November 18, 2011
By Samantha EckertThe American Quarter Horse Journal
Sampson shows off his easygoing disposition with J.R. and Steve. Journal photo.
After six years of not showing, Presidential Order returned to the show world to qualify for the 2011 AQHA World Championship Show with Steve Heckaman.
“J.R. (Reichert) and I bought him as a 2-year-old,” Steve says. “Because of his training, we opted not to try to get him ready for anything as a 2-year-old, then to bring him out as a 3. We showed him three times as a 3-year-old.
“He had some pretty good success. He was second in the Tom Powers, third at the Southern Belle, made the finals at Congress. We really hadn’t shown him very much to the public since then.”
Steve and J.R. decided to stand him in Texas at Steve’s facility for several years.
“He went into the breeding program right after that as a 4-year-old,” Steve says. “I don’t think the public ever really got to see him in his best light.”
Steve thinks that because he was standing in the shadow of his sire, Potential Investment, and his full brother, Certain Potential, “Sampson” wasn’t able to get breedings to the mares he deserved.
“Potential Investment died in December,” Steve says. “So J.R. and I decided to maybe bring him back to Texas and stand him in Texas again. He just looked incredible when he came back from J.R.’s.”
Sampson’s physical condition was a big factor in Steve’s decision to bring the stallion back to the show pen.
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“He still looked like a really young horse to be 9 years old,” Steve says, “and he moved great. I just kind of, in the back of my mind, toyed around with, ‘Gosh, you know I ought to get this horse ready to show him again. Let people see what he’s really capable of.’ He matured quite a bit from the time he was a 3-year old. For me, I thought people ought to see him again and be able to appreciate his quality.”
Because Sampson hadn’t been shown or been ridden in almost six years, he needed to be conditioned. He also was mainly a futurity horse so he needed to be finished in the bridle.
“It’s something we did very little of when he was a futurity horse,” Steve says. “He just needed experience, to get horse-show broke. It kind of felt like in the beginning that I was basically showing a 3-year-old in the senior class. Experience-wise, that’s kind of what we were doing. We had to get him solid in the bridle and try to not look like a juvenile in the senior class.”
That was the hardest part of getting the bay stallion back into the show pen.
“The senior class is always tough,” Steve says. “You’ve always got horses that have had years of experience. People know their horses so good. For me, I thought that the biggest obstacle was just to get him kind of on par with the other horses that had a lot more of experience.”
To his credit, Sampson is a relaxed stallion.
“He’s really easy to get along with,” J.R. says. “Steve’s wife, Erin, sent me a picture a while back with (Steve’s) son sitting on him. That kind of tickled me. And we got to see that in the colts we were raising out of him. They are very good-minded and structurally sound. He’s got the personality of an older man in a young man’s body.”
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“He’s got a lot of expression, and he kind of looks through the bridle,” Steve adds. “He uses his ears. He’s got a big eye, and I think he’s a very pretty horse. After showing his sire and his dam, I can see a lot of qualities coming from both sides of his family.”
Steve has been showing Sampson in performance halter stallions and the horse has earned several points, grand and reserve champion titles at the shows where he has shown in halter.
Steve and J.R. are not sure what is in Sampson’s future except the 2012 breeding season and more showing.