Jennifer Gilliam & Surprizing Sixty Six
Jennifer Gilliam grew up in Springville, Cali., loving all things equine. She showed in the all-around when she was younger but replaced that hobby with basketball in high school and in college at Chico State University. After her college years and the end of her basketball career, Gilliam got back into riding, specifically reining, beginning with an internship and then an apprenticeship with Mike Boyle. After her apprenticeship, she took what she learned and stayed in the Non Pro.
Gilliam enjoyed breeding a mare or two per year, and if she didn’t sell the foals, she would start them herself. “Initially, that was just because I couldn’t afford to have them in training for their entire 2-year- and 3-year-old years,” she said. “My mom had started babies growing up so I had been around it a lot, and then working for the Boyles, I got more experience starting babies. I definitely wasn’t a colt starter, but if they were pretty easy to get along with, I didn’t run into too much trouble.”
After Gilliam has gotten her 2-year-olds as far as she is comfortable taking them, she passes them to her trainer, Jordan McBurney, to put the polish on. It is a program that had worked well for the team, especially with Surprizing Sixty Six, the mare that Gilliam rode for longer than the others and ended up winning Levels 4 and 3 of the NRHA Non Pro Futurity.
Janiene Borror, Gilliam’s mother, spotted the yearling daughter of Inferno Sixty Six and Dun With Surprizes at the NRHA Markel Futurity Sale. After the hammer came down, the filly was passed out. Determined to have this standout filly, Borror and Gilliam found the consignor after the sale and purchased her private treaty. Gilliam brought the mare to her own property and started working with her soon after getting her home.
“I think what stood out after I had at least a couple of rides on her, was that she really wanted to come out and be the same horse every day,” Gilliam said. “She had her points where she could be worried when we went new places, but she never threw anything new at me, which I felt made her easy to train. I knew what I needed to work on in order to make her a good show horse.
“I knew she was going to have to be confident in herself, being in a new place, so I hauled her more than I did my others, but I like to haul my babies a lot anyways. I’ll go ride at Jordan Larson’s for a day, or go down to Mike’s and ride, or I’ll haul them to a local horse show. I mean, it’s a lot of work, but I feel like that kind of thing pays off in the end because you kind of get the kinks out early instead of trying to haul them and show them all at the same time as a 3-year-old.”
With most of the filly’s insecurities about going new places in the rearview mirror, Gilliam felt like it was time for McBurney to put the finishing touches on her. “Jordan got her late in her 2-year-old year. She was a really talented filly, and I knew in the back of my mind that if I had her really stable mentally, as far as going a lot of places, then Jordan would bring the maneuvers out of her, so I didn’t really worry about those much.“
The maneuvers were polished, and the pair enjoyed a very successful pre-futurity season. They won everywhere they showed leading up to the big futurity in Oklahoma City: The Best of the West Non Pro Futurity, Levels 4 and 3 in the High Roller Reining Classic, Levels 4 and 3 of the Low Roller Reining Classic Futurity (4th in Levels 4 and 3 the Open Futurity with McBurney), the CRRHA Fall Spooktacular Non Pro Futurity, and led the NRHA Futurity Prelims.
Even with that level of success leading up to the NRHA Futurity Finals, Gilliam wasn’t altogether confident going in. She shared, “I definitely felt a lot of pressure going into Oklahoma City coming off of her success in the pre-futurities. I showed her four times prior to the Futurity and she won three times and co-championed one. Every time I showed her, she was better and better. I think the pressure was really on me to not make a mistake if I could avoid it. There was no double that she was ready. It was just a matter of mentally preparing myself.”
To prepare, Gilliam talked a lot with McBurney who qualified for The Run For A Million in Las Vegas and understood high-pressure environments. She also drew from experiences gained on the basketball court and tried to have a plan for the execution of each maneuver.
