UPDATE: There’s a Shootout in the Congress Halter Pen!

By: Brittany Bevis

UPDATE: Just moments ago, the battle of the brothers concluded with Gene Parker taking the title of Congress Grand Champion Stallion with Lisa and Donnie King’s Secret Gunfighter. The Reserve Grand Champion Stallion title was claimed by Ross Roark with Acool Rockstar.

There was a shootout in the halter pen this morning at the 2013 All American Quarter Horse Congress! Gene Parker and Jeffrey Pait led two cleverly-named stallions to back-to-back Congress Champion wins for Donnie and Lisa King of King Quarter Horses.

The first win of the morning came in Yearling Stallions with the aptly-named Smithnwesson, who is by the Kings’ stallion Western Gunslinger. The Reserve Champion in this class was Ross Roark with Kaotic. Tim Finkenbinder came in third with Brave Heart Too. Fourth place was Dewey Smith with PF Kid Supreme.

Then, in the very next class, Two-Year-Old Stallions, Parker was at the lead for Kings’ Secret Gunfighter, another stallion out of Western Gunslinger. The Reserve Champion in the class was Dewey Smith with PR Premo. The third place winner was Mike McMillian with Sacredly Executed. Fourth place was Terry Sartain with Atmos Fear. Fifth place was Justin Bisel with Propaganda Kid.

The gunfight will continue later today when both winning stallions return for the Grand and Reserve class. We caught up with Lisa King to get her reaction to the double wins and find out who she’ll be rooting for in Grand and Reserve…

“Either one!” King says. “That’s a title I haven’t won yet, and I’m really wanting it. If one of the two [horses] that are home-grown can do it for me; I’ll be ecstatic.”

Not only are both of King’s stallions by her sire, Western Gunslinger, they are full brothers. Both of the stallions are by Top Secretina.

“The yearling was kind of a late bloomer,” she says. “We let Tina [Top Secretina] carry him. He was the first baby she has carried. He had a little bit of a slow start, but once he started coming… He’s a cool horse. I think he’s just going to get better, and he will be a better horse next year than he was this year.”

“The two-year-old was a great horse last year, but he kept growing so fast. We had a hard time keeping up with him. He won the World last year and the National Halter Championship. We bred him to a few mares this year, and we’re looking forward to seeing what he’s going to do. We think he will be another great sire.”

Secret Gunfighter had a brush with death when he was a weanling. However, after that little setback, he couldn’t be stopped in the show pen.

“We had him at the house,” she says. “We had him get sick and almost die on us when he was a weanling. Then, after that, he never slowed down.”

King comments that both of her young stallions feature Western Gunslinger trademarks: a big muscular hip, a pretty head, and N/N status.

“Their hips are definitely stamped with Western Gunslinger,” she says. “He stamps his pretty heads, and both of them are N/N. He stamps that pretty good too.”

If you’ve never met Lisa King before, she can be picked out of a crowd fairly easily. She regularly wears a stunning black and gray diamond necklace that features two crossed pistols, in honor of Western Gunslinger, of course. She exhibits that same kind of playful attitude when coming up with creative names for Gunslinger offspring.

“Western Gunslinger makes it pretty easy to come up with cute names,” she smiles.

Stay tuned to see if either of these gunfighters can take the Grand and Reserve Stallion title later today.