AER Performance Horses

01/15/2025

Mamas came in for a bit today to roll and get on some soft ground. Hard to tell from the pics who is 23yrs old this year, who’s the hard keeper, and who might not even be bred.

01/11/2025

This is why it’s so important to teach young horses how to lead and load. You never know when an emergency might happen. They literally had to drag this horse out and in to a trailer with ropes and several people.

Best guess is it was left behind because the owners couldn’t get it out of the pen themselves. I don’t care how many trainers say they prefer untouched 2-3year olds for colt starting. This is a great example of why starting ground work at weaning is the norm here.

12/12/2024

☠️ 🤣😂

😂🐐💜

12/12/2024

Before you jump on the who’s hot bandwagon stallion wise, remember that for every winner you see, there’s a dozen more by that stallion that didn’t make it anywhere.

Although it definitely helps, buying in to the flavor of the week may not pay off how you want it to. And if you are breeding for resale, Godspeed 😄🐴

Pictured is my Royal Shake Em son that is not and will never be a 1D horse. 🐎 I would still take a RSE in a heartbeat though.

12/10/2024

♥️

About Kassie Mowry and Jarvis winning Round 4 on Memorial Night…The 2024 Nutrena Barrel Horse of the Year’s registered name is Force The Goodbye. Under the circumstances you may or may not know about, that gives me chills. You see, Jarvis was the pride and joy of his owner and Kassie’s fiancé, Michael Boone. Kassie and Jarvis made the fastest run here last year, and won the very next round, too, to go back-to-back in the Thomas & Mack. Before they left Vegas last year, Michael told Kassie she had to do whatever it took to get Jarvis back here again, because, “He deserves to go 10 rounds.”

Kassie, who’s the winningest barrel horse jockey of all time with career earnings of now $7.5 million, is famous for barely making the 25-rodeo minimum that’s an NFR-qualification requirement. Last year, she went to 26 rodeos, and this year just 27. Think about that, when there are people here…and plenty who didn’t make it this far…who went to 100 rodeos. Kassie kept her word to Michael. But this time, with a broken heart.

Michael died without warning in an accident on June 1. I had no idea when I first picked up the phone to talk to her for a Horse of the Year story for the American Quarter Horse Association on Jarvis’s peer-voted honor the Sunday before this NFR started. Kassie was making the very long drive from Dublin, Texas to Cowboy Town that day, and when I asked her about Jarvis’s owner, there was an impossible, painful break in her voice before she tried to tell me about it.

Then it was my turn, as I told her it reminded me of being here in 1989, when Tuff Hedeman had to make the trip without his traveling partner and best friend, Lane Frost. Or when Mary Walker won the world on Latte in 2012 after she and Byron lost their only child and rising rodeo star son, Reagon, at 21 in a road accident, and Mary overcame a crippling horse accident that could easily have ended her cowgirl career. I sure didn’t expect to cry on that call with Kassie, but those kinds of catastrophic losses leave permanent scars that dredge up deep emotion when we go back and relive them, even years later.

Anyway, Kassie and Jarvis clipped a barrel on opening night, but even with a slip on the second one would have turned in the fastest time of the night and eclipsed the world-famous Hailey Kinsel and Sister by four-hundredths of a second for first in Round 1. Those two are on a tear hear, going tic-tac-toe, three in a row in Rounds 1-3, then finishing third last night. But how cool knowing what I now know about what Kassie’s overcome just to get Michael’s beloved Jarvis here this year to see them rally back and place second only to Hailey and Sister in Rounds 2 and 3 before taking last night’s victory lap (Hailey and Sis finished third in Round 4).

I don’t pretend to know Kassie well, but from what I can tell she’s one classy, humble, handy horsewoman who’s earned every penny of that $7.5 million she’ll hit this week, as she’s already closing in on $100 grand in the first four rounds. And that, ladies and gentleman, puts her in the same rarified air as rodeo royals Trevor Brazile and Jb Mauney. Enjoy the ride, cowgirl. I know that cowboy angel of yours is running up that alley with you. You say you’re “in awe of this horse.” We, Kassie, are in awe of you.

Update: Kassie and Jarvis struck again in Round 5, a couple hours after I posted this!!


Kenneth Springer photo thanks to WPRA
These are the stories of No Spin Rodeo.

