Eighteen-year-old Faith Jacobson was amazed when the horse she decided to sell at the 77th annual Red Bluff Bull and Gelding Sale in California was chosen Ideal Ranch Horse. Faith is from Marsing, ID—population 1,200—where her mom Teresa Jacobson raises cutting horses. Faith grew up with horses and had been showing her gelding in local cutting events, but never dreamed he would win this honor at Red Bluff.
“I’ve lived in Marsing my whole life. My mom has been training cutting horses for nearly 20 years and that’s how I got into it,” Faith said.
She was homeschooled until seventh grade, then became interested in sports and went to Marsing High School. She excelled at basketball and spent most of her time and effort at that sport.
“I wasn’t ‘into’ horses as seriously during those years as I was when I was younger,” she said.
Every summer she was busy with basketball practice and did so well that for several years she considered going to college on a basketball scholarship, but still kept riding horses.
“By my senior year I guess I got burned out on basketball and my focus went back to horses,” she said.
“My mom bought this gelding for me in 2011 as a yearling at the NCHA Futurity sale in Fort Worth, Texas. His registered name is Sophisticuttin Catt but we always called him Slinky. I was busy with sports at that time so Mom trained him and did all the early work on him even though I was around him a lot, too. She got him ready for me to show as a cutter when he was a 4-year-old, in 2014.”
The Idaho Cutting Horse Association has a spring show in Nampa so Faith and Teresa took Slinky to that one for his first competition.
“I showed him there and we won the Circuit Award. It was the first time he’d ever been shown and I was only 14 so that was pretty awesome. He won me a buckle, a leather jacket, and scholarship money. That was a great way to start off his career,” Faith said.
“He wasn’t shown much those first years, partly because I was in school, and mom and I were both focused on me and my sports, until two years ago. Slinky had limited showing and most of it was by me. The earnings he won were just youth money—which isn’t all that much. If you win a class you might win $70. Then last year I started showing him more seriously.”
Faith says Slinky taught her a lot. “My mom taught me a lot, too, working with her, and with Slinky. I spent eight years on him but my mom put a lot of time into him and into me. She had to put up with me not being focused on horses for a while!”
This past year Faith showed Slinky extensively and he did well.
“He’s been in cutting his whole life and we don’t have a big ranch where a person could just turn him out and let him just ‘be a horse.’ He’s been in a stall most of the time and just turned out in the arena during the day. His main focus was just cutting and I think he was starting to get tired of it,” Faith said.
“At the beginning of last year I was winning everything on him. We won the Circuit Award at Nampa again, and went to the Boise Valley Cutting Horse Association show in Star, Idaho. At that show I marked a 75 on him—the first time I’d ever done that well. I won the event that day and ended up third the next day. Then we placed second both days at a Utah show. My mom won the $5,000 novice class at Utah a couple of times on him. Then I think he just got tired of cutting and we decided it would be best for him to find another job,” said Faith. She consigned him to the Red Bluff Gelding Sale.
“We had Jason Gay, a trainer at Parma, Idaho, start roping on Slinky and heeling cattle, and Jason rode and showed him at Red Bluff. When we took Slinky to California for that show and sale. He only had 45 days of roping, but ended up fourth in the heeling. He is a very athletic, versatile, and talented horse, and he seemed to really enjoy it,” she said.
Jason showed him in several events at Red Bluff. At this big gelding show and sale, the geldings compete in conformation and working classes throughout the week, such as calf branding, team roping, cutting, and stock horse competitions. This gives potential buyers opportunity to watch the horses perform and learn more about their training and abilities. The week of competition culminates with selection of the top Conformation Horse and the Craig Owens Ideal Ranch Horse.
“My mom and I were shocked when Slinky was chosen. We weren’t even thinking about that. We were heading down to the arena to meet Jason and I noticed the finalists were lined up out there for the Ideal Ranch Horse and I said, ‘Oh my Gosh! Mom! Slinky is out there!’ We didn’t even see it coming,” Faith said.
The announcer was saying, “The 2019 Red Bluff Craig Owens Ideal Ranch horse is lot number….” He paused for a second as Faith held her breath. The suspense was excruciating. “Then he said, ‘Lot number 58!’ and that was our horse. That was awesome, and a great honor for me, being a first-time consigner to this sale.”
To select the Ideal Ranch Horse, a committee sifts through all the gelding entries the first day, making sure they are all sound with straight legs, good eyes, good teeth, good feet and legs and athletic ability, to make sure they can go through the sale. On subsequent days the committee watches all the events, to see how well these geldings do in the various competitions.
“We entered Slinky in calf branding that first day and then in cutting the next day. He had a really nasty first cow that ran right under his neck and he couldn’t stop her, but with the second cow he was really, really good at working her. Then we entered the stock horse show, and the committee named the Ideal Ranch Horse from the six finalists they’d picked. They’d watched him in all his events but we were not expecting this honor,” Faith said.
The sale was that evening. “That whole day was pretty tough for me; realization was starting to sink in that he wasn’t going to be mine anymore. We’d spent so many good years together. Mom and I were happy with the price he brought, but that’s when the tears came—after he sold,” Faith recalls.
“Jason let me ride him around a little after the sale and then we went to unsaddle him and put him back in the stall. The people who bought him, Fred and Carol Bailey from Eureka, Nevada, came to meet Slinky, and we talked with them for a while.”
The Baileys raise hay and cattle and thought Slinky would be the perfect horse for their ranch.
“They said they don’t sell horses, so he will have a great forever home at their place. They plan to use him for branding calves and moving cows. Fred might rope on him a little and then when Slinky gets older he’ll probably be carrying their grandkids around.”
Hearing this made Faith less sad to see him go, knowing that Slinky will be with a good family for the rest of his life. “Carol said she will keep in touch with us, so I am happy with it.”
Slinky is a one-of-a-kind special horse with great personality.
“One of his unique quirks is that he loves to drink pop out of a can, or water out of a bottle. If you’re on him and have a bottle of water or a can of pop he turns his head around to your foot and asks for a drink of it. You can pour it right into his mouth and he’ll drink it! He did that at a show once, and one of our friends was standing there and saw Slinky drinking pop and started laughing so hard! If you walk out to the barn with a can of pop he’ll come to the front of the stall and stick his nose out to try to get some,” Faith said.
“He’s like a big puppy dog and loves attention and can be quite a ham. He’s very smart and tries to open gates and will open them if he can. He’s a Houdini so we always had fool-proof latches on our gates!”
Faith knows she will miss Slinky but plans to train and show some other horses. She’d like to go back to Red Bluff again.
“I told my mom that this was really fun and I’m looking for another horse to train. We have a couple 2-year-olds of our own that Mom is working with, and some outside horses she’s training, so we hope we can have another success story someday at Red Bluff.” — Heather Smith Thomas, WLJ correspondent