After leading the prelims, several people asked Gilliam if she was concerned that she had shown the young mare too hard too early. “I was like, ‘yeah, a little bit,’ but in the same breath, I feel like the ones that are really good show horses, if you prepare them right, they go show for you 99 percent of the time. I was like, ‘Well she’s going to tell us what she is.’ She’s either a great one or she’s going to go out there and be naughty, but I was hoping that she was not going to do that,” she finished with a smile.
They scored a 222.5 for the win and Gilliam thanked her mother for buying the filly, Jordan McBurney and husband, Sean, for having such a great program, and her own husband for taking care of things at home while she is gone with her horses.
Tremblay Performance Horses & Raisinthebar
Angie, Raphael & Dany
The program at Tremblay Performance Horses has been proven time and time again. Fred Tremblay picks a great prospect out at a sale, Angie starts the training, Raphael continues, and sometimes, Ethan or Dany applies the finishing touches. After that, some lucky rider often wins a championship title. The formula was successful in the Open Futurity when the team chose and started Ten Thirty for Casey Deary to ride to the Open Futurity Championship, and the plan worked again for Jana Leigh Simons to take Raisingthebar, out of Chic In The Bar, to the Level 2 Non Pro Futurity win. The Tremblays’ program also equaled success for the filly’s sire, PS Mega Shine Chic.
Simons grew up showing in all-around events and horsemanship classes and has had some prior success at the NRHA Futurity several years ago. When she got ready to compete again, she went to the Tremblay barn for help finding a futurity prospect. “Jana was looking for a horse, and Fred found this one,” Raphael shared. “I think this was a good match for her. She has big maneuvers, but she’s kind of laid back. For a non pro, it’s a little easier, because she can really push her. She is that kind of horse.”
Tremblay’s longtime clients and owners of PS Mega Shine Crush, Brad and Amanda Kelly of Adh Mor Ranch, raised Raisinthebar and sent her to Tremblay Reining Horses to train. It was there that Fred realized that she was the prospect that Simons had been looking for.
Dany agreed, “It was the perfect match. Jana has a lot of experience in the show pen. She’s been winning a lot. She’s won the Level 3 futurity before (in 2009). She needed a really nice horse, and I wanted that mare to stay in our program, and I wanted Jana to stay with us. Diamond Dub Quarter horses bought that mare from her after the futurity, so she was the perfect match for everyone.”
Angie started the mare’s groundwork first, but the mare was such a fast learner that her time with her passed quickly. Angie said, “It took me like, maybe, 30 minutes, and we were riding her already.”
After Angie gets the groundwork done, Raphael puts on the first ride. “If they don’t buck, and they are good, then Angie will ride them for a couple of weeks, and then I usually get them back when we put the snaffle on them so I can teach them the maneuvers,” he said.
Angie was most impressed with the filly’s nature and quality of movement. She said, “She always was a really good mover, and she was so quiet. She didn’t ever get scared of the saddle or the pad, so even when he rode her, she was really nice. She never bucked. She was maybe a little bit on the lazy side, but not too much, just really quiet.”
Dany rode the filly a few times during her 2-year-old year, and each time, he found her progress to be on point, so he trusted Raphael to continue with her.
The mare was special for Raphael because he took her the furthest in her training than any others he’s trained before. “It was really rewarding,” he said. “It’s kind of a horse that I made and coached Jana to the win with Dany’s help.”
Jana, on the other hand, began riding her filly during her 3-year-old year. “Jana drove down all the way from Dallas to the ranch in Overbrook, which is like an hour and a half. She came every weekend to ride, and I would help her with her horse. She just wanted to know her horse and show up to the horse show ready. She worked really hard for it.”
During the finals, Raphael was feeling the pressure. He said, “I was nervous. I really wanted her to do good. She worked so hard. I knew they had a shot, but I was nervous.”
Angie felt a little more assured during the finals. “I knew she would do good. Every time she shows, she’s been the same,” she recalled.
The Tremblay Reining Horses team is compared to a family. Raphael said, “They are just nice people to work with. They treat employees good. When you can work somewhere and you feel like they appreciate what you do for them, it feels good.”
