Page 69 - Barrel Stallion Register 2024

good it brought tears to my eyes, and I told her I’d wanted to look like that my whole life!”
Narrowly missing the finals that year got Ashley more interested in running barrels. “The next summer, Mom wanted us to take Leo to amateur rodeos. Jennifer would rope on him, and I’d barrel race, and I ended up making the finals that year and for several years in a row,” Ashley says. “I won several saddles and lots of buckles on him and by that time, I’d decided I really loved barrel racing.”
F F O O R R M M A A L L A A N N D D R R E E A A L L - - L L I I F F E E E E D DU U C C A A T T I I O O N N After high school, Ashley became a licensed
massage therapist, working in that field for several years while she trained a couple of geldings—one a breakaway horse and the other a head horse— on the barrels. “I was just going off of what I’d felt in Leo and trying to figure out how to get the other horses to work the way he did,” she says.
Iowa winters made year-round riding difficult, so Ashley decided to move to Oklahoma, where she was hired on to lope the rodeo horses at Jud Little’s ranch to keep them legged up for the girls who were open rodeoing. “Jolene Montgomery was head trainer at
that time and while working there about six months, I watched her. I was so intrigued with her training. I’d never seen horses ride like she could get them to ride; it was really incredible, and I was so impressed by her.
“The girl working under her was leaving and by that time, Jolene and I had become really good friends and she asked me, if Jud approved, if I’d come work for her and they’d find someone else to ride the open horses,” Ashley adds. “I knew it’d be an incredible opportunity and I’d be able to go to the futurities with
her and get to step on those horses and feel them. I did that for about a year and a half and absorbed as much as I could. I still had my two geldings, so after work every day, I’d get
on them and try to replicate what I felt. That experience got me hooked on the futurities.”
At the time (2009), Joy Wargo, who lived about an hour down the road in Gainesville, Texas, was running her first big-time futurity horse, Smokin Koa Lena, by Rocky Heir and out of Thats Parr For Lena, by Jacks Doc Olena. During their career together, Joy and the bay gelding earned AQHA World and Reserve World Championships in senior barrels and the BFA Reserve Futurity Champion title, plus the 1-D Championship at Diamonds & Dirt. “The three of us just hit it off and have been friends ever since,” says Ashley. “She’s a great horse trainer and she’s also really helpful in getting you to accept the responsibility for and be really mindful of what your body language is telling the horse.”
ACHIEVING GREATER EFFICIENCY A few years ago, Joy came up with the
idea of starting an online barrel racing video subscription service, BetweenTheReins.us, to help riders develop their confidence and their riding and horsemanship skills.
“At the time, I was doing training videos for another website so I couldn’t get involved, but Jolene and Joy were persistent and by around July 2021, I just had this feeling I should switch over and join them,” Ashley says. “The three of us all have such different training programs. Even though we’ve ridden together over the years, and we share some beliefs on how you should train a horse, we each do it differently, so we thought the three of us together could bring more education to the public.
“I was really excited to work with two people I really love and respect in the industry and bring a product to people who could really benefit from learning from three different styles of training and from different styles of horses,” she adds.
“I think the barrel industry as a whole, especially the futurity industry, has gotten so open to helping one another,” Ashley continues.
“We bounce ideas off each other all the time; we share videos; we share bits. Everybody’s out there to win and I want to outrun Joy and Jolene and they want to outrun me, but we don’t want to do it at their worst, but at their best.
“If someone comes to me asking for help, I’m going to give them every bit of information I can,” she adds. “It may not help, but if it does, great!
To me, there’s hardly anything more rewarding
as when I give someone some information and
it helps them run faster or move up a division or resolve an issue they were having. Between The Reins has increased my desire to help people and as a whole has helped me to reach more people than I could with clinics and lessons. And it helps me manage my time better as well.”
KEEPING IT AFFORDABLE
Ashley and Seth conquered the cost of quality
horses to train and sell by buying embryos from their trainees’ owners, sometimes trading the purchases for riding. “We were able to raise some really well-bred horses that way,” Ashley says.
Some of their homebreds include Our Bobby McGee and Born On Derby Day.
The first horse they raised, Our Bobby McGee (foaled in 2015, by Frenchmans Easy Doc and out of Hummin To Kill, by Flit To Kill) sold as a derby horse after a 2020 season in futurities with Ashley. “Bobby got a late start at futurities and ran the year of COVID, so he didn’t get as many opportunities, but he came out with a bang, placing at nearly every futurity we entered,” she says. “He is also a really nice heading horse.”
The second horse they raised was Born
On Derby Day (foaled in 2017 by Freckles Ta Fame, aka Can Man, and out of KR Last Fling, by A Streak Of Fling).
“I had run both her dam and her sire,” says Ashley. “I ran KR Last Fling in 2015, the year
Homebred
Our Bobby
McGee
Bee Silva
“If someone comes to me asking for help, I’m going to give them every bit of information I can.”
– Ashley Schafer
Homebred Born On Derby Day winning the 2022 Ruby Buckle. Lexi Smith Media
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