The Art Of The Halter Horse With Kathy Smallwood
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184 – January/February, 2025
By Brittany Vermeer
After 49 years spent as a professional horse trainer, it’s safe to say that Kathy Smallwood knows a thing or two about creating champions. Not only is she an AQHA Professional Horseman and multiple World and Congress Champion in her own right, she’s also a breeder who’s worked with multiple World and Congress Champions across breeds like AQHA, APHA, PHBA, and ABRA.
Kathy’s love for taking a dominant maternal bloodline and matching it with a complimentary stallion is a technique she learned from her father, Ken Wentzell, who bred and raised Quarter Horses in the early ‘50s.
As a child, she spent many weekends in her dad’s pick-up truck, tagging along to horse sales in Oklahoma and Texas. “My father owned a trucking company and truck stop in Albert Lea, Minnesota,” Kathy says. “Breeding and selling horses wasn’t his only income. Our horse operation was behind the truck stop out in the country by Highway 69.”
At the time, Albert Lea was home to the largest one-day Quarter Horse show in the United States. Kathy loved sitting in the stands watching the top riders compete with their elite show horses. “Dad would drop me off at the fairgrounds, and I would watch people like Tommy Manion and Jerry Wells. It was the place to go,” she says.
Kathy started showing in 4-H as soon as she could. Her first Quarter Horse was a mare named Jo Jo Parks, who was purchased from former AQHA President Roy Parks. The mare would go on to have ten foals, including Kathy’s future amateur horse, Wimpy Bar Jo.
“My dad believed in the mare line, and that’s something I believe in,” she says.
Kathy showed Wimpy Bar Jo in Amateur competition from 1969-1979. He was named the High Point Hunt Seat Gelding in the nation, second in Pleasure Driving, and third in Western Pleasure. Given her focus on Halter horses today, one might be surprised to learn that Kathy has experience in a wide range of disciplines.
A Western Girl In An English World
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184 – January/February, 2025
