WEANLING STALLIONS

WHEN IT'S ESPECIALLY SWEET.

BY CHRISTINE HAMILTON, FIELD EDITOR

Some wins are just sweeter than others. Ask anyone in the American Quarter Horse industry, and they’ll tell you that the wins you earn with horses you’ve bred and raised are often the sweetest of all.

“He’s a home-bred,” Kathy Smallwood said of her newly crowned weanling stallions world champion, Righteous Mister. Smallwood and her husband, Lonn, also raised the colt’s dam and owned his granddam and great-granddam.

“He’s one of those that kind of fits himself,” she added. “A really good halter horse I believe will fit themselves. Of course, you have to enhance that a little, but he was born extra-special.

“The day he was born, we thought he was a champion.”

An AQHA Professional Horseman, Smallwood has raised, trained and shown halter horses for years, and her husband, Lonn, “a true amateur,” shows them all.

She especially loves raising and showing the babies.

“I think at day two and two weeks are when I can really tell what they’re going to look like,” Smallwood said. “They say: ‘two days, two weeks and two months.’ He looked good at day two: his hocks were good, his legs were perfect, he’s got the right kind of angle, slope to his pastern.

Kathy Smallwood and her homebred Righteous Mister take home the colt's second 2005 world championship, this time in open weanling stallions.

“He’s an HYPP N/N colt,” she added. “I think (in) the industry we’re going to need some N/N studs. He looks like a stud. He really had that look about him the day he was born.”

Kathy trains and fits from Kathy Smallwood Quarter Horses in Pilot Point, Texas. She and Lonn stand no stallions and only have about two mares that they breed every year.

“We’ve raised 15 or 16 head of horses and three world champions,” she said. “We’re pretty proud about that.

“I did lose his mother in August, so it’s kind of a bittersweet moment,” she added. “I wanted (this championship) really badly because she was my favorite horse of all. This is kind of nice to end it this way.

“We’ll keep showing him until somebody wants him more that what we need him for,” she said. They aim to bring the colt back to next year’s World Show if they don’t sell him.

“I also have two siblings coming for next year that’ll be full brothers or sisters, so we’re looking forward to that!” she said. Recipient mares are carrying the foals produced via embryo transfer.

Righteous Mister also won the amateur weanling stallions last week with Lonn holding the lead shank.

“It’s been a fun World!” Kathy said with a big smile.

WINNER STATS Horse name: Righteous Mister Pedigree: By Mr Yella Fella X By Cool Innocence by Coolest Owner: Lonn and Kathy Smallwood, Pilot Point, Texas Exhibitor: Kathy Smallwood, Pilot Point, Texas Breeder: Lonn and Kathy Smallwood, Pilot Point, Texas Total Class Entries: 18 Purse: $6,012 World Champion Prizes: Gold trophy, Montana Silversmiths buckle, Cripple Creek jacket, Tex Tan silver halter and lead, Justin ostrich Tekno Crepe boots, Professional's Choice products, Nutrena feed, neck ribbon