GoHorseShow is sad to report the passing of 2013 Senior Trail AQHA World Champion, MWS Sevens Are Hot (Gilda) due to complications associated with colic. The 2003 gray mare by Hot N Blazing and out of MWS Zipped In Chock was humanely euthanized on January 21, 2014.
“She was the type of horse that caught people’s attention,” says owner, Sarah Maggert of Paris, Illinois. “Gilda was a beautiful mover that could go in the class first and clinch the win. Not many people can say that let alone do it twice, both at the Congress and World Show.”
Maggert bought Gilda when she was still a junior horse, without riding her or even seeing a video. “My trainer, Tommy Sheets said she was the one, so we bought her,” Maggert recalls. “My first show with her was at Gordyville. I showed her in the western pleasure, and, at the time, I couldn’t even get her to lope off.”
Maggert says that her favorite win with Gilda would have to be her first reserve world championship in which she tied with Kathryn Olson. “No one had ever seen a ride off before in the trail, and I was just happy to be a part of it,” Sarah remembers about her AQHA Reserve Amateur World Championship in 2011. “She challenged me from the very beginning but gave me everything in return. She had the biggest heart and most try than any horse I have ever met.”
MWS Sevens Are Hot is an AQHA World and two-time Reserve World Champion, Congress Champion and Honor Roll winner in the Trail. The incomparable gray mare gave Ryan Cottingim his first world championship last year in the Senior Trail with an impressive score of 234.5 in the finals.
“Gilda was truly one of the great ones and will be greatly missed. Our deepest sympathy to the Maggert Family,” says Gilda’s trainers, Tommy Sheets and Ryan Cottingim. “We would like to say what an important part Sarah, Gilda, and the Maggert Family have been to our lives. We truly love you all and our hearts go out to you.”
