Hofferosa Ranch – Halter Horses Are Their Pleasure

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34 – November/December, 2017

BY SUSAN WINSLOW
Candid Photos ©Ken Doll Photography

Home to some of the top Halter horses in the world, Hofferosa Ranch in Auburn, Kansas, is as pretty as a postcard. Set on a lush, green plain dotted with trees and ponds, the sprawling ranch consists of 200 acres of meticulously groomed paddocks and pastures, crisp white fencing, and spacious barns for broodmares, show horses, and stallions. In the twenty-five years since Barbara Hoffer returned to horses after a successful management career at the Santa Fe Railroad, she and her husband, John, have developed a program that regularly produces World Champions at AQHA, ABRA, PHBA, WCHA and Go For The Gold events. Hofferosa has a solid reputation for quality, specializing in N/N Halter horses for show and sale.

The Hofferosa story is one of faith, hard work, success, and a little luck. Both Barbara and John grew up on farms. Barbara was raised on a cotton farm in Tennessee while John was raised on his family’s wheat farm in Kansas. John rode as a kid, but his passion was always automobiles. After starting as a mechanic, today he owns a thriving Jeep/Chrysler dealership in Topeka. Barbara was a woman ahead of her time, graduating from high school and following her passion for science in college, studying Mathematics, Physics, and Nuclear Engineering before going to Chicago to work for the Santa Fe Railroad in the 1970s. She recalls, “The railroad was definitely a man’s club in those days, but the EPA was enacting major environmental laws and I was hired to implement and manage their Environmental Program. It was challenging, but so interesting.”

Recognizing her talent, Santa Fe sent Barbara to prestigious MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts as a Sloan Fellow in 1979. She earned a Masters Degree in Management. “I wish I could say that I got to know the Boston and Cambridge area while I was there, “ she says wistfully. “But the program was so rigorous that all I did was study and study and study. Not only was I the second youngest person in a class of 55, I was a science major who’d never taken a class in accounting and I was surrounded by executives who were experienced managers. But, I’m a very competitive person by nature, and I love a challenge. I just put my head down to the books and focused on succeeding.” She graduated near the top of her class. While in the program, Barbara traveled to seven foreign nations and met industry and political leaders from all over the world. “It was one of the toughest things I’ve ever done, but also one of the best.”

Click here to read the complete article
34 – November/December, 2017