One of Our Favorite APHA World Show Ring Stewards, Larry Naugle, Returns Just 6 Months After Extensive Back Surgery to Make Sure You Get to the Ring On Time

No APHA World Show experience would be complete without the 6 am hunter under saddle warmups and 2 am trail practice times. For exhibitors, trainers, grooms, and assistants this eight day World Championship event can be both exhilarating and grueling at the same time.

When you factor in the preparation time involved in feeding, picking stalls, cleaning tack, grooming, banding, clipping, longing, riding, and washing, getting ready to compete in just one class can literally be an all day process. But imagine if you had to be at the show from the time the first exhibitor in the first class walked in the pen until the last exhibitor in the last class exited. Ring stewards know exactly how this feels because they do it every day for a week straight. Many of these devoted few keeping coming back year after year. Some have been ring stewarding for APHA for more than 30 years.

One of the smiling faces you might see accompanying judges to the middle of the pen is Larry Naugle, who first went to work for APHA in 1981. Naugle has been a ring steward at every APHA World Show since then, except for one, and that’s only because he couldn’t get the necessary vacation time off of work.

“It’s a part-time job for me,” Naugle says. “Now, I am a retired firefighter. I was the captain on a ladder company as a firefighter for the DFW Airport.”

“I started in the horse business as a kid showing horses. I was raised up in the Quarter Horse business and started working for the Quarter Horse Stock Show in 1977 in the horse show department.”

Sadly, Naugle recently had to retire from his days of fighting fires due to a serious diagnosis of spinal stenosis and degenerative disk disease in his lower back. His first surgery in 2005 only relieved the pain for three years before the trouble started to return.

“I put up with it as long as I could, or as long as my wife could,” he says. “She threatened to kill me or I had to get surgery, one or the other. We went in, and I got a new specialist. We talked to the orthopedic surgeon, and she said we needed to do this fusion surgery in order to try to get me out of pain.”

 

Caption: Naugle’s back x-ray after surgery #2 just six months ago.

“I was diagnosed with spinal stenosis and degenerative disk disease in my lower back in the lumbar region of L-3, 4, and 5. They went in and fused that together both anteriorly and posteriorly. I have 11 screws, six big ones and five little ones, two cages, and two, five-inch rods. It’s six months in now and recovery is going great. I’m right back in the ring again.

You might be asking yourself why on earth someone who had back surgery just six months ago would want to come stand on their feet for 14-16 hour days. Naugle’s answer is simple. It’s tradition.

“It’s been over 30 years that I’ve been doing this show for them, and it’s just become tradition,” he says. “We’re here from start to finish every day. We’re here for the first one and here for the last one. I’m getting along really well. I’m really happy with the outcome of what the surgery has done to get me out of pain. I’m still wearing a brace, which gives me support when I’m on my feet for an extended period of time.”

Although we might like to think of Naugle as our own personal APHA World Show ring steward, he and many of his fellow compatriots serve multiple breed associations. Naugle also ring stewards for AQHA shows, Miniature Horse shows, and the Andalusian Nationals. He will be at the Palomino World Show this year, and for several years he worked major Paso Fino horse shows. Of course we had to ask which horse show is his favorite…

“This one,” he says. “It’s because of the crew that we work with and the history behind me working with them for so long. Don and I actually started working this show back before this ring [the John Justin Arena] was ever built. It was in the old Will Rogers Coliseum in the early 80s. We’ve been working together off and on at multiple shows, Paints and Quarters, for close to 30 years.”

“One time, we were all standing around with a group of judges, and they asked why I didn’t get my judge’s card. They said, ‘you’ve seen all these good horses just like we have and you know what a horse is supposed to look like.’ I said, ‘it’s real simple.’ As a ring steward at all of the major shows with all of the major breeds I get to look at all of the best horses from the same angle you do and nobody cares how I place them. I get to talk to everybody, and I know everybody in the ring, nearly.”

Caption: A few of our favorite ring stewards.

In fact, Naugle’s mission at the AjPHA World Show is to try to put smiles on the faces of everyone he meets.

If you’re reading this at the AjPHA Youth World Show (and we know many of you are) then be sure to smile at Naugle and the other ring stewards when you head down to the pen for your class. Say hello, give them a hug, bring them a cup of coffee or just tell them how much you appreciate everything they do for us as competitors. It means a lot.

Naugle wasn’t able to chat with us for long before he was back at work helping to set the judges for the next class, but we were able to ask him one last question. Now that he’s newly retired from his full-time job will he be adding any new horse shows to his schedule?

“It’s going to depend on my vacation time at the beach,” he says. “I’m going to retire to be a beach bum anywhere in the Caribbean. If everything works out right in September and October it will be in St. Martin. Oh yeah, and I’ll be back here in November.”