We are excited to get the chance to talk to Liz Herrin this week. A 2X College National Champion Barrel Racer and a winning all around cowgirl - she was sitting in the top 25 of the world when a freak accident with her good horse changed her life. She’s back to winning ways, but we can’t wait to share her story and how she overcame what could’ve been a deathly accident.

We can’t wait to talk to Samantha Flannery - a top 50 leading futurity trainer out of South Dakota that’s says it how it is, isn’t afraid to circle a barrel twice in competition and is one of the toughest competitors in the nation! She mainly focuses on 5 year old futurity horses and has rode many different bloodlines to the winners circle. This is going to be a fun one!

Seven years ago Irish Pay was added to the stallion roster of Sampson Family Ranch and since then they have jumped right into the deep end of industry investments being apart of the first set of Pink Buckle stallion owners. Long before that however, Lainee and TK Sampson and their two boys have been raising cattle and horses in Western South Dakota and winning in the rodeos and futurity scene. We can’t wait to talk about how their program is growing, standing Irish Pay, what breakaway is adding to the breeding scene and more.

Maggie Poloncic not only trains and runs one of the most impressive athletes of our industry today, Ain’t Seen Me Yet, she is also an accomplished ballerina, dancer, and fitness guru. We can’t wait to talk to Maggie about how she went from buying finished horses to compete on, to taking it in her own hands with “Puff”. We ask Maggie how her commitments have changed focus over the years. From being very involved in a dance studio, to professional barrel racing, and back. Maggie talks about how she decided to skip futurities all together and why fitness is such a high importance, even for the rider.

There are many people who raise, train, and run their own horses. However, there are not very many who start from breeding the mare and flushing embryos themselves, to raising and training them, winning at the futurities, and making the NFR on those very horses. Dr. Kathy Grimes will be on our podcast to talk about what her journey has been like, how she manages everything she does, traveling solo with only her cat, Freeway, as a copilot and everything in between! Kathy owns one of the industry’s top blue hen mares, Do It For Beau, and that mare is yet another that Kathy bred and raised herself. It’s an awesome story and we can’t wait to share it!

What started as Smoke Creek Wirehairs has turned into a nations lifetime top 20 futurity breeding program including raising champions of the 5 State Futurity, Colorado Classic, Cornhusker, Greg Olson, MVP, BFA Futurity and Juvenile and so much more. We are so excited to talk to Bill and Cheryl Kennedy of Smoke Creek Quarter Horses about their breeding program, what it’s like to be an owner in the futurity game, how they manage their program with two very full time jobs, what their goals are, the way they give back to the industry in a variety of event sponsorships and a few more fun stories to share!

Described as talented, fun loving yet serious, goofy and laid back - with a quarter of a million dollars in earnings to her name - this mom of two, futurity champ, past competitive downhill skier and probably the friendliest barrel racer you’ll ever meet, gets to be first out on our show as this was part her idea. We will be talking with Taylor Hildreth on what the rollercoaster ride of training futurity colts is like, how she got into training, what it’s like being married to a horse shoer, and anything else we might happen to think of.