Did you know that top trainers Charlie Cole and Jason Martin were rivals their last year in youth showing in California and didn’t like each other? Kind of funny considering they both are now business partners in one of the most successful training operations in the industry, High Point Performance Horses.
During the 80’s, Cole and Martin were part of a group of top California youth exhibitors who grew up and showed together including Molly Kehoe Cherry, Jill Gomes Newcomb, Amy Scanlan Lund, and Shelli Ries. What is interesting is that this group is still involved in the horse industry as trainers and amateur competitors. Lund, Cherry, and Ries all rode with Gary and Kelley Roberts of Murrieta, California from young riders until they graduated from youth.
Kelley Roberts explains why she believes this group of youth competitors stood apart from the rest. “In those years California had a lot of youth riders competing at shows. There were also a lot more horse trainers instructing youth riders then,” Kelley recalls. “Those young riders had to really step up to be competitive. This special group of kids were very talented and had a great work ethic. Horse shows were their life and they put everything they had into being great riders.”
GoHorseShow.com decided to find out what it was like to show in California during this time period, any funny stories they remember, and why all of them are still involved in the industry.
CHARLIE COLE
Charlie recalls that he got involved with horses because his mother and sister were first involved in the industry. “I was more into turtles, snakes, rats, rabbits and pigs,” Charlie remembers. “I would catch all kinds of animals at the horse shows and put them in shoeboxes and talk my mom into letting me take them home. She was always terrified of whatever I brought home.”
Charlie attended boarding school at Rawhide Ranch when he was 12 until he turned 16. Then, he went to work for Doug Lilly for a couple years, and Tim Whitney before going to work for Gary and Kelley Roberts.
Kelley remembered when Charlie came to work for her. “He loved the pleasure and had been very successful in it. He wanted to learn more about the all-around events. He lived with us in our house and was a great kid. I was so impressed by the care and respect he had for his mother,” Kelley told GoHorseShow.com. “He would cook his favorite family chicken dinner. We called it ‘Charlie’s Chicken.’ My kids growing up would ask me to make ‘Charlie’s Chicken’ for dinner. I still have the recipe in my book as that. He always was ready for another horse show. He was great help for us as we were hauling a large group of youth riders back then. He and Molly, Amy, and Shelli were all good friends.”
Charlie remembers one funny story involving Jill Gomes Newcomb and Patty Pollard Ralls in the Showmanship one year during qualifying. “Patty didn’t do the Showmanship very often, but she decided to do it one day and Jill and I were helping her. When we lined up after the class, Patty was in between me and Jill in the lineup,” Charlie recalls. “We stood in that line what seemed like forever. Patty told us that she wasn’t feeling very well and all of a sudden she passed out. Both Jill and I just looked at each other, looked at the judge, and then kept showing,” Charlie says and laughs now about the incident. “It was qualifying for the World Show and we weren’t going to mess up our chances. We were serious and cutthroat. Both Jill and I ended up one and two in the class.”
When we asked Charlie what was different about showing in California compared to other parts of the country. “I felt like we were isolated from the rest of the country and the show circuits,” he said. “We were at a disadvantage because during that time most trainers didn’t travel out of California. It wasn’t until I started showing in Florida and other parts of the country that I felt like we were able to catch up and become just as competitive with exception to the Trail. I did feel we were ahead of the game in the Trail due to Tim Kimura developing difficult patterns initially in California.”
Cole said his proudest equine accomplishment is creating High Point Performance Horses with Jason Martin. “People in the industry always complain that politics and people with the money are the ones that always win, but we are a perfect example of hard work paying off. Jason and I did not have huge monetary backing and definitely didn’t have huge political pull when we first started showing. It was the fact that we worked hard and put our time in that we were able to become successful in this industry. We are now fortunate to be able to ride some of the best horses in the industry.”
JASON MARTIN
Multiple World Champion, Jason Martin grew up in Fresno, California showing Three Day Eventing with the Pony Club. He didn’t get involved with showing on the AQHA Circuit until his last year of youth when he was 18.
“I had a friend in high school that was involved with showing Quarter Horses, and I remember looking at the Quarter Horse Journal and writing all these letters to Jerry Wells, King Ranch…basically all the halter people that advertised in the Journal telling them that I wanted to come work for them,” Martin remembers. “Which was kind of weird that I was writing halter people, but I didn’t know. I think Jerry wrote me back and told me that I needed to wait a little while longer, at least until I got my driver’s license.”
Showing in California in those days was a blast, Martin remembers. “Every show was outdoors and most of the time the weather was great. Not very many people in those days travelled across the nation to show like they do now unless you where going to the world show,” Martin said. “So we really didn’t know what was going on in places like the east coast. The only thing I knew about the east coast is what I read about in the Journal.”