Angie had similar sentiments which she expressed by saying, “They always have our back. Even when it is not work-related, they are there to help you with tips and advice. You are not just there for work. It is like a family.”
The Tremblay brothers truly do appreciate the efforts and individual talents of their employees. Dany said, “When Angie started working for me, she took care of horses: grooming, saddling and feeding. Then I taught her a lot about horses and the round pen and stuff. It’s incredible the way that she learned. I think there are so many people that are just not born to do it even if they work hard at it. It’s not easy to break colts and read their mind and read the way they act and stuff, but Angie is very special about it. Right now, she doesn’t let anybody else break any horses at the ranch. She loves doing it, and she’s doing an amazing job.”
Of Raphael, Dany appreciates his tenacity most. “All Raphael wants to do in life is ride. He wants to ride, and ride, and when he’s done riding, he wants to ride again. So, it doesn’t matter on all the horses, it doesn’t matter how good or bad they are, he wants to ride them and find solutions to any problems and stuff. He’s a really hard worker, and he’s doing all he can to make things better.”
Cecilio Gomes, Clemerson Barbalho & My Best Friends Girl
It was through a twist of fate that Brazilian citizen Cecilio Gomes was able to start 2021 NRHA Level 1 Non Pro Futurity Co-Champion, My Best Friends Girl, who was ridden to the win by Kindel Ann Walter.
In his childhood, horses were the main mode of transportation for those in the Northeast region of Brazil where Gomes grew up because cars hadn’t yet arrived. Even though they held a utilitarian purpose for him, he still loved them. As life carried him through several Brazilian states following several jobs until he retired as a policeman, horses remained in the forefront of his thoughts.
“After retiring in 1999, I made working with horses my only occupation,” Gomes said through a translator. “I went to clinics with several trainers, including the American, Les Vogt, when he was in Brazil. I am always learning and also teaching beginners. I train horses for an event called vaquejada, and also work with cattle in the country.”
When starting young horses, Gomes uses a mixture of natural horsemanship techniques and methods he learned from indigenous Indians who believe that maximizing physical contact with the horse early on is key. They stay very close to the colts, keeping bodily contact with them whenever possible, even teaching them to lay down and getting them broke and soft bareback before ever saddling them.
Gomes’s focus is on himself when he is working colts. “I think about what I need to do to maintain mental balance, patience, self-control, perseverance, and respect for the nature of the horse so that I can project confidence and thus achieve better performance,” he shared.
In 2020, Gomes planned a week-long vacation to visit his son in the U.S. and attend his wedding planned for March 5; however, fate had other plans. His son, NRHA Professional Clemerson Barbalho said, “My groom left just before my wedding, and we had a week-long honeymoon planned afterward so I asked my dad to stay longer so he could take care of the horses while I was gone.”
Gomes did stay, but after the new couple returned, the COVID 19 pandemic had begun shutting things down and his flight home was canceled. It was six more months before the borders opened up, but by then, Barbalho had come to depend on his father’s help so much that he asked him to stay even longer. His week-long vacation became 10 months which allowed him to work with several reining-bred colts and fillies in his son’s care.
“When I first went to see my son, I wasn’t expecting to be working. I was only going to attend his wedding,” Gomes admitted. “But I felt the need to contribute at the time.”
Gomes had started many colts for vaquejada and ranch work in his life, but never one intended for reining. He said, “In my mind, reining principles apply to every event a horse is intended for. The biggest difference is that a horse trained for vaquejada cannot have the same sensitivity in the mouth as one for reining.”
Gomes thought that My Best Friends Girl was a natural athlete and every maneuver came easily to her, but it was her mind that made her stand out. “I noticed that she was an animal of extreme docility and intelligence. It was easy for her to assimilate everything that was required of her. I remember saying to Clemerson, ‘That horse was born to be a champion. For all trainers that ride her, she will take them to the podium.’ With each working day, her performance was always better. She was an excellent animal in my eyes; different from all of the other colts I worked on the ranch where my son trains,” he shared.
