Laura Spell and LX Just Call Me Fancy Win APHA Breeders 3-Year-Old Gold Hunter Saddle Futurity

By: Brittany Bevis

Laura Spell was in the irons for the first class of the morning at the 2013 APHA World Show for her sister, Tracy Stenroos. Spell piloted LX Just Call Me Fancy, aka “Junior,” to a win in the Breeder’s Gold/Silver 3-Year-Old Hunter Under Saddle Futurity. The pair received a check for $2,361.98 for their efforts.

Just last week, Stenroos showed her gelding to a Reserve World Championship finish in the Classic Amateur Junior Hunter Under Saddle. Later today, Spell and Junior will return for the regular 3-Year-Old Hunter Under Saddle Futurity.

“Last week was my first time ever showing him,” Stenroos says. “Laura showed him once before, and figured out some buttons, and my debut was last week. I thought he was fantastic today. I couldn’t of asked him to be any better today for Laura. I was really happy with him.”

“He does do the pleasure driving also, but I have no clue how to do that. I’ll have to get someone to teach me!”

Stenroos and Spell have a special relationship as sisters, but there is another family connection in the mix as well. Spell was recently married to Stenroos’s horse trainer, Wade Spell.

“It’s weird actually,” Stenroos says. “I used to call him my trainer, and now he’s my brother-in-law! We’re kind of family now. It’s kind of weird, but it’s great. We have a great relationship, and we see each other almost every day. It’s what we always wanted to do, being involved with the horses, so it’s perfect.”

Stenroos purchased Junior from Trish and Gary Lanoux. It was a chance viewing on YouTube that convinced Stenroos that Junior was the perfect horse for her.

“I had just sold another three-year-old and just happened to be going through YouTube when found this one,” she says. “I liked it, and Wade remembered it from last year in the two-year-old classes. He said he really liked it last year, but they didn’t want to sell it. Circumstances changed and they wanted to sell him now. It was kind of lucky.”

Breeders Futurity Gold 3-Year-Old Hunter Under Saddle-

1-LX Just Call Me Fancy/Laura Spell $2,361.98

2-Sirtain Kinda Dream/Shannon Gillespie $1,837.10

3-Silver and All Fancy/Lisa Ligon $1,047

4-I Got Em Talkin/Mason Lyon

5-All I Ever Wanted/Alyse Roberts

6-All In The Moment/Annalise Larson