Past youth California competitor, Shelli Ries, recalls Jason as being the most dominant youth rider in the English events. “Coming from a dressage background, Jason had such strength and precision in his riding skills that it always looked easy for him to put together a perfect pattern in both the ground work as well as over jumps,” she said. “I’m pretty sure while the rest of us would be moaning about a pattern where we had to drop our irons, Jason would be smiling because he could trot laps around us that way. Even though he started into AQHA a little later than the rest of us, his competitive nature and perfectionism in all that he does put him in the winner’s circle very quickly.”
Martin seems to remember his short time as a youth competitor a little differently. “I was the poor one of the group. I had a horse named Idlebay Miss who could do everything good but nothing great so I never made it to the Congress or World Show. I don’t think I ever even placed in a horsemanship or showmanship class at any of the qualifying shows. I remember being mad at Amy Scanlan because she qualified ahead of me in the Hunt Seat Equitation and took my spot to make the world team. She was on a reiner so that just tells you what a great rider she was and how not-so-good I was.”
Martin said he fell in love with the western events and ended up buying a horse from long-time California trainer, Tim Whitney. “The horse was actually for Charlie, but he didn’t like it at all, so I ended up buying him and doing quite well in the youth events. Charlie and I ended up showing against each other and we would go back and forth in the placings, and by the end of the year, we couldn’t stand each other.”
A few years later after Charlie and Jason each turned professional, they ended up working together at a show. “I was asked to ride some of Charlie’s english horses, and I had him ride some of my horses in the western events. That was 1987 and pretty much the beginning of High Point Performance Horses.”
Martin says he is proud of the achievements of California horsemen and he is glad that many of his friends during his California youth days are still his friends and involved in the industry. “Shelli Ries is now my reining trainer, so it is neat for many of us to be able to stay involved with each other as friends as well as on a professional level.”
SHELLI RIES
Shelli Ries rode with Kelley and Gary Roberts from the age of ten to the end of her youth years. “She was a dedicated rider who never missed a lesson and worked hard to be the best,” Kelley recalls. “She too was very successful in the all-around and dominated her divisions and was a Congress Champion. She later went on in the reining and that has always been her passion. One year she surprised Gary and me with a routine at the Congress in the freestyle on her young reiner that she had. Part way through the routine she took off the bridle. She blew us away.”
Shelli Ries, who now lives in Aubrey, Texas and trains reining horses, remembers her time as a youth competitor. “Being a few years younger and still competing in the 13 and under, I was kind of the tag along and always looked up to the others like they were my older siblings,” Shelli recalls. “I wanted so badly to be able to ride like all of them. It was always an honor when I could actually get my name called out somewhere in between Charlie, Amy, Molly, and Jason when I had to compete in 18 and under classes. I think it was because of all of them that I worked so hard to become a competitive rider.”
Ries goes on to say that, “Showing in Southern California was always an interesting experience because most of the show grounds only have outdoor arenas and even in the land of sunshine you sometimes get bad weather,” Shelli said. “I remember one qualifying show it started to hail on us during our Western Pleasure class and all of the horses went to bucking. Another qualifying show the judge had to stop the class because he couldn’t see any of the horses through a dust storm that was blowing through. We were all die-hards and would show no matter what the conditions.”
The youth qualifying shows were so big back then that the competitors had to be very dedicated if they wanted to have any chance at qualifying for the Youth World. “We would easily have 50 to 60 entries in every class,” Shelli remembers. “I think that just the large number of competitors forced many of us to make riding our main focus and apply ourselves whole heartedly into the sport just to have a chance at placing.”
JILL GOMES NEWCOMB
Jill Gomes Newcomb was born in Visalia, California to parents and grandparents involved with AQHA for over 50 years. At two years-old, Jill started showing in Leadline and has been involved in the industry ever since. She graduated from Cal Poly and showed in the Amateur for a few years before she decided to turn professional.
“I felt I wanted to give back to the industry and I was looking for a new challenge,” explains Jill, who has built a successful training business in San Diego California. “I’m the only one of the group who still lives in California. I just love the weather, and I keep reminding myself that I live here for a little taste of paradise when I have to travel 24 hours to get to the AQHA World Show and 40 hours to get to the Congress.”
Newcomb also agrees with Cole when it comes to explaining what it was like showing in California. “I also felt that we were at a disadvantage because we were so isolated. I also felt that the East Coast riders were a lot softer riders compared to the West Coast style that came from the large Open Shows in the area. The riders seemed to ride in a more stiff, and rigid manner. It seemed a lot tougher and the classes were bigger on the other side of the country.”