11/24/2024

Horses are always a gamble. Buying the top lines doesn’t guarantee a winner (although it surely helps) and replicating winning pedigrees doesn’t always work. Full siblings can be vastly different. Half siblings can be very much the same. It’s a lot of genetic lottery luck. 🍀

I think if you talk to enough breeders they will tell you they’ve had full siblings that are complete opposites. Foals that take after a Dam or Sire. Foals that take after neither. Genetic lottery crap shoot. I see a lot of people saying “what stallion would compliment this mare?” They want one that throws a quiet demeanor, raw speed, natural cow sense etc. but then who gets blamed if the foal doesn’t have the desired quality down the road? Just something to think about with contracts going out for breeding season. You may not get everything you hoped for and that’s no one’s fault and in no one’s control.

11/18/2024

Brought all the mares home yesterday and it sounds like the timing was perfect since we are in for a storm tomorrow 😫 I think our good weather streak has come to an end.

11/17/2024

This mare could be the real deal for someone looking to get in to the barrel racing world.

2008 AQHA bay mare 15.2+h - 5k - Towner ND

Sister has previous 3D/4D open winnings in Oklahoma from her younger years. She’s been raising babies the last several years and just coming back to riding now. She rides around so nice. The smoothest horse I’ve ever been on. You could probably do some local western pleasure classes on her that’s how broke and nice she is. I would say she would be an excellent candidate for a step up horse. She can be a little forward so she does need a rider that would be able to keep her honest in her gaits or she will trot and lope on her own. She likes to move out. If she’s going back to the barrel pen I would suggest the buyer do a PPE at least of her hind end (hocks/stifles) to see if she would benefit from injections. Being a senior horse this would be the norm. If you are just trail riding and not competing she’s fine as is. Rides around sound, moves out nice. Good on the ground and good to be around. I have taken her to a barrel race and rode around and trotted through the pattern just to see if her attitude changes in a high stress environment and she rides just the same. I can’t say enough good about her. She’s the kind that would really teach a kid a lot. Or go back to rasing babies out of her. If they are as nice as her you could have a heck of a program.

10/08/2024

Books are OPEN for Kit Kat for 2025 stud service. We will work with you to ship cooled semen if you prefer that over frozen.

Because he is still going to be showing next year his contracts are limited to 10 approved mares only for next year. I hate to limit books so much but I really want to get this guy proven in the ranch riding side of things so we can think about a 2nd career after that. He truly is an all arounder. He’s helping PG cows for the 1st time today and doing just fine I hear.

10/08/2024

“I was scared today.

I was scared to get on, scared to walk out the yard because I had a bad ride the day before. One bad ride, and it made me scared.

I didn’t know why. I’ve had 1000 bad rides. I’ve had 1000 falls. I’ve broken bones and bruised my pride on countless occasions, but today I was scared.

Why? Because confidence is fragile. It takes months and years to build and seconds to lose and yet we are so careless with it.

When we get on a horse, we wear a hat to protect our head. We wear body protectors, gloves, boots...

We pay so much attention to protecting ourselves physically, we forget that our minds are not invincible, and our confidence certainly is not.

Your bank of confidence needs regular deposits, not just from others... but from you. Self confidence is the most valuable currency in life.

When you go to get on, and you hesitate, you falter and you start to ask yourself “can I do this?”, chances are, your account is almost empty.

Every time you laugh and say “oh no, I’m no good” or “so and so is 10x better than me”, you make a withdrawal from that account, and before you know it, your account is empty and you’re scared to get on.

But every time you say “I’m really pleased with how that went” or “I think I rode that really well”, your balance increases.

We need to learn to give ourselves a break, pat ourselves on the back and allow ourselves to feel proud of where we are - after all, most of the time we’ve worked bloody hard to get there!

Recognising your strengths is just as important as recognising your weaknesses. Never allow yourself or anyone else to empty that account.

Confidence is valuable, don’t bankrupt yourself.”

Author- cromwellandlucy

09/17/2024

If you haven’t already, please go check out Metallics Little Cat. He finally has his own page!

09/05/2024

Horses dont know what you pay for them. They don’t know the expectations you put on them or the dreams they are supposed to be a part of. What they do know is how you treat them.