Undoubtedly Overcomes Uncertainty to Win APHA World Breeders Trust Non-Pro 3 and 4-Year-Old WP
PHJ release by: Rachel Florman
Undoubtedly overcomes uncertainty to conquer the Breeders’ Trust Non-Pro 3- & 4-Year-Old Western Pleasure Stakes
Jody Brewer and Undoubtedly practically floated down the rail to win the Breeders’ Trust Non-Pro 3- & 4-Year-Old Western Pleasure Stakes on September 22 at the APHA World Championship Show in Fort Worth, Texas. But there was a not-so-distant time when the flashy gelding’s show career wasn’t quite so certain.
Owned and bred by Jody and Elizabeth “Spike” Brewer of Wilson, North Carolina, “Benjamin” is a 2016 brown tobiano gelding by No Doubt Im Lazy and out of Shes Inviting. The couple waited to start showing the talented colt until his 3-year-old year, but Spike says a pasture injury and additional complications during healing further delayed training until nearly July.
“We sent him to work with Jay Starnes about a month before the [National Snaffle Bit Association] World Show,” Spike said. “A few weeks later, Jay called us to say he was taking Benjamin to the NSBA just to ride around. Next thing we knew, Jay let us know he’d entered—and then won—the NSBA’s Color Green Western Pleasure.”
A successful outing at the NSBA World Show in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and a third-place finish with Jay in the APHA World Show’s Green Western Pleasure earlier in the week proved Benjamin had the talent and training to shine, but Jody admits he still felt nervous walking into the arena.
“It was still my first time showing him,” Jody said. “But he really felt great. I wish we’d jogged a little better at first, but by the time we were moving in the second direction, he felt good.”
For their win, Jody and Benjamin picked up the entire class purse of $3,840. The couple credits a combination of raw ability, intelligence and talented training for this win and all of Benjamin’s whirlwind success.
“Jay is incredible for being able to cover so much ground with Benjamin in such a short amount of time, and we’re lucky Benjamin is good-minded enough to pick it up pretty easily,” Spike said. “Benjamin is definitely one of the best Western horses we’ve raised. We’re so thankful that it all came together in the end; there was a while that we didn’t think he’d get into the pen at all.”
The 2019 Breeders’ Trust Stakes classes feature the richest payouts in the program’s history, with $85,000 paid out across four classes. All Breeders’ Trust-enrolled horses—Regular Registry and Solid Paint-Bred—are eligible to compete in the Breeders’ Trust Pleasure Stakes classes at the APHA World Championship Show. Horses are enrolled into the Breeders’ Trust Pleasure Stakes as yearlings and then pay an entry fee during their 2-year-old year; read more about the program here.
