Magnum Chic Dream
At the recent National Reining Breeders Classic, National Reining Horse Association Hall of Fame stallion Magnum Chic Dream became the latest horse – and only the fourth ever – to surpass eight million dollars in offspring earnings.
The stallion has become a household name, as has his dedicated owner, Viola Scott, who can be found at nearly every major event cheering on his foals.
The Search Begins
Back in 1998, Viola was on the search for a new non pro horse to show. The horse she’d been showing at the time had colicked and passed, and she and her husband Jack were looking for a gelding for her to show.
“I knew I didn’t want to ride and show a stallion, and I sure didn’t want to ride a mare. I just was not interested in dealing with either of them,” she recalled. “Geldings have their minds on their business.”
The couple were at a horse show in College Station, Texas, and ran into Patti Brownshadel, who shared she had a horse in the barn who was owned by a Frenchman, and the owner had just contacted her to say he wanted to sell him.
That horse was Magnum Chic Dream, by Smart Chic Olena out of Sailin Barbee (by Topsail Cody).
“She said that she was kind of sad, because it was the best horse she had ever ridden, and she didn’t want him to leave her barn,” she recalled. “It sounded good to me, but then she said he was a stallion. I said, ‘Never mind,’ but she told me to at least come and look at him.”
All it took was one look, and Viola was sold. “He was two years old and, oh my goodness! We watched her ride him for maybe 10 minutes, and Jack motioned her over and said we would take him,” she shared. “He was priced at $15,000, which was a great deal of money at that time in our lives, but I was excited, and we bought him with the intent of gelding him.”
Patti talked the couple out of that course of action, pointing out the colt’s great mind and reminding them that he could always be gelded later. “She said she was sure that I could ride him and enjoy him as a stallion, so we said OK,” Viola said. “I wasn’t in a great hurry because I wasn’t interested in riding a green two-year-old either.”
The Offers Flood In
The Scotts purchased Magnum Chic Dream in early spring. He continued to improve and the couple admired him from the sideline, and in October, another trainer offered to buy him for $100,000!
But by that time, Viola was already firmly in love with Magnum.
“We couldn’t replace him for what we spent on him, and Jack said, ‘What if he bows a tendon?’ and I said, ‘Well, we’ll turn him out and wait for him to heal.’ Jack has said many times that he really had to swallow hard after that first offer, but we had agreed that he just was not for sale, and that is what we stuck to,” she said. “We were offered incredible amounts of money as he progressed.”
The last offer came after Brownshadel and Magnum Chic Dream had just won the Level 2 Open Futurity Reserve Championship and were finalists in Levels 3 and 4. It was the highest they had received.
“Jack looked at me, and I looked at him, and he said ‘He’s not for sale,’ and that was the last of it,” she said. “We had a friend that kept saying every horse was for sale, and we knew that this one wasn’t.”
Viola’s Horse
Eventually, Viola did take over Magnum’s reins. “I rode with Patti learning how to ride him for a year. I had never ridden anything quite like him, and he was a gentleman. I can’t even begin to tell you,” she said. “He just took care of me. It’s the gospel truth. I had the best time!”
Although Viola, who showed Magnum Chic Dream for two years, was having a great time, she still heard plenty of rumblings about what she should be doing with her horse.
“A very knowledgeable horseperson said to a group of people while at a show where I was showing. I was just enjoying myself like crazy. They said no one would ever breed to that horse with her (Viola) riding him,” she recalled.
Needless to say, the comment had a crushing effect. “I asked Jack if I should quit riding him and put him back with a trainer. And Jack said, ‘Well, I tell you what. Anyone who believes that you riding him is going to change his DNA is someone we don’t want breeding to him anyway.’”
So Viola showed him and Jack would haul the two to the events. “We didn’t ride with a trainer, which I think is a testament to Magnum’s great mind and kindness. I was a very limited non pro, but had a wonderful, wonderful time,” she said.
In July of 2004, while at a show in Katy, Texas, Viola decided it might be time to be done. “We were unloading our little two-horse trailer and were sweating like crazy. I looked at Jack and asked if he was having fun, and he said not particularly. I said, ‘Me neither,’ and that it was time for me to retire,” she said.
A New Career Begins
During the time that Viola was showing him, Magnum lived at the Wichita Ranch in Brenham, Texas, just 10 minutes away from where the couple lived at the time. “He was the only reiner on a ranch full of cutters. He was a petunia in an onion patch,” she said with a laugh.
After that last show, the Scotts hauled Magnum back to the Wichita Ranch but knew if he was going to move on to the next phase in his career, he’d need to be at a reining facility. “I called Casey Hinton and asked if he would be interested in standing Magnum, and he said absolutely,” she said. “Jack said we would be there in a couple of days.”
The couple hauled him to Cedar Ridge Stallion Station in 2004, and that’s been his home ever since.
“I rode him afterward, just there at the ranch just because I couldn’t stand it. I just had to get on him,” she said.
But Magnum Chic Dream still had one more show to get through. He had qualified for the American Quarter Horse Association World Championship Show with Troy Heikes. “Before we moved to Cedar Ridge, we were at a show in Ardmore, and he asked if I wanted help with Magnum, and he went to Troy’s place in Purcell for about six weeks. Troy showed him in Denver. He was schooling him, but there were four judges, and he qualified him for the World Show,” she explained.
Once at Cedar Ridge, the decision was made for Casey to show him at the World Show. The two finished as the 2004 AQHA World Champions in Senior Reining. “Casey said that would get him in front of a different audience, and I think it did. That was his last show. I showed him in July, and then Casey showed him in November,” she said.
It was thanks to Larry and Kathy Barker that the Scotts chose Casey and Kathy Hinton and Cedar Ridge Stallion Station for Magnum Chic Dream. “They recommended it, and said that maybe we’d love it too and want to move up there closer so we could see both them and our horse, and that’s pretty much how it worked out,” she said.
Magnum Chic Dream, now 26 years old, still stands at Cedar Ridge, and Jack and Viola visit at least once a week. “He’s wonderful and living the good life. He gets a shower every day. The gentleman who took care of him when he moved to Cedar Ridge is Antonio, and he’s been Magnum’s special guy since 2004,” she said. “He looks like a young man. He’s wonderful, he’s healthy and happy. Casey and Kathy Hinton have been wonderful to Magnum, Jack, and me.”