Shiners Miss Hot Flash and Jeremy Knoles

Limited Open Hackamore

Nikki Miller knows she’s lucky to own a horse like Shiners Hot Flash. At the 2005 NRCHA Snaffle Bit Futurity Sale, Miller’s boss, Carol Rose, had consigned the Shining Spark mare as a yearling.

“Carol raised her and I used to help foal out the babies the year she was born,” Miller said. “I was just lucky to get the last bid because she was one of the first two horses in the sale, so not a lot of people were there. I thought for sure she was going to be a big seller. I just got lucky.”

Out of Tarizana by Taris Catalyst, “Millie” was such a gentle mare that Miller broke her out as a 2-year-old. “I was the first one who rode her,” she said. “I’m not a real great rider but she turned out to be really easy. She didn’t get harder until her 3-year-old year.”

That’s when Miller asked some of the young trainers at the ranch to help her. “I like to say I broke her, the guys fixed her,” Miller said with a laugh. In 2008, Adam Johnson qualified Millie for the AQHA World Championship Show in the junior reining, but missed the finals. Millie was given some time off, and then started on cattle last year.

Johnson had moved on to another barn and Miller asked Jeremy Knoles to take over the reins. “Jeremy is really good with her. He’s a really good horseman,” Miller said. As the office manager at the Carol Rose Ranch in Gainesville, Texas, Miller couldn’t travel to San Angelo to watch the preliminaries on Feb. 2 because breeding season had started the day before. Watching the live webcast, Miller saw Millie and Knoles turn in a great rein work and an even better fence work.

“She just had a smoking fence run and we were waiting for the score,” she said. “Carol called and said, ‘I think she’s zeroed in the rein work.’ I said, ‘NO!’ Instead of backing up, Millie almost rolled back after one of her stops. “It was one of those that was right on the line,” Miller said. “Carol said, ‘I think she did,’ and then she hung up the phone on me. Then she called back and said, ‘Did you see where she zeroed?’ I said, ‘Did she really zero?’ My computer sound cut out, I didn’t hear the score. And Carol said, ‘I’ll call you right back again.’ She hung up the phone and she doesn’t know this but Jeremy called and told me the score. She then called back and I tried to pretend like I didn’t know. But I knew.”

Knoles told her he had marked a 213 in the rein work and a 225 in the cow work, winning the prelims with the 438 composite. Miller hopped into the car and drove to San Angelo to watch her mare in the finals on Feb. 5.

Kyle Trahern and MH Bold Intentions were first to work in the Limited Open Hackamore finals and they immediately set the score to beat: 439. “I was tickled with our score,” Trahern said. “This is the third run this horse had to make this week and he stayed good the whole time.” Trahern owns “Mac,” who is by Bodee Boonsmal and out of Freckles Docs Oak by Doc’s Oak. In the finals, the pair marked a 217 in the dry work and a 222 on the fence. But then it was all about waiting for the next nine riders.

Knoles and Millie were fifth in the draw, and the Gainesville, Texas, trainer was a little nervous. “She felt pretty good in the prelims but I wasn’t sure if she had another run in her like that,” he said. But Knoles soon discovered she did. “She felt better to me than she ever has (in the rein work),” he said.

Moving into the fence work, Knoles was pleased with the cow they drew. “He was a little fast, but she’s a fast mare. It worked out all right.” More than all right, with the pair marking a 218 in the rein work and a 224 in the cow work and putting their composite of 442 three points higher than Trahern’s.

“I was so surprised,” Knoles said. “I didn’t expect to win. And that’s probably the highest reining score I’ve ever marked on any horse. ” The $3,857 check boosted Millie’s earnings to $5,000. —TRG

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