LOCAL ACHIEVEMENTS New!
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Rod and Gail Shaw of Shaw’s Performance Horses have been breeding and showing Paint Horses since the mid 1970’s with great success at Paint State and National levels. For the past twenty years, their main focus has been breeding Paint reining horses for open competition.
At the recent Reining Australia Continental Affiliate Championship and Futurity Show in Tamworth, Gail riding her imported stallion Son of a Gun, won the Continental Affiliate Champion Novice Horse Non Pro and National Champion Novice Horse Non Pro as well as taking home the PHAA buckle for the highest score by a Paint Horse at the Show.
For those not in the know – the Continental Affiliate events are for Regional Club members who have qualified during the year to represent their club at the National Show. These classes are run concurrently with the National event. Gail and Sonny qualified by winning the Novice Horse Non Pro at the “Slide to the National Show” held at Wagga back in April. This was a great win in itself as Gail had only started riding again in March after 3 years of health issues where it didn’t look like she was going to walk, let alone ride.
Son of a Gun is by the World Champion Reiner “Gunner”. He was bought as a late 2 year old, being prepared for the NRHA Futurity in the USA so had a bit more than basic reining training. He had only been shown once as a 4 year old by Rod and had been doing stud duties ever since. Gail rode him at 2 shows in 2008 with mild success, but her health deteriorated again. Now an 8 year old, this was Sonny’s first real show season. “I didn’t plan to show this season, just to ride and have some fun. And riding Sonny is always fun, he is very laid back and cool and only does as much as he has too!” said Gail.
“He was pretty stiff after breeding season, so we did lots of bending and stretching and I don’t just mean Sonny! There were days when nothing went right! My timing & balance was way out and I had trouble giving cues with my legs. And we couldn’t find a bit he liked, we tried several different ones - all this was happening while we were going to shows. He handled it all.
The Novice Horse Non Pro was the 1st event of the National show with 43 entries in the class. Gail riding the only Paint Horse in the event was 23rd out, with another 20 to run. “I had a nice run with Sonny stopping really big for me, I was extremely happy when I came out of the pen. But I didn’t think that it would be good enough to put me in the placings.”
“I had washed Sonny and put him back in his stable, when people started coming up and congratulating me! I couldn’t believe that I was still in front after 30 riders but I knew that the top Non Pro’s from NSW, Victoria and Queensland were still to ride, so I wasn’t getting too excited about it. I would have been happy just to get a place in the top 6. But I thought I better get saddled up again just in case!”
“They called us out 1st in the Affiliate Champion class and then 1st in the National class. I started to cry during the presentations, it was a bit of a shock, I just couldn’t believe that we had won.
I was told half the crowd were crying too!! A lot of people knew how hard it had been for me to get there and their support has been amazing!” Then to take home the buckle for the Highest Scoring Paint Horse of the show was just the icing on the cake! We had to wait till the very last horse in the very last event before we knew we had won it, 4 days after my win!
“My thanks must go to Rod who is my number one supporter. I couldn’t have done any of this without him.” He helped keep me motivated and got me riding on days when all I wanted to do was stay in bed. He strapped for me, fed and watered, cleaned my stable (twice daily so I didn’t have to wash Sonny again!) ran me back & forward to the indoor arena, saddled and un-saddled the list goes on & on!
“I couldn’t be happier, it’s like I have just won the Futurity”.
NB Novice Horse –a horse that hasn’t won over $1000 lifetime in reining events.