“Amazing, it really was!” said AQHA Pro Horseman Dave Dellin. He had just ridden Craig and Becky Bailey’s 6-year-old stallion One Hot Krymsun out of the World Show arena with the senior western pleasure world championship.

“There was so much at stake,” he said.

The horse won the 2-year-old western pleasure world championship in 2001, and then the junior western pleasure in 2003. Dellin and the Baileys had waited three long years to see if the beautiful brown stallion could win the senior.

“It has always been a dream of ours to just come back again and do that again as a senior horse,” Dellin said. “Tonight’s ride really felt like a real crowning achievement in this horse’s career.”

What was the key to bringing the horse back to a World Show championship?

“We never really put him away,” Becky Bailey said. “Except during breeding season, which really kept him fresh because he only went to about four or five shows a year. The thing that was hard was, we wanted the senior title but we had to wait three years for it.

“So we had to keep him doing other things. We went and did western riding, and I showed him as a non-pro and we won a lot of (All American Quarter Horse) Congress titles in the meantime.”

Dave Dellin and One Hot Krymsun take home the senior western pleasure world championship.

But Bailey said this was it for One Hot Krymsun in western pleasure.

“We’re done, this was the goal,” she said. “We might do trail or something, but we’re not going to do western pleasure any more; I think he’s proven that.”

The horse has three crops of foals to be registered, so far.

“His oldest foals are 2-year-olds,” Bailey said. OHK Krymsun Zip showed in the 2-year-old western pleasure finals. “We were thrilled with that! That’s our first ever to show at the World Show. And we had one show at the palomino world and win that. That’s pretty amazing.

“Mostly (his foals are) carbon copies of him in all different colors. We say ‘crimson comes in all colors.’ They move like him, and they act like him; they’re just lazy, sweet little puppy dogs.”

One Hot Krymsun’s sire, Invitation Only, sold November 12 in David James’ dispersal sale for a heart-stopping $2.35 million.

“I’m probably the only person who wasn’t shocked because I think (these horses are) worth that,” Bailey said. “I think my horse is worth that, so I certainly think his dad is worth that.

“I think it’s great for the pleasure horse business,” she continued. “I think it gets everybody in the mood of spending on horses, and seeing value coming back out of their horses. I’m a perfect example, I certainly didn’t spend anything near what my horse is worth.”

But the stories Bailey loves best to tell about her stallion deal with his heart. She once took the horse into Canada to be a clinic horse for Dellin.

“They were raising funds for the Ontario Quarter Horse Association,” she said. “We auctioned off a 10-minute lesson on him with Dave, and it brought $650 dollars!

“But the best part was that a 65-year-old woman rode him, and she did awesome! She changed leads and looked like she could have gone and won the Congress.”

Or maybe even a world championship.