Just like her namesake, “Oprah” was brought out of a life of anonymity to become a star.

When Veronica Roth first heard about Oprah, registered as Kids Keeping Cool, the chestnut mare was doing little more than grazing and waiting.

“I was looking for a 2-year-old mare for (Sheri Hagen), who is also the person I work for full-time,” Roth explained. “I got a phone call about this mare that was on a farm in western Iowa.”

It was the end of January, so Roth drove from her home in Joplin, Missouri, to Denny Gerke’s place in Newell, Iowa.

“I drove out through the snow and the sleet, and she was standing out there at a farmer’s,” Roth said. “I just liked how she looked and what she was. I had a conversation with Sheri, and we decided to buy her.”

They knew that the little mare was destined for greatness, and decided to nickname her after another powerful female.

“Oprah is such an influential woman in the world,” Roth said.

Hagen added, “Oprah has a great sense of confidence in herself. Even though she’s a big, curvy girl, she’s a girl.”

Kids Keeping Cool won a world championship in two-year-old mares during her first trip to Oklahoma City.

Equine Oprah’s previous owners hadn’t had a show career in mind for her; they were planning to use her as a broodmare. Things changed when Sheri Hagen bought her. Hagen grew up around horses, but had shown mostly in western pleasure.

She had never owned a halter horse before.

Roth, who trains for Hagen, began working with the mare to turn her into a fit halter horse. After a few months, they sent Oprah to Luke Castle in Wayne, Oklahoma. The former pasture horse went on to win the All American Quarter Horse Congress, and headed to her first World Show.

Oprah, Hagen’s diamond in the rough, claimed a world championship Friday, beating 28 other entries.

“I had to do something while they were calling out names because I’m not standing there showing,” Hagen said. “So I was writing down names, and it was getting up to the end and I was like, ‘Oh my god, they might leave her on the wall.’ And then they called her name out, and I nearly fainted.”