Quarter Horse News
April 1, 2020
Open Two-Rein
Sinfully Smart Cat & Wade Reaney
13G (WR This Cats Smart x Sinful Style x Docs Stylish Oak)
Owner: Karen Olson, Hill City, ID
Breeder: Cowan Select Horses LLC, Havre, MT
Say what you will about Sinfully Smart Cat, but make sure “quirky son of a gun” is one of those things, his trainer said with a wry smile.
“When he was a 4-year-old, we were loping around getting ready to show and it was hot out, and you think he ought to be wore out. But that day, he just jumped straight in the air,” Wade Reaney said. “I about fell off of him. It came out of nowhere … scared me.
“He does stuff like that to keep me on my toes.” In the parlance of the human athlete, that type of stuff is merely demonstrating one’s “individuality.”
Now a 7-year-old, “Taco” is the new Open Two-Rein World Champion.
Owner Karen Olson was overjoyed about her gelding’s prestigious title, but Reaney admitted there is a strategy to showing the horse.
“He thinks a lot,” Reaney said. “He always looks around a lot … he always wants to do stuff. He’s kind of quirky, too. He’ll do his own thing. You just have to leave him alone; he kind of does it himself.”
Taco is by Equi-Stat Elite $13 Million Sire WR This Cats Smart and was one of three WR This Cats Smart offspring in the finals. The others finished second and seventh.
Reaney, who guided Taco to four first-place and two reserve finishes in 2019, has amassed an Equi-Stat record of $488,736 over his career. Taco’s record is hovering around the $50,000 mark.
“He’s been so fun to train. It’s been a blessing,” Reaney said.