Gomes rode My Best Friends Girl for about two months solidifying the basic maneuvers than any horse should know before he passed her to Barbalho to specialize in reining. Barbalho looked forward to training the filly because he already had a history with her.
“I rode her mom,” he said. “Diva Dual was the first mare that I had from my client, Diane Beckman, when I moved to the United States. She was a special mare. I loved her. She had a great disposition, was very athletic and good-minded. I suggested to Diane that she keep her and breed her to Spooks Gotta Whiz. We got two fillies before [My Best Friends Girl], and all of them are nice horses like their mom. When it came time to start this filly, Diane asked my dad to give her a Brazillian barn name, and he chose Teka.
“My dad does a very good job starting them from the ground and with the first rides. We never had any troubles with her,” Barbalho said. “She showed since the beginning that she could be an easy non pro horse, because she was just super easy and a good mover. She was a natural stopper just because she wanted to stop.”
Beckman’s colt program centers upon starting the 2-year-olds so buyers can assess their potential before selling them to good show homes. NRHA Professional Kole Price had been searching for a futurity horse to get his sister-in-law, Kindel Walter, back into showing. He had tried and loved a full sister to My Best Friends Girl the year before, but wasn’t able to complete the purchase so he called Beckman to see if she had anything else. When Beckman told him that they had a full sister to the filly he wanted the previous year, he went to try her. The deal was done, and Walter was headed for the pay window.
Barbalho kept track of the filly after she was sold, asking how she’s doing, watching her in the pre-futurity events, and noticing her on the grounds during the week in Oklahoma City. “I always want them to succeed,” Barbalho said. “I try to do my best to put a good start on them, and love to see them going good in shows.”
Gomes is disappointed that he didn’t get to watch the winning run but is still proud of his part in her success. He said, “I feel grateful and happy to be part of this conquest, her training having been initiated by me.”
Of his son’s position in life, he said, “I am very proud of the work he performs with precision, dedication and responsibility. These are qualities he has had since he was a child so I had no doubt that he would get where he is today. I am grateful to God for all this.”
My Best Friends Girl isn’t the first colt Barbalho trained that became a champion. He also started his own stallion, Spooks Gotta Outfire, which placed 3rd in the NRHA Futurity under Andrea Fappani as well as a horse called Gotta Diamond Lady that he won both APHA and AQHA World Championships on in the same year. He started Spooks Grand Slam, now owned by Martin & Kim Muehlstaetter, which stands at Oswood Stallion Station. He also started Sharp Dressed Spook which Luca Fappani earned over $95,000 on, and Spooky Whiz which has been ridden to over $176,000 LTE. Whizkers that Martin Larcombe rode to the 2021 L4 Futurity finals was started by him, as was Gotta Shiney Whiz that Kelle Smith rode to the Waco Futurity and SWRHA Futurity L4 & L3 Non Pro Championships and was a 2016 Level 4 Non Pro Futurity finalist. One that he feels is extra special is Gotta Shiney Diamond because he rode her up until a month before the Futurity before passing the reins to Eduardo Salgado who make the L4 finals on her and won more than $50,000 at that show.
Barbalho believes that the person who puts the first rides on a horse is responsible for the most integral part of their lives. He said, “If they trust you in the beginning, they are going to give you their best. They are going to give you their hearts.”
Vanlandingham Performance Horses & Ruf Rider
Jason & Dalton Vanlandingham
NRHA Professional Jason Vanlandingham and Vaughn Zimmerman have developed a close relationship over the 10 years that Vanlandingham has been training for Zimmerman. Each year, Zimmerman sends Vanlandingham to look at his yearlings and choose three out of the bunch to train. Ruf Rider, by Not Ruf At All out of Dun Pretty Nifty, was one that he chose.
