This year, the competition certainly did not disappoint. Nearly 200 entries were shuffled through ten splits, two semi-finals, and a finals to determine the winner this evening.

In order to qualify for Grand and Reserve today, “Premo” was named the Congress Champion in Amateur 2-Year-Old Stallions. Given that Premo was named the Reserve Grand Champion Amateur Stallion in 2012, Prince was definitely hungry for that Grand Champion title today