INNOVATION Futurity. In order to do that, he knew he that has to do two other events. It’s the needed a great horse with proven bloodlines, same for reined cow . I admit that was which is what led him to getting two embryos something I struggled with initially. It was from the outstanding mare difficult for me to not just focus on one event Shine Smartly. By Shining Spark out of Smartly and get that really good. I had to keep in mind Dressed (x Smart Little Lena), Shine Smartly that I was developing a versatile horse.” was trained and ridden by Shawn Hays and has a long list of accomplishments including a World’s Greatest Horseman reserve finish in 2007, an AQHA World Champion Senior Working Cow Horse title in 2010 and earned the World’s Richest reserve champion and Open Champion at the 2010 Snaffle Futurity. To date, Shine Smartly has earned $129,917 in competition.

“When I decided to breed my own working cow horse prospect, I couldn’t think of a better mare than Shine Smartly,” Clinton says. “She’s an extremely talented athlete and is really cowy. While a sire is definitely important when breeding a potential prospect, I believe the mare accounts for over 60 percent of her offspring’s talent and felt Shine Smartly possessed all the qualities of a great mare.”

He decided to get two embryos out of the mare, and chose to breed her to leading sire High Brow Cat, whose offspring have earnings over $43.9 million, and National Horse Association Hall of Fame Sire Smart Chic Olena. It was evident early in their 2-year-old year that both Kit (High Brow Cat x Shine Smartly) and Duke (Smart Chic Olena x Shine Smartly) were very trainable and showed promise to compete at the elite levels of the sport.

TWO GREAT HORSES Since reined cow horse competitions are broken down into three separate events, horses have to excel, or be at least average, in each event to do well in the competition as a whole. For Clinton, who is used to perfecting reining, it was difficult not to concentrate on just one event. “It was a very challenging and humbling experience to train both of the horses for reined cow horse events because I’m naturally a perfectionist. I had to keep reminding myself that the horses can’t be really good at one event and then below average at the others,” he explains. “In a lot of ways, reined cow horse is the western version of . A rider might look at an In his first year of training reined cow horses, Clinton says he was eventer’s dressage test and say that it’s not lucky to get to work with two naturally talented prospects with great very good, and it may very well not be, but minds. Duke pictured top, and Kit pictured bottom.

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