“I had previous experience with two full siblings of his that turned into nice show horses,” Vanlandingham explained. “He was kind of a cuter moving horse out across the pasture, so we gave him a shot.”
Ruf Rider remained in Vanlandingham’s program all the way through his training and was started by Vanlandingham’s son, Dalton. “Dalton is real good at getting them where they just go around pretty relaxed, pretty quick, and this colt was no different,” Jason stated. “He was pretty simple as far as just that he wasn’t broncy at all. He was always one of those that you had to push everywhere you went, which we like in a horse, especially the ones that are going to maybe turn into a Non Pro horse. I like a little more feel for my open horses, but this horse was perfectly suited for a non pro caliber horse.
“He’s a very attractive horse. He’s got that funky, grullo color with a big mane and tail. He’s one that whenever people come to the barn, they always had to know what he was. If people pick them out, just walking past their stalls, you know, they seem to have that little extra something that they’re looking for in the show pen.”
While Ruf Rider wasn’t showing the makings of a superstar, he showed enough talent throughout the colt-starting process that they kept him in the program with the knowledge that if he didn’t make Jason’s Open Futurity string, then perhaps one of Zimmerman’s grandchildren could show him.
“The plan was for me to show him at The Invitational, and then as we got closer, I thought that Taylor (Zimmerman) might be better suited to show him at that deal, so she did,” Jason said.
She got along with him well there and at another show in Virginia proving that he was going to make a show horse, so Jason sent the grullo colt to Taylor’s Non Pro coach. He didn’t fit her coach’s program so the decision was made to sell him.
Ruf Rider was returned to the Vanlandingham’s barn for Jason to sell. “Vaughn found out that Emma’s pony that she had been training up had been injured, and she wasn’t going to be able to show him. He said, ‘Hey, since Taylor’s not going to show this thing, why don’t you guys just buy this horse from me for Emma?’ That thought had not even crossed my mind, but I threw her on him that afternoon to see if they would get along, and they actually got along great!”
Emma went on to show Ruf Rider at the Tulsa Reining Classic, the Southwest Reining Horse Association Futurity, and then at the NRHA Futurity where they won a Level 2 Non Pro Co-Championship.
Although the colt was pretty solid, he was often silly and playful coming out of his stall and for the first few minutes of his ride, but that wasn’t anything that 14-year-old Emma couldn’t handle. “When we were in Oklahoma City, she was on him there in the big outdoor pen. The speakers down there were a little scratchy when the announcer was talking, and they were turned up so loud that the sound was kind of vibrating on the roof. Man, he about jumped out of his skin! He was pretty unsure about that, but, you know, five minutes into it, he went to work,” Jason shared. “Emma’s a pretty good little rider. She can get on those colts and just kind of massage things out. She’s not thinking about the training part of it, but just gets on there and gets to guiding them around.”
Jason watched the finals run from the in gate where he normally watches his kids show, “I like to encourage her at the in gate as she’s running past me to make sure she’s doing the right things, and then we talk about it when she comes out of the pen. [My wife] Adrian goes up into the stands and cheers her on from there,” Jason said. “You know, I don’t really get nervous whenever I’m showing, but when I’m watching the kids, I get EXTREMELY nervous!
“Yeah, I get pretty wound up whenever she goes in. I’m over there working on my breathing techniques on the side before she goes in, telling her to breathe, but actually, I’m just trying to make sure that I don’t pass out over there!”
The Vanlandinghams kept Ruf Rider and Emma showed him at the Ride & Slide in Tulsa, in preparation for the National Reining Breeders Classic and the NRHA Derby in 2022.
Sam Smith Reining Horses & Spookified
Sam Smith & Morgan Moser
Spookified looked picture perfect when she entered the Jim Norick Arena with then-owner Kelle Smith in the saddle. She delivered one smooth maneuver after another; from her icy stops to her nimble spins, she looked to be in her element. Standing only 13.2 hands high on the day she won the Prime Time Non Pro Futurity, where she also placed 3rd in the Level 4 and second in the Level 3, the petite, bay filly had her own ideas early on.
