Susie Johns wins a Gold Globe with KM Flat Out the Best at 2022 AQHA World

On Friday in the L3 Amateur Select Trail Finals in the first class of the day in the Jim Norick Arena, Susie Johns won a Gold Globe with KM Flat Out the Best with a score of 232.50.

She’s no stranger to winning Trail titles as the World Champion in Amateur/Amateur Select four different times on different horses.  One year, she reveals, she was World and Reserve in the same class in Select Trail, she explains.  “I showed two horses and I was fortunate enough to be first and second,” she says. “It’s been a fun ride.”

Her barn, Searles’ Circle S Ranch, is known for their Trail accomplishments and we asked Susie why Trail is appealing to her.  She explains, “I firmly believe that any given day, any horse or any rider on a horse can win at trail, the pattern changes every day, the horses wake up on different sides of the bed; I just feel when a horse and rider are on, it can be their day. It’s a challenge each day with each pattern you show – to learn it and teach your horse the maneuvers, and I feel that everyone has a chance in trail.”

Susie says she started showing Trail in the 1990’s, back when Trail always went last in the schedule at horse shows in Arizona and California, when it was dark and cold in the winter months. She’d exclaim to her barn that she was going to show Trail anyway, and she jokes, “Everyone said, ‘We’re going to dinner without you,’ and I said, ‘Fine, I can do it myself.’  But Jim and Deanna never bailed on me, they were always there for me, and it was an event my boys like doing, too.”

She also explains that Trail helps keep her mind sharp at her age because of having to memorize the pattern, and it helps her nerves not get the best of her – along with keeping her young at heart.

Since Trail has evolved and changed so much over the years, we asked her if she had been able to adapt and enjoy it, and without hesitation, she said yes.   “I think the course designers do a great job nowadays laying the patterns out; they’re tricky but very ridable and doable, and they flow. Back in the day when I was in youth, you walked in tires, you had to carry a gunnysack bag full of tin cans, sometimes you had to drag a log, and you had to ground tie,” she explains.  “When I was really young, sometimes you had to load the horse in a horse trailer with the saddle on, so I think the way it has evolved is great.”

Susie says Tim Kimura, the course designer, did a great job on today’s course.  “I think the other exhibitors would agree with me that it was challenging and difficult.”

Results through sixth place for L3 Amateur Select Trail:

1

#1547 232.50

KM FLAT OUT THE BEST/JOHNS; SUSAN K

JOHNS; SUSAN K (E)

2

#1817 230.50

EYE ON THE BALL/BANKS; KENNETH OR LAINA

BANKS; LAINA P (E)

3

#1308 230.00

GOOD LUCK ONLY/CRAIG; DEBRA W

CRAIG; DEBRA W (E)

4

#2012 228.50

ONLY ONE REQUEST/REINARTZ; SCOTT ALLEN

REINARTZ; SCOTT ALLEN (E)

5

#1217 224.50

WON RV RIDIN MACHINE/DILLAHUNTY; ANGELA CASEY

DILLAHUNTY; ANGELA CASEY (E)

6

#1668 223.50

HEZ KOOL/HOLTZ; CONNIE L

HOLTZ; CONNIE L (E)