Susie Johns – The New President Takes the Reins of NSBA
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136 – January/February, 2018
by Susan Winslow
Susie Johns of Paradise Valley, Arizona, has known both sides of the rail from Small Fry to Select, as an avid competitor and ringside daughter, sister, and mother. She grew up in the show pen, raised three sons, Blake, Jeff, and Trevor through youth and amateur competition, and she’s still going strong as a fierce competitor in the Select division of AQHA. Her family name is synonymous with the American Quarter Horse, and she hails from AQHA nobility. Her father and grandfather raised cattle and Quarter Horses on the family ranch in Prescott, Arizona, and her father was one of the organizers of the first AQHA horse show in Arizona before becoming president of the Arizona Quarter Horse Association and then as president of AQHA. As the newly inducted President of the National Snaffle Bit Association, Susie is carrying on the family legacy of giving back to the horse industry that’s near and dear to her heart.
Susie laughs when she recalls her youthful introduction to horses. She says, “I was the fourth of four children in a Quarter Horse family, so I didn’t have a lot of choice about riding and showing. It’s just what we did and, fortunately, I loved it. My big brother did the rodeo circuit and my father and sister, Kathy Tobin, were going to horse shows. I just went along. By the age of six, I was competing, and I’m proud to say that I won my first AQHA World Champion title in the Bill Cody Arena at the very first AQHA Youth World Show in Amarillo, Texas on a homebred mare back in the 1970s.” Susie’s horse show career came full circle a few years ago when, after years of competing in different venues all over the country, she competed at the Select World Show in the very same arena where she won her first World title.
Among her many accolades, Susie has won World and Reserve Championships in NSBA and AQHA as well as wins at the Congress and numerous year-end High Point titles. She has beenm named the All Around Select High Point Rider twice, on two different horses: Majestic Scotch and Heza Radical Zip. Continuing her successful relationship with trainers Jim and Deanna Searles, Susie recently won both the World Championship and Reserve
World Championship in Trail at the 2017 AQHA Select World Show. She won on Lopin For A Chex aka, “Lazy” and she took Reserve with I Gotta Good Name, aka “Sampson.”
136 – January/February, 2018