Shelli Ries remembers Jill as being the “Queen of Showmanship” at the youth qualifying shows. “She was such a tall pretty girl that could put together flawless patterns and trot along side her horse with ease. She did go through a period where she kept such long finger nails that were impossible to wear gloves with, but instead of cutting her nails she just cut holes in her gloves that allowed her nails to poke out,” Ries said. “Occasionally, a judge would raise an eyebrow to her inventiveness, but then she would go put one of her beautiful patterns together and they would forget all about it. I don’t think I ever even thought of placing higher than Jill but coming in second to her in the showmanship was exciting enough.”
During her youth career, Newcomb was a past state youth president and she was also on the AJQHA board. “I remember that most of my friends had family members involved in the industry and everyone supported one another and treated everyone like family. That is what I like so much about this industry. When I had breast cancer, the support, emails, and calls I received was overwhelming, and I love to be involved in an industry that cares so much about everyone, especially when they are going through a tough time.”
AMY SCANLAN LUND
Amy Lund is Kelley Robert’s younger sister and she rode with Gary and her sister from a very young age. “She was always very competitive and had a little bit of a short temper. She was determined to do what she set out to do,” Kelley remembers. “She was very successful as an all-around youth rider. She was Top-3 at the Youth World in horsemanship and was a Congress Champion on her horse, The Blue Fritz. She was the joker of the group, always playing jokes and teaching her horse tricks.”
Lund said she started showing at the age of three at the Open shows in Southern California and then transitioned to showing at AQHA shows when she was 15 or 16. “My proudest equine accomplishments involve winning the Congress in the Horsemanship, and being involved with three Superhorses.”
Her husband, Brad Lund is currently one of the top ropers in the industry. They have a son Garett who is 10. “I became a Amateur in 2009, and I show in the cowhorse and the roping. So it’s payback time for me, all those years of teaching has now turned to getting taught. But I do have a great coach.”
One memory that stands out during her youth days was a show in Pomona, California, with Charlie Cole. “There was a homeless lady with a electric skillet cooking noodles and mustard. Smoking and spitting as she chased the cows along the fence during the cowhorse. Will never forget that. Charlie and I named her Erma Hermadean.”
Charlie Cole explains that, “Now, it’s an inside joke between us. Every time we see each other we say, ‘Erma Hermadean!'”
“Amy was my Idol,” Jason Martin told GoHorseShow.com. “She could do every event and win at it. Her horsemanship horse was also a reiner named The Blue Fritz and he could spin a hole in the ground on her patterns. To me, it was Amy and the rest of the group.”
Lund now lives in LaCygne, Kansas and owns and runs an Equine Aquatred Therapy business. “I have remained in the horse business because I love it. It’s all I have ever known,” she said. “California was a great place to live and show. I have met some great people over the years and become great friends with them. I would do it all over again if I could.”
MOLLY KEHOE CHERRY
Molly was very shy when she first started with us, Kelley Roberts said. “We were always telling her she was the strongest rider in the class she just needed to sell it! She was a great hunt seat equitation rider. Very strong and had a great work ethic also.”
Jason Martin and Molly went on a few dates when they were youth kids. “She was the girl I had a crush on when I was a youth,” Martin said. “I know she has some black mail stuff on me to this day.”
Molly rode Parker Chex to the Congress Championship in reining as well as Youth World Champion. “Gary remembers the night before the finals at the youth world she didn’t want to fence her horse because she had had a near miss in the warm up,” Kelley said. “So, she didn’t even ride the night before she won. Back then the youth world was in Tulsa and the pen was very small. She had the confidence to know what she needed to do and got it done.”
Molly Kehoe Cherry, who now lives in Oklahoma City, remembers that the California state qualifying shows back in the 80s were huge and tough. “We didn’t have national qualifying back then so everyone showed and tried to qualify within the state. We had a lot of fun and had deeper friendships because we all showed at the same shows and travelled together. Back then we didn’t travel much outside of California to show and the World Show had a different feel than it does now. We had great fun back in the day.”
Molly and her family now show at the Quarter Horse Shows. Her husband, Chad, is a World Champion roper, and her daughter, Gentry, who is ten years-old, showed at the Youth World for the first time last year. “I show in the amateur and may show in some hunt seat events this year. It is now a family oriented activity that we do together. I will always be involved with the horses.”
Cherry disagrees with Cole’s and Newcomb’s belief that the California shows were not as tough as the rest of the country. “There were certain classes such as the hunt seat and western pleasure that were not our strongest events on the West Coast, but we were very strong in the reining, trail, cowhorse, western riding, and cutting. I think it just depended on the class, and I thought we were just as talented as everyone else. That is probably why we all are still around because we were, and are still, able to be competitive with everyone despite the fact we were way out in California.”
Special thanks to everyone involved for providing us with such fantastic pictures!
