L2 Showmanship Champion, Now On to Ranch Riding Finals and Reining!

By: Brittany Bevis

It’s fairly safe to assume that Jo Jo Roberson and Greedy Ghost are the first team to make it back to both the 14-18 Showmanship Finals AND Ranch Riding Finals at the same Youth World Show. That’s an incredible feat in an of itself. Even more, Jo Jo and “Greedy” are relatively new to the Showmanship game, so they were also eligible for the L2 Showmanship class that took place last night. After 161 runs, that didn’t get over until midnight, Jo Jo and Greedy were named the L2 Showmanship Champions!

Spectators may have seen “Greedy” in the all-around pen with Jo Jo this week. He’s hard to miss with his small size and long flowing mane, but if any horse epitomizes Shakespeare’s maxim of being, “little but fierce,” Greedy is it. We wondered which came first for the pair: All-Around events or Ranching and Reining?

“I actually started competing in all-around when I was younger,” Jo Jo says. “Then, I got my first Reining horse named ‘Fudgey.’ My parents are horse trainers, so we’ve had Greedy in the barn since he was two, and I started riding him when he was four. We started out in Reining; but, then he got hurt, so I decided to work on Ranch Riding, Horsemanship, and Showmanship while he healed. We showed in Showmanship last year at the Youth World for the first time. We’re just getting solid this year.”

As a child of two horse training parents, Jeff and Stacy Roberson, Jo Jo is surprised she’s had the opportunity to keep Greedy for this long. Because she’s 17 years old, she’s coming close to aging out of the youth division, and she’s thankful that her parents have allowed her the opportunity to keep Greedy for her youth career.

“I’m really surprised I got to keep him this long! I think they’re trying to let me get to the point where I can be competitive with a horse since I’m getting closer to getting out of youth. I’ve been showing at the Youth World now for six years.”

Greedy and Jo Jo were named the AQHA Year-End High Point Champions in 14-18 Ranch Riding for 2017, which was a very exciting accomplishment. Last year, the pair also made it back to the Horsemanship finals at the Youth World, which was a big goal.

“Last year, my goal was that I really, really wanted to make the Horsemanship finals. It was special, because I also do Ranch Riding, and I’d worked really hard for it. This year, I’d been working really hard on Showmanship, so to make the finals was a major goal of mine. Hopefully, we can do our best in the finals and it will all turn out well.”

Greedy and Jo Jo have an interesting schedule coming up this week. On Tuesday, she has the 14-18 Ranch Riding Finals where she is 15th to go. Then, on Wednesday, she’s second to go in 14-18 Showmanship Finals and 100th to go in the Reining Preliminaries for both L3 and L2. Showmanship will take place 9:45 to 10:30, and Reining will take place 8:00 to 4:30. It will be a quick change, but we’re certain this dynamic duo can get it done.

What sets Greedy and Jo Jo apart in the all-around pen isn’t just the horse’s flowing mane and smaller size; they have the sharp skills and precision handling to compete with the best. Jo Jo is the first to admit that it isn’t always easy to do classes like Showmanship and Horsemanship with a horse that has a different style of movement than most in the field.

“It’s definitely harder to do some things. He’s the clumsiest horse you will ever meet, but I’m clumsy too, so we’re a good fit! Horsemanship can be hard, because you have to keep his body really up, but he can’t look tight and he has to look soft. There’s a really fine line there that we’re just now starting to get to. The easier patterns are actually harder for us than the patterns that are really complicated.”

Longer manes in all-around events are becoming more of a trend in recent years, and we love Greedy’s complex two-tiered banded style. However, we wondered if Jo Jo has ever considered cutting it. “Oh no! That was never an option. Miss Heather banded him today and, when she put his slinky on, she said we should tell my mom that she cut his mane because it was too hard to band. We told her we trimmed it, and she about had a heart attack!”

All joking aside, Jo Jo is very thankful and thrilled for the opportunity she has to compete with Greedy here at the Youth World. “Teaching Greedy Showmanship has been a feat for me. I wanted my mom to teach me, and I wanted to learn from her how to teach him, but I wanted to teach him some myself, and she has let me do that.”

Good luck to Jo Jo and Greedy during the rest of their classes here at the Youth World Show!