NPHA Pleasure Celebration - Western Showing at its Finest

Horsezone News

NPHA Pleasure Celebration - Western Showing at its Finest

Published on Friday, May 31, 2013 in Sponsored Shows

RQH The Wizard owned by Gillian Allen (ridden in Senior Class by Kristy Mobberley) winner of the Horsezone Senior Horse Hunter Under Saddle, Snake Valley Quarter Horses $1000 Amateur Hunter Under Saddle Stakes and Man From Snow River Collections Select Amateur Hunter Under Saddle, pictured with Horsezone's Jo Johnson

Everyone had a great time at the Horsezone Happy Hour!

Winner of the Jayes Park $20,000 2YO Western Pleasure Futurity - RD Ten Times Hotter - ridden by Kane Skopp and owned by Real Deal Performance Horses

Quarter Horse stallion Assessment (Imp) and Emmi Hoefchen - winners of the $1000 Triandibo Quarter Horses Amateur Western Pleasure Stakes.

Winner of the $7,000 Platinum Equine Junior Horse Western Pleasure Derby - Good Ride Girl, ridden by Kristy Mobberley and owned by Kathy Sapurro

Winner of the One Lazy Impulse Senior Youth Western Pleasure Lana Kelderman riding YLS Sultary

The 29th NPHA Pleasure Celebration, held at SIEC on 23-26 May, once again showcased the finest western show horses in the country, featuring the best of the best Quarter Horses, Paints and Appaloosas.

Western performance competitors and fans, who gathered from all over Australia to be part of this prestigious event, were treated to top quality showing over the four days of competition. Rain on the first two days cleared on Friday evening, providing beautiful weather for the weekend.

The two USA judges, Brent Tincher from Oxford, Ohio and Brad Luebben from Central, Ohio, certainly had their work cut out for them choosing the winners and placegetters.

To add to the excitement of the 2013 show, the NPHA ran a Stallion Service Auction to raise funds, which featured 34 top class western stallions. The auction ran online from 4 April to 16 May on Horsezone and then bidding recommenced at the show until 26 May. The stallion auction raised $22,380, which was a fantastic result!

Horsezone is a regular sponsor of the NPHA and we were thrilled to be able to assist the committee by running the auction for them this year.

In addition to running the Stallion Service Auction and sponsoring various classes, we also ran the Horsezone Happy Hour on Friday night. Food and drinks were on Horsezone and fabulous country singer, Dan Murphy, provided the great music. The party proved to be a huge success and went for much more than an hour! Thank you to Yalumba for providing the beautiful wine, which was very popular. There was a lucky door prize of a Horsezone jacket, wine and other goodies, which was won by Karen Rath. During the night an impromptu auction was held on a saddle stand, to help Ruby Lang raise funds for the Quarter Horse Youth Team's trip to Texas. After plenty of spirited bidding, the stand sold for $400. The Horsezone team enjoyed meeting everyone and it looked a good time was had by all - we're keen to do it all again in 2014!

Show organiser Joanne Gregory was very happy with the 2013 Pleasure Celebration, saying, "it was a great show and ran very well. We tried a new format, cutting a day off the show and it still worked out fine. Entries were very strong considering the economic times lately. The two USA judges said the quality of our horses was excellent. Our western pleasure horses especially impressed them. I would like to thank all the sponsors as I had a lot of them this year - most people were very happy to sponsor and wanted to be a part of NPHA."

There were plenty of standout performances at the show and even though the majority of horses competing were Quarter Horses, who always do exceptionally well, there were several outstanding wins by Appaloosas and Paints. Appaloosas, RQH The Wizard and Every Kids Dream, had good wins the in Hunter Under Saddle classes and the Paints ruled in the big western classes with RD Ten Times Hotter winning the $20,000 Jayes Park 2YO Western Pleasure Futurity and I Like That winning the $10,000 Di Candilo Family 3YO Western Pleasure Futurity.

On the topic of the big classes, the 2YO Futurity Final was hugely popular with the stands on one side completely packed with spectators - an unusual occurrence for Western Pleasure generally, but not for this class - it is always a crowd puller! I'm amazed each year how so many people can be completely silent and still during this class, however, by the time the judges ask for the back-up the silence is replaced by loud cheering as each competitor backs up and then when the winners are announced. I'm not sure if I agree with the loud cheering during the back-up, as you'd think it might upset the last horses in line who are still to back-up, however, these unflappable babies simply put their little faces down and back-up as asked.

The NPHA 2YO Futurity highlights the totally amazing temperament of western horses - these are two year olds who have only had limited showing due to their age, but watching them put up with all that cheering and applause you'd think they have been showing for years.

MAJOR EVENT RESULTS:

$20,000 Jayes Park 2YO Western Pleasure Futurity Final

1st RD Ten Times Hotter

2nd Xtreme Dream

3rd Scorchin

4th Play Somethin Country

5th SVQ Kiss My Assets

6th PPH Hot Like Tahnee

7th No Need To Be Blue

8th CP Somethin To Hot Tocopy

9th RD Queen High Special

$10000 Di Candilo Family 3YO Western Pleasure Futurity Final

1st I Like That

2nd Amazen grace

3rd YLS After Party

4th Gracefull Prophecy

5th Winderadeen Happy Chappy

6th SSP Whenyahotyahot

7th So Hot N Charming

8th Good Investment

9th Watchin Susan

10th Somehot Gossip

I won't go into the full results here, as I'm sure true fans of the sport will have been avidly following Ralph Dunn's on-the-spot Facebook updates throughout the show. Official results will be available on the NPHA website soon.

If you'd love a horse with an unflappable and trainable temperament that is a pleasure to ride, check out Quarter Horses, Appaloosas and Paints for sale on Horsezone!

By: Jo Johnson/Horsezone