***Click here to view the slide show from the high-point Awards Banquet at the 2011 AQHA Convention***
The American Quarter Horse Journal – At its annual convention in Grapevine, Texas, the American Quarter Horse Association handed out its coveted all-around high-point awards in the youth, amateur and open divisions. Molli Lyn Jacobs and Radical McCue won the Featherlite AQHA Youth All-Around High-Point title; Lindsey Stevenson and RL Cocoas Version (pictured here) won the Featherlite AQHA All-Around Amateur title; and Four Bonnie Bay, owned by Mike St. Clair of Kahoka, Missouri, won the Featherlite Open All-Around High-Point title.
All-Around Youth
In 2010, Molli Lyn Jacobs rode her way into AQHA history books as the Featherlite AQHA Youth All-Around High-Point Champion with Radical McCue. They also collected youth high-point titles in showmanship and performance halter geldings, and finished third in trail, fourth in horsemanship and fifth in hunt seat equitation. Radical McCue is a 2000 bay gelding by Radical Rodder and out of Jetterri McCue by Tuff Joe Jet.
“He’s very athletic and very strong,” says Molli, a high school senior at Garaway High School in Sugarcreek, Ohio. “You could put him through anything, and he’s going to come out stronger than before.”
In December 2010, Molli signed a national letter of intent to ride for Texas A&M University’s eight-time national champion equestrian team. She plans to major in biomedical science and hopes to attend pharmacy school following her undergraduate education.
All-Around Amateur
After barely missing the all-around amateur title in 2009, Lindsey Stevenson and RL Cocoas Version not only claimed the 2010 all-around title, but garnered high-point championships in hunt seat equitation and showmanship. They also finished second in trail, third in horsemanship and ninth in performance halter geldings in the year-end standings.
In their four years together, the Penn State senior and her super senior gelding have collected 1,381 amateur points and have earned a place among AQHA’s all-time leading point-earning pairs.
“I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be to juggle school and the horse showing and having a social life and everything,” Lindsey says. “It’s every weekend. It’s pretty much all you end up thinking about for that whole year.”
If all goes according to plan, Lindsey will graduate this spring. She thinks her business minor will play a bigger role in her career path, and she hopes to find a job that will allow her to continue showing.
Open High-Point
In 2010, Four Bonnie Bay exceeded Mike St. Clair’s expectations with five AQHA high-point titles, including the coveted Featherlite Open All-Around High-Point title. Four Bonnie Bay, affectionately known as “Spur,” is part of Mike’s plan to improve the marketability of his horses. When Mike went stallion shopping in 2006, he says, “We felt like we had to differentiate ourselves in today’s market and show that our horses can really do something.”
So he made a call to Craig Haythorn, looking for a stallion prospect. Haythorn Land & Cattle Co. won the inaugural presentation the AQHA-Pfizer Best Remuda Award, which is presented to a ranch in recognition of its ranch-raised and -used American Quarter Horses.
It didn’t take long for Spur to lose his ranch-raised wildness. As a 2-year-old, the son of Figure Four Chex out of Bay Bonnie Raindrop, an Eddie Eighty daughter out of a Driftwood Ike mare, went to Brad Wilson in Arthur, Nebraska, to prepare for the Haythorn Futurity. (Brad, a familiar exhibitor at the Working Ranch Cowboys Association finals, has been named the top hand at the World Championship Ranch Rodeo three times and has led his team to five world championships.) The Haythorn Futurity is an event that is a combination of reined cow horse and working ranch skills.
After the futurity, Mike sent Spur to AQHA Professional Horseman Luke Jones, a reined cow horse and rope horse trainer in Allerton, Iowa. The stallion took to the roping events like a duck to water.
With the help of AQHA Professional Horseman J.D. Yates of Pueblo, Colorado, Spur had 350 points won by June. That gave Luke the opportunity to jackpot rope on the horse during the summer.
But by year’s end, the stallion had captured the junior and open all-around honors as well as the title of high-point tie-down roping stallion, open and junior high-point heading horse, and high-point open heeling horse. He was also in the top 10 in performance halter stallions.
Look for detailed stories about each of the 2010 high-point winners in the April issue of The American Quarter Horse Journal, as well asin the Journal’s new digital supplement, Journal Plus, which can be found atwww.aqha.com.
All photos © GoHorseShow.com
