Growing up in Ohio, Katie Davis was not born into a family of horsemen, but as luck would have it, there was a lesson facility next door to her mother’s business. At just six years old, she would take lessons after school while her mother finished up work for the day. “It kind of became my after-school daycare of sorts. I would just hang out at the barn and clean stalls for lessons, then when she got off work, I’d go home with her. So, it worked out well” Davis explained.
At age 11 she purchased a 4-H horse where she competed in speed events, horsemanship, and jumping. She’d enter every class she could, but enjoyed the fast-paced events the most. “My mom said, “You’re going to enter every class, because you’re not going to have one of those crazy barrel horses,” Davis recalled.
In high school, Davis was a member of the Equestrian team where she even competed in bareback saddle seat classes “We didn’t have the saddle, so they made it fair for everybody and changed it to a bareback class,” she said.
It was on a tour with her 4-H class to Findlay University that Davis was introduced to reining. “I went there for a tour and discovered you could do this for a living. I never came up with a plan B. I still haven’t,” Davis chuckled.
Davis ended up attending Findlay University where she earned a double major in Western Equestrian Studies and Equine Business Management, with minors in Small Business Entrepreneurship and Business Administration. While in college she began interning with NRHA Judge Mark Turner. She had interned with trainers in other disciplines, but reining was the best fit for her future. “I wanted to make a living with horses, and in Ohio, that didn’t seem possible with the barrel horses, and reining had the speed and adrenaline I was looking for. I interned for pleasure horse trainers, but I lost my focus going that slow, so that’s when I chose to specialize in reining,” she explained.
Although having a college degree is not typically a requirement for an Assistant Trainer, Davis attributes a lot of her success to attending college. “I was a backyard barrel racer who did not show at a high level in any discipline. If I had gone and worked for somebody, I probably wouldn’t have been able to sit on a horse for four years, let alone get on a horse and experiment. And so being in that school setting allowed me to make mistakes and not worry that I was messing with somebody else’s money or livelihood. I had teachers who were solely there for my education and not there to profit from business. To me, that was a huge value,” she said. “I still have connections today from that program. I actually just gave a lesson to a student of one of my classmates at Findlay. She is an all-around paint horse trainer, and they’re in town for the paint show going on in Fort Worth. They brought a student for a lesson who wants to get into the reining and wants to bring higher-level reining horses to the paint world, so that was really fun to make the full circle connection there.”
After graduating college in 2013, Davis spent two years working for a reining trainer in New York before moving to Texas. “I decided I wanted out of the north and away from the snow and started applying to anybody who would listen to me; I got a call from Todd Sommers. I came down and started working for him seven years ago,” she shared.
Davis worked for Sommers for four years before deciding to look into other trainers to work for. “Working for Todd was great. He’s a great person to work for, and I enjoyed it so much. I was apprehensive to leave, because I was worried about making the wrong choice. I genuinely value my start in Texas with him, but it was a smaller program with a limited availability of opportunities. I talked to Todd in October when we got home from Congress, and the next day, I called Casey [Deary] and said, ‘I want to come work for you.’”
Deary and his team had been on the top of Davis’s list as she admired their training style and how they treated their help. Unfortunately, Deary wasn’t hiring at the time, but Davis stayed persistent. “I think I called him once a week or maybe once every other week up until the Futurity of that year. I gave a five-minute elevator pitch,” Davis said, explaining she had learned that technique in business class. “You have an elevator’s wait worth of time to convince somebody of your project or your presentation. So, I’d call him and leave little self-promotional voicemails. I’m not sure if he enjoyed or was annoyed by that.”
At the 2018 NRHA Futurity, Davis received a text from Deary to come talk to him at his stalls. “It was hard to pin him down. I mean, the man doesn’t stop moving. So, I felt like the creepy kid, you know, peering down their aisle every half an hour to try and figure out where he was,” Davis admitted. Eventually, Davis and Deary got to sit in the stands together as he coached Non Pros. Davis’ persistence paid off as Deary offered her the position as an assistant trainer.
Davis has dreams of running a successful business someday, the timeline on when that will be the right decision or whether she goes to work for somebody else after Deary is still up in the air. “I think I shocked the Dearys when they asked my future goals. I told them, I want to be a $3 million rider,” she said. The Dearys have supported that goal for Davis, “The main reason I wanted to go to work for them is because I knew they were good people who valued their help and would promote their help and wanted to see them do well.” She shared “That makes all the difference for an assistant. I mean we as trainers give our lives to this, my family is in Ohio, I my friends are in Ohio, I have given my life to this industry as my sole goal and purpose. And so, to have a boss who understands, acknowledges and respects that means everything.”
Some of Davis’s achievements include Fourth place level one 2020 NRBC on Sugarwhizngun, 2021 Tulsa Reining Classic Level 1 Derby Reserve Champion on Gunna Bend And Snap, Southwest Reining Horse Association Year End Rookie Pro Co-Champion on Gunna Bend And Snap.