“He wasn’t even supposed to come,” says stallion manager, Christi Christensen. “We ended up having a horse not be able to come two days before we left.”

“The crazy part is Taylor kicked twice right then, so I grabbed my stomach. I’m a little emotional right now anyways!”

Many of Harrell’s customers have won Congress Champion titles in the past. However, this is his first personal Congress win.

UPDATE: Just moments ago, Laney and Toxi were named the Grand Champion Gelding team in a tough Grand and Reserve Gelding class here at the Congress.

Luke Castle gained his second Congress Championship of the week for the Josh Weakly/Andy Staton duo when he won with Gamechanger in 2-Year-Old Geldings.

“I’ve been doing this a long time, and this is my first Congress Championship. I’m pretty excited.”

“He is a 17.2 hand horse, so those are kind of speed bumps for him,” she says. “It was really nice to see him jump up real hard. He came back and went around the ring really solid in the flat portion.”

“He’s beautiful and pretty-headed,” Castle says. “He’s got a lot of stuff to him. He’s a really nice colt. He reminds me of Ima Cool Skip, when he was a baby”

Given that the Weakly/Staton/Roark trio has done so well today, winning two Congress Champion titles, we wondered how they decided which horse would be shown in the Grand and Reserve class and by whom. Fortunately, this was a scenario they had discussed and planned for ahead of time.

The halter classes are quickly flying by this morning as the Grand and Reserve Mares class soon approaches. Two more contenders for the ultimate halter title were recently crowned: Jason Smith with HR Cool Secretdesign in Two-Year-Old Mares and Ted Turner with Dream Big Dreams in Yearling Mares.