The Champlin name has been in the headlines lately which prompted us to ask what ever happened to 1997 AQHYA World Champion, Christa Champlin? Christa’s mother, Laurel Champlin, and sister, Cassidy, just won the
World and Congress on their new horse, Look N Hott, which we featured in
an article a few weeks ago.
GoHorseShow sat down with World Champion Christa Champlin of Cave Creek, Arizona to find up what she has been up to since her horse showing days as a youth exhibitor. We found out that Champlin is now a busy mother of a six year-old boy, Luke, and a 12 month-old baby girl, Hannah. Her husband, Cobey Hampton, and Christa share a love for horses–he grew up ranching, and rodeoing, and Champlin actually encouraged him to get qualified for the first time this year for the AQHA World Show in the Amateur Heeling on her reiner, Mac Attack Jac—and he made the finals and placed fourth!
“We pay for our horse habit through our Real Estate Company Hampton Realty and Investments, which we specialize in ranch properties, residential, and land investments,” Christa tells GoHorseShow. “I handle the daily operations of marketing and re-modeling projects, and he is the numbers man. My husband knows me well now and when I get a little crabby around the house he’ll say go ride your horse. I am a lucky woman.”
Christa said growing up with AQHA in her life eventually created who she is today. “It is a lifestyle,” she says. “It gave me some of my most dearest friends who I have been fortunate to share my life with, the good and the bad. It’s a good group of people that most people in life will never have by their side, my horse friends are the real deal, true blue, be there for you when you are up or down, family.”
Champlin adds, “AQHA also gave me invaluable leadership experience I gained from being on the AQHYA committee which I served as treasurer. The memories I have of traveling with my fellow committee members, and the people I met on my leadership journeys–I will never forget.”
Christa was fortunate to have shown some of the best horses in the industry. She acquired, Diamonds Fame, an older show horse from Amy Whitaker on one condition that she must keep him forever. Christa placed at the Congress and Youth World on him, and, then, he went on to teach her sister, Claire, her cousin, Tina Raether, and little sister, Cassidy, how to ride. A fun fact about her family is that her sister, Claire, placed second on the television show the Amazing Race last season. She is now known as the watermelon girl for her hard hit to the face by a catapulted watermelon to her face. The video went viral on you-tube with over a million hits.
Christa says that her most beloved and challenging horse was the handsome, Rikers Legacy. He was only four and placed third in the Congress Junior Western Riding with Sandy Vaughn in the very tiny Cooper Arena and he was 17 hands!
“We knew he was a talented sucker, but what we didn’t know was that he was extremely smart. My first year of showing him; I did not get along with him, I just had spent my college tuition on a horse I could not even get through an equitation pattern on,” Christa recalls. “Eventually, June Warren told me that we have to do things his way, and she was right. We became a very competitive team under her guidance and a real bond formed between the three of us.”
In her last year of youth, Christa spent her whole summer with Ron and June Warren. It was an intense summer if anyone knew June, but she prepared Champlin for everything.
“She strengthened my body with long sessions of no stirrups, practiced every element a pattern may have, and took the best care of Riker. She knew that horse and knew me–she truly believed in us. That summer, I finally won my World Championship in Hunt Seat Equitation. I can still remember to this day all of my friends and family in the stands cheering,” she recalls. “It was the most rewarding experience and as the announcer called out my name, I teared up because I knew that horse had given me his all, and it all finally came together that day. The journey was now over and, how I would miss that journey with this amazing horse.”
This proud mother of two says that she loves the horse industry because it is a place you can never stop learning. “I admire the elegant hunt seat horses to watching horses at the NFR. If you love horses, it’s an never ending place to learn and meet new people,” she says.
Her personal goals, everyday when she wakes up is to be just a little bit better than she was the day before.
“I try to be a better Mom, a better wife and of course a better horseman,” Champlin says. “I am very excited about starting to ride with my husband and I’s old mutual friend, Shadd Parkinson, who actually introduced us on a date many years ago. I plan on learning on how to cutt and go down the fence soon with my new cowhorse, TR Spooky Cat.
Christa continues, “I also plan on learning to team rope, since I married into the Arizona Cowpunchers Association, which is a hoot for me to be apart of. So, I must learn this year to swing that rope, so I do not have to sit in the grandstands anymore at the annual Cowpunchers Reunion Rodeo. Most importantly, what I have learned being older and now a married woman to a cowboy, if you can’t beat ’em join ’em. No sitting on the fence for me.”
