Gilbert Ortiz

Bred by Allene Tatom out of the accomplished mare Dreams Of Blue, Slick By Design felt preordained from the start. His breeder once told Speedhorse that when he was a baby, she kept telling him he was special, and that he was just meant to be. He set out to prove it in 2011 with Kim Ulbricht Grunkemeyer, stacking futurity titles and big checks in a single season that announced him not merely as talented, but as a force. The next year, with Jennifer Sharp aboard, he became the AQHA World Champion Junior Barrel Racing Horse.

Later that same season, Charlie Cole and Jason Martin of Highpoint Performance Horses took a chance on a black stud that kept outrunning expectations. Under their program, Slick climbed to the sport’s brightest lights as a four-time Wrangler NFR qualifier, finishing fourth overall twice and earning the AQHA/PRCA Reserve Barrel Horse of the Year. Slick also holds the record for the fastest time, 13.48 seconds, ever run by a stallion at the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. By the end of his career he had banked $626,962.

In remembering him, Jason and Charlie shared a message on Facebook that captured what he meant to their lives and to so many others, “Slick changed our lives and the lives of so many that he touched. Slick put us on the map in the barrel horse world and allowed us to travel places and meet amazing people that we would never have met.”

His first foals arrived in 2016. By September 25, 2025, his dynasty had grown to 2,228 AQHA-registered foals with total earnings of $10,871,623. 640 of those horses became money earners, averaging nearly…

Through a lifetime of mountain-top success and abyss-deep losses, Joyce Loomis-Kernek learned not only how to find her peaceful place, but how to help others find theirs

Joyce Loomis-Kernek knows very well that looks can be deceiving. “I’ve shared my story with many through the years and it never ceases to amaze me how people would say, ‘I had no idea you were ever depressed! You have so much!’” she says.

The second of three children born to cattle rancher/sheriff Lawrence Shelley and his wife, Rosemary, Joyce grew up on the family’s 916 Ranch in the Mogollan Mountains near Cliff, New Mexico, established in 1884 by her great-grandfather, Peter Shelley. Her older brother, Lawrence Hollis Shelley, aka Buster, and her younger brother, Terrell—who still minds the ranch with his son, Jerrell—were typical ranch kids: fixing water gaps and fences, and taking care of the dogs, cattle, milk cows and horses. “We learned to work hard and get our homework done as well as all the chores,” says Joyce.

But within her seemingly idyllic life, darkness hovered. Her mother, who in her public life organized the food for the county fair, taught women how to can and sew, and whose seamstress skills won Best Dressed Cowgirl honors for Joyce every year she competed at the NFR, also battled alcohol addiction. “Sometimes, she’d disappear for months at a time,” Joyce says. “We learned to overcome and take care of ourselves and each other. We drove ourselves to the highway to catch the school bus — 18 miles of dirt road — when we could barely see over the dash. I smile when I think of how sometimes we’d leave the road and chase antelope.”

From early on, Joyce loved everything equine, especially barrel racing. As a child, she pored over back issues of Western Horseman that a neighbor gave her. Her dad got her some barrels, and she ran every equine she could find around them, including the mules her dad used to work cattle in the mountains, pack salt, and hunt mountain lions and bears. A family friend gave her a palomino she called Pal, and at age 14, she won her first barrel racing buckle at a local fair. 

She attended New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, where she competed on the rodeo team in roping, goat tying and, of course, barrel racing. Then, she saw a flyer advertising the Miss Rodeo New Mexico pageant. With encouragement from a friend, Joyce decided to enter. “The prize,” she says, “was a set of luggage, and I wanted to win it!” She did win, which advanced her to the Miss Rodeo America competition in Las Vegas. Her goal was to win the horsemanship, which she did — along with the 1963 Miss Rodeo America title. Her demons, however, remained. 

“Becoming Miss Rodeo America was the beginning of a blessed rodeo career that led to my heart’s desire to live my life training horses,” she says. “That part of my life helped me through the losses that life brought my way. Little did I know that every win, and the highs that followed, were temporary.”

Her title led to…

Training your horse involves a lot of work and focus on improving your horse’s skill set in a chosen athletic endeavor. Yet, similarly important is the degree of conditioning your horse achieves over time. Conditioning has multiple benefits with improvements of not just musculoskeletal tissues of the limbs, haunches, abdominal core muscles, the topline and neck. It also improves the cardiovascular and respiratory systems, nervous system, proprioception (awareness of position and placement of limbs and body), and balance, as well as providing mental stimulation along with building a horse’s confidence. All these benefits improve with fitness.

Varying the surfaces on which a horse is exercised brings additional benefits that develop the physical strength of a well-rounded equine athlete that is mentally engaged in the work.

Injury Prevention

Probably 90% of equine injuries are due to repetitive strain and an accumulation of microdamage. The majority of “acute” injuries develop over time. With this in mind, the use of various surfaces in training allows distribution of varying strains across various musculoskeletal tissues – bone, ligament, tendon – thereby minimizing repetitive stress. Bones and soft tissues of young horses are highly adaptable and strengthen in response to exercise on varying surfaces. For an older athlete, use of different surfaces minimizes the amount of daily micro-damage of musculoskeletal structures while allowing time for repair of injuries.

Gradual introduction to new riding surfaces is important. Early in the competitive season, it is not unusual for a horse to be acutely sore after their first event. This is often because they are worked on one type of footing at home, sand for example, and are then asked to compete and train on a completely different type of footing such as fiber or different track surfaces. With initial exercise on a new surface ridden at reduced intensity, such as flat work and easy exercises, a horse adapts gradually to new footing.

It is best to expose a horse to the same surface as the competition surface twice weekly for at least six weeks to give muscles and other soft tissues time to adapt. Consider the effect of repetitive exercise on the same surface day after day: Exercise regimens that lack variation increase wear-and-tear on joints, while bone remodels with adaptation only to a specific constant surface. This leads to a potential for bone stress fractures, especially in horses involved in speed-related sports. Additionally, repetitive exercise without variety is likely to have mental impacts on both horse and rider. A horse may become sour and resistant; a person becomes bored or frustrated with lack of progress. Changes in scenery and variety in training skill sets can work wonders for temperament of both horse and rider.

How Long Until Benefits are Apparent?

Development of fitness is in part related to how fit a horse is prior to a lay-up period or if moving to a new surface. Horses detrain rather slowly and can maintain fitness for longer than human athletes. It is best to pursue at least three weeks of low intensity exercise to establish an aerobic base. This is then followed by long slow distance training to build a sound foundation. Then, the horse can progress to moderate intensity training. During these conditioning strategies the horse undergoes cellular changes that begin around weeks 4 – 6. By weeks 6 – 12, muscle fiber types start changing to adapt to specifics of the required athletic endeavor.

Once a solid conditioning base has been established, interval training is incorporated to optimize skeletal and muscular strength. Bone responds best to short (5 – 10 minutes) intervals of high impact loading three times per week. Adding in 5 – 10 minutes of trot on a firm surface achieves maximum bone response without damaging cartilage and soft tissue structures. Too much pounding damages joint cartilage and starts the path toward osteoarthritis. Tendon tissues are more adaptable in young horses (1 – 2 years); then a subsequent conditioning objective is injury prevention. Cross-training in different tasks and on different surfaces prevents the accumulation of microdamage that leads to soft tissue injury.

In addition to development of….