By Tara ChristiansenThe American Quarter Horse JournalJuly 6, 2012
"Outlaw" Annie Bianco-Ellett and her 25-year-old dun stallion, El Costa Prom, demonstrate cowboy mounted shooting before the night's finals. (Tara Christiansen photo) To view photos from the finals, scroll through the slide show below.
When you're trying to explain something to a crowd of newbies, sometimes it's best to go straight to one of the oldest sources in the book. During the cowboy mounted shooting finals July 6, that source was El Costa Prom.
The 25-year-old dun stallion came out of retirement to show the young pups, and his new adoring fans, that the old man still has it. Arguably one of the sport's foundation sires, "Costa," as his friends call him, is a son of Hickorydickorydoc and out of Klever Prom by Poco Benjiman. Bred by Dr. Robert L. Poulson and Fort Ranch, the stallion has been the cornerstone in "Outlaw" Annie Bianco-Ellett's breeding program.
With his Cave Creek, Arizona, cowgirl aboard, Costa showed the Oklahoma City crowd what a good Friday is all about: loud music, fast horses and guns.
One of Costa's "kids" was in attendance, too. Owned and ridden by Zane Chunn of Fort Smith, Arkansas, Little Costa Latte came to make her daddy proud, which she has been doing a lot of lately. This March, Zane and Little Costa Latte were crowned the first AQHA cowboy mounted shooting world champions. And on Friday night, the pair put up a ___ in the rifle stage of the Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association finals. But it wasn't good enough. Another AQHA cowboy mounted shooting world champion, Chad Little, stole the show in the rifle stage with a smoking 12.435 seconds.
Chad, the first AQHA open world champion in cowboy mounted shooting, has lately been working on other areas of his horsemanship, but that didn't seem to hurt the Saint Michael, Minnesota, gunslinger on Friday night. Riding Lil Ruf Catalyst, owned and trained by his pal Mozaun McKibben, Chad is gunning for the World's Greatest Horseman Shootout championship also at Battle in the Saddle. And in the time that Chad's been training for the Shootout, he's also been sharing pointers with Mozaun. That tutoring certainly paid off, as Mozaun threw down a 13.113 second run, which won the Level 1 pistol class.
To view photos from the cowboy mounted shooting finals, watch the slide show below, brought to you by The American Quarter Horse Journal.
View larger slideshow with photo captions