Page 34 - 23 November 2012

The Little Horse
WHo CouLd
and does
Novice breeder Erin Kemp Knox’s intuition paid off big when she bought Fly The Red Eye.
by Diane Rice
Horse people know what they like in a horse. Sometimes it’s looks; sometimes performance; sometimes personality. Most owners feel blessed to get a huge dose of one or even two of these standards, but Erin Knox scored the trifecta when she bought Fly The Red Eye as a yearling in 2007.
After breaking his maiden on the racetrack as a 3-year-old, “Little Red” went on to earn an AQHA Championship in 2012 by branching out into halter, roping and reining. Erin expects to fulfill her goal of a 2013 Supreme Championship by completing the final 7 1⁄2 reining points that will put him over the top.
And not only is Little Red a versatile performer and a red-hot looker, but he’s also got an unusually engaging personality.
Erin at age 4 with her pony, whom she said she rode “bareback, barefoot and in my Wonder Woman swimsuit!”
Her Horse roots
Knox’s first introduction to horses came 35 years ago at the tender age of 2 months, when her dad decided he’d take her trail riding in his backpack near their home in Lancaster, California. “Dad now
says it was the stupidest thing he’s ever done!” Knox said. But the folly sealed her equine fate and by the time she was old enough to ride, she had her first pony.
The pony was followed by a Quarter Horse named My Foolish Fortune. Knox showed the mare, whom she called “Emma,” in just about every possible event except for reining and cutting. Her riding prowess led to friends asking her to show their horses for them, and by the time she turned 16, her parents, tired of their weekend jobs as her dedicated horse haulers, handed her the keys to the pickup.
In 1999, friends for whom she’d shown horses moved to the Dallas/ Fort Worth area and asked her to come out. She lived with them for a few months and then moved to the horse hub of Pilot Point.
In 2003 she met her husband, Dan, and they married in 2005. They welcomed their daughter, Sierra, to the family in 2008.
Breeding in Her Blood
From early in life, Knox was drawn to animal breeding. In first grade, she bred hamsters. In second grade she bred her mom’s dog
and delivered its puppies. So it was a natural progression when she expanded her riding career to include breeding as well. Knox started by buying two Royal Shake Em mares in
2004 as barrel racing prospects. The one she decided to try on the track didn’t end up doing much as a runner, but
the experience did cement Knox’s future in the racing industry. “I figured, why race other people’s babies
when I could race my own,” she said.
She sold the two barrel mares, deciding that
if she was going to breed racehorses, she’d rather have a few really good mares than a whole lot of just decent ones. Her first official broodmare was
Keens Dream, by Chicks Beduino and out of the First Down Dash daughter Keen Dasher. “I fell in love with her,” Knox said. “She looks more like a calf roping mare than a race mare.”
Knox also acquired two other First Down Dash granddaughters and a First Down Dash daughter, plus several others, who have started producing foals. Knox presently has five horses on the track under Paul Jones’ tutelage, two of which have run and won.
But until she builds a more lengthy list of nice, winning colts, she hesitates to call herself
a breeder. “I’m so small and my mares are just starting out that I consider myself more an owner who hopes to be a breeder someday,” she said. “So
far I’ve made some very good choices with the help of some very good friends.”
love at First sigHt
Knox bought Little Red at the Heritage Place Yearling Sale in 2007, when someone steered her to him as she was looking at the horse next door. “He was a little bitty baby,”
she said of the Mr Eye Opener colt. “He was teeny. And when he buried his head in me, it was just love. He just
buried himself in my heart.”
Bred by Julie Pilgrim, Fly The Red Eye is out of the Bully
Bullion mare Gaetana, a stakes-placed winner and Grade 1 finalist. Gaetana is a half-sister to stakes winners No Tools
Required, Power Roll and Special Cross, as well as stakes- placed Air Task. Fly The Red Eye’s second dam is Heritage Place
Derby-G1 winner Special Jelly Roll.
32 SPEEDHORSE, November 23, 2012
Courtesy Erin Knox