcoming blog about the last show....you won't want to miss some exciting news!!

Get Ready for Make A Wish Fundraiser

Hey, I just want to remind everyone to come and bring all your friends Monday night to the Make A Wish Equine Challenge in Ocala. It is turning out to be a really big deal that nobody will want to miss. For details go to DRCHA.org and please tell all your friends. We'll give you a full report after the weekend is over!!! Brad

Happy New Year!!!

Those of you that read this regularly can probably always tell immediately who is writing each one of these. I have to say I always enjoy writing once Esther gets me set up on here and I take the time to do it.

We have had so much happen since the last time I wrote on here so here we go. Lucas is the first news...he has gone through several months and four long rounds of Chemo and has done really well with it. It has not been easy but I can say honestly I have never heard him complain about it .. not once! Lee and Jean have been steady the whole time as well... Lucas certainly gets his good attitude from his parents. Luke still has some radiation treatments to endure but I don't really know the schedule of that yet. So far the outcome has been very positive... please continue to keep Luke in your prayers! We hope to have him riding again in about a month!!

Now thinking way back to the affiliate finals in Williamston N.C.which happened right about the time Luke got sick. Ginger and Kyndall were really great. Ginger had the ride of her life and ended up Reserve Champion Rookie! She won her way to Oklahoma City for the NRHA Rookie Finals and along the way also won her first Morrison Bronze Trophy! She was the high point Rookie for a four show series in N.C. and did so in two rides!! She was presented with the Bronze after we had teased her all weekend about repeatedly going to the office to see if she had at least won a little blue printed towel they were giving to class winners.



Kyndall also had a great weekend winning the Youth 13 and Under and forging her way to OKC as well! Both Ginger and Kyndall won Jackets and Chairs and got win pictures... it was all very fun! Congratulations to both of them!!

Finally on this episode we wanted to let you all have a chance to see something really special!! The McCullough's were nice enough to let 8 year old Ashlyn Harper practice on their good mare "Chic O Lana" who has over $40,000 in life time earnings and who is currently in foal to Wimp's Little Step...due in February. At the last show of the year Ashlyn showed Lana for the first time so please enjoy the video of Ashlyn and Lana! By the way ... Ashlyn won the class!