Boxing

Nonie Casselman-Reed wins a world championship in her first trip to the Adequan Select World Championship Show.

by Larri Jo Starkey
The American Quarter Horse Journal

Nonie Casselman-Reed just had a feeling.

The cowgirl from Hico, Texas, almost didn’t make the drive to Amarillo for the 2012 Adequan Select World Championship Show, thinking she ought to stay home and work, but at the last minute, she changed her mind.

That was a good decision. On Quintana Cassy, Nonie won her first world championship August 26.

“I’m so excited,” Nonie said. “I’m so happy and I’m in shock and I was crying after my run, because I knew I did better than I did (in the preliminaries) and that’s what I wanted to do, but I don’t know enough about it to know how well I did.”

Nonie is the first adult to earn a world championship in boxing, a new class added to the AQHA roster of classes this year. Her score of 436.5 was five points better than the reserve world champion, Kelly Bergo-Gully of Newell, South Dakota, on Sailors Luv Freckles.

“I just know I was more relaxed, and trusted my mare today,” Nonie said. “I’ve had her for a year. I got her from a gentleman named Mozaun McKibben, and she was trained. She’s been a good horse for me to learn on.”

Nonie and “Blondini” were first in the draw in the 15-horse finals.

“I trotted in there, and we were so calm,” she said. “I just kept thinking, relax Nonie, trust your mare, God is good and so I just started. I wanted to have a loose rein and relax, and I did. And then I let her go as fast as she wanted to go and then I dropped my hand and said ‘Whoa’ and she stopped. And then I was praying before so I’d get a good cow. And I got a good cow. It worked out just great.”

She wasn’t worried about working first.

“(My teachers have) told me there’s no bad draw in the finals,” she said. “That’s the attitude I went with. I was so grateful to make the finals there was no concern about (going first) at all.”

This year’s Adequan Select World was Nonie’s first Select world championship, but it wasn’t her first world show. She was reserve world champion in 3-year-old geldings as a youth in 1972 with Okie Flyer at the first American Junior Quarter Horse Association (now AQHYA) show. She’s now a 40-year breeder.

“I love AQHA,” she said. “Everybody is so nice. I love seeing all the different types of horses. It’s just incredible to meet people from all over the United States and see all the different horses – halter horses, pleasure horses, reining horses, stake horses. The people are so nice.

“(This year is) the first and I’m coming back. By God’s grace, I’ll be back.”