“When we got her, she was pretty juicy,” NRHA Professional Sam Smith explained. “She had some buck to her, and it took a while to get her confidence up and whatnot. Once she let her guard down, she was really a good filly.”
What about the saucy filly initially caught the Smiths’ eye when they saw her at Troop Quarter Horses? Kelle admitted, “First of all, I love the Spooks Gotta Whizzes, and she was just so cute! She was real people friendly, like, she chased all of the other little fillies away, and then she just followed us around. I typically don’t buy yearlings, but I said, ‘We’ve got to do it.’ Then to have her in our program… I don’t usually come to the futurity with one that has been in our program from start to finish except for the two times that I won the Futurity. Both of those were started at our ranch too. It’s nice to have one that is trained and that you know the quality and you know that, ‘Hey, this thing could do something big here.’”
While Kelle had intended to show “Sweetie Pie” from the time the filly picked her in the pasture, Sam had other ideas in the beginning. He said, “I own half of that filly with Kelle, and my plan was always to sell her, which was, kind of, in conflict with her plans to show her. We did have a lot of inquiries over the course of the show season from people wanting to buy her, but nobody got serious enough about it. Then I kind of backed off wanting to sell her so she could show her, and it worked out pretty good.”
Sam said that his first impression of Sweetie Pie was her intelligence. “She had a lot of personality. She was very bright and inquisitive. We could tell that she was really smart.”
Even still, Sam put the first thirty rides on her himself. “Years ago, I made the observation that a lot of places I would go, the person with the least horsemanship skills would always be the one that rode the 2-year-olds. That seemed strange to me because I feel like it’s the most important time in their lives. It’s their first real interaction with people. It’s not where they learn everything, but it’s where they learn how to learn and develop habits and such,” he said. “We had high hopes for that filly with her dam [JDS Shining Image] being a Futurity finalist. She was a little fractious so it would have been easy for her to go the wrong direction at that point in time.”
“That mare always could turn good, right from the start. She had a lot of talent for turning. Honestly, the stop came along a little bit later. I mean, I thought she was one of the best stoppers at the futurity, open or non pro, but that’s something that kind of took all year long to develop,” Sam said of her inborn talents.
When Sam felt confident in the horse’s initial start, he handed the reins to assistant Morgan Moser who taught her most of the basics. Moser said, “In the barn, she’ll look over the stall and neigh at you when you walk by. She just likes coming to work every day. It was cool to see her do so well because as a 2-year-old, she always liked to work, and she still does.”
Moser started her reining career competing in Youth classes riding with NRHA Professional Kelly Sapp in North Carolina. After deciding to pursue her hobby as a career, she went on to work for National Reined Cow Horse Professionals Kevin Stallings, Barret Yates, and Mark and Shari Luis before landing at Sam Smith Performance Horses in Marietta, Okla, where they ride reiners as well as a few cow horses.
Moser’s philosophy about starting young colts centers around patience. She said, “It’s important to just give them time because they don’t all progress at the same rate. I try to be patient with them and make sure that I’m doing what is right instead of thinking that they are bad or something. I try to make sure I do my job good to help them do theirs.”
Moser got to watch Kelle and Spookified in the finals from the stands and she said, “It was really cool because we always knew that she was good.”
Sam shared that he wasn’t worried about the mare’s spicy nature showing up in the finals, mainly because of Kelle’s part in her training. He said, “Kelle took over her 3-year-old year. One of Kelle’s strong suits is that she rides two horses a day, and she rides all day long and never gets one sweaty. So, she spent a lot of quiet time on that filly. That is one single thing that allowed her to have such success in the show pen.”
After the Futurity, Spookified was sold to Sam’s longtime client, Veronica Phillips from Iowa, which allowed her to stay in their barn. They plan to flush some embryos out of her this year and then, perhaps Sam will be able to show her in the Open as a five- and six-year-old.