NRCHA Foundation Stories from the Shedrow

FROM THE

Through Stories from the Shedrow, the NRCHA Foundation continues to preserve the heritage and traditions of reined cow horse.

Presented by Kalpowar Quarter Horses

Three mares are in the National Reined Cow Horse Hall of Fame, including Katie Starlight. Today, the sorrel mare, by Grays Starlight and out of the Colonel Freckles daughter Colonel Gunsmoke, is a cow horse household name. An earner of two World’s Greatest Horseman titles and an NRCHA Snaffle Bit Futurity® Champion producer, “Katie” has left her mark on the industry.

When she started her career, though, she wasn’t predestined to be a legend. Paula Hunsicker purchased the filly for California cow horse trainer Sandy Collier to start.

“As a 2-year-old she was amazingly athletic and smart. She was so cowy it was almost like she was afraid of them,” Collier recalled.

That cowiness cost the pair a top-five placing in the 1996 Snaffle Bit Futurity, instead placing ninth. But Collier, an NRCHA Hall of Fame member and also a Futurity Champion, was undeterred from continuing Katie’s show career.

“She just was such an exceptionally [well] put together filly and real bright, inquisitive and all the things we like to see,” said Collier. “She always looked like the right kind and was put together. She was low-necked, lowheaded and just a stunner. Anybody would kill to have her in their barn. She just took your breath away.”

By the time Katie was in the hackamore at 5 years old, Hunsicker was training with NRCHA Hall of Fame trainer Ted Robinson, and Katie moved with her. Robinson, known for winning the inaugural World’s Greatest Horseman on the mare, said he never intended to take her in 1999.

“To be truthful, Paula was showing her and not me,” Robinson recalled. “About three weeks before the World’s Greatest, my horse got sore and I took Katie Starlight at the last minute. Trying to rope on her, I couldn’t swing a rope on her just riding, but I could swing [the rope] if we were chasing a steer. It was funny about her, and I think she was a typical great mare—you learn how to get along with them!”

The athleticism the mare showed in 1999 at the World’s Greatest Horseman had Robinson entering again in 2001, and for the second time the pair took top honors. However, there was hitchhiker on board with Katie that time—Nu Circle Of Light, the would-be 2005 Snaffle Bit Futurity Champion with Robinson in the saddle.

“You couldn’t ask for a nicer individual than her. I would rather ride mares, but she never showed those ‘marey’ signs. She was never out of sorts. She was always Katie Starlight,” said Robinson. “She became one of the greater producers of cow horses, no doubt about that. She was able to do it herself and also produce it, and we don’t see a lot of that anymore.”

When the mare sold to Cinder Lakes Ranch, she had more than $126,000 in earnings. Her offspring would amass more than $ 400,000. Nu Circle Of Light (by Nu Circle N Cash) earned the Futurity Champion title, and This One Time (by One Time Pepto) took the Reserve Champion Snaffle Bit Futurity title in 2012 with Todd Bergen aboard.

While Katie Starlight’s contributions to reined cow horse were recognized in 2017 with her induction to the NRCHA Hall of Fame, she continues to impact the industry.

“Mare power is so important. By the grace of God, I rode Katie and Sheza Shinette, who have helped our industry a lot,” said Collier. “The Thoroughbred [breeders] believe that the mare is 80 percent [of the pairing] and while it is 50-50 genetically, strong mares are much more of a given.”

You can say that again.