Page 74 - May2020.indd

THE LIGHTER SIDE
STEPHANIE WEBB
Industry Question & Answer
by John Moorehouse
These days, it’s rare that someone spends their whole professional life in the same career—much less working for the same company. Stephanie Webb is an exception to that modern-day rule. She started
with Royal Vista Equine in Fort Collins, Colorado, as an intern while attending Colorado State University. Not only is she still working at the company, today she runs the company—now known as Vista Equine Colorado, LLC—alongside her business partner, Jake Dahl.
“That internship was the first experience I had with such elite horses,” said Webb, who holds an Equine Science degree
from CSU with a minor in Agricultural Economics. “I was able to work with horses that had earned over six-figures, Champions, and Champion producers; that was mind- boggling to me. I was just a college student being exposed to the best of the best. Through my internship, I learned a great deal about how a reproduction facility worked and got to see it come full circle by helping sales prep and attend my first sale that September at Heritage Place. I was fascinated by this industry.”
Webb decided she wanted to learn more and accepted an office position at Royal Vista. Before long, she became office manager in 2010 for owners Vaughn and Jill Cook. She and Dahl took over operations after the Cooks retired. Meanwhile, Stephanie and her husband, Butch, have Webb Ranch located in South Dakota. There, they raise cattle and also have their own broodmare program.
With all that on her plate, and all
the travel in between South Dakota and Colorado to boot, she still found the time to speak with Speedhorse for the latest installment of this feature.
Q: Where were you born?
A: Redlands, California, but was raised in the Colorado Springs area from an early age.
Q: What are your hobbies outside of horse racing?
A: Honestly, between the breeding business and then attending sales all fall, the horses take up most of my time in some way or another, but I do really enjoy gardening once the weather turns nice.
Q: What is your favorite movie,
and why?
A: It’s a bit cliché but I have to go with “Dirty Dancing”! Nothing like a good ’80s love story.
Q: What’s an interesting fact about your family
A: I’m pretty much the only one this involved with horses on my side of the family!
My husband Butch and I have been married for six years and have a 5-year-old daughter, Lakin, and a 3-month-old son, Wynston. We met at Royal Vista Equine years ago when he would bring mares down for breeding work. Fast forward several years and Vista Equine purchased a pretty gray mare, Jess Tara, from Butch at the Heritage Place Winter Mixed Sale. We began talking and as they say, “The rest is history.” We actually live out of two different states—Colorado, where I have Vista Equine, and South Dakota, where he operates Webb Ranch. Webb Ranch runs Angus cattle and is the home of our ever-expanding racehorse broodmare brand.
Q: Do you have a nickname and, if so, what is it and how did it come about? A: My grandma called me Sessy, and she was the only one allowed to call me that. As a little one, apparently that’s how I pronounced my own name.
Q: What is the strangest personality quirk you have ever seen in a horse? A: When we would visit one of our home-raised fillies, La Reina Madre, at the racetrack, she would tap her foot to the beat of the music they had playing in the barn. Even after a race she seemed to like “dancing” in her stall.
Q: If you were not in the horse racing business, what job would you like to have?
A: An architect was high on my list going into college. I drafted so many plans of horse barns I dreamt of building someday.
Q: What is your favorite thing about living where you live?
A: I honestly always thought I’d end up in Texas someday. Butch still jokes that we should “meet in the middle” and move there. I do really like this area of Colorado since it’s not as dry as other areas and we’re blessed with milder winters than further north, and we don’t get the severe heat and bugs like the south.
72 SPEEDHORSE May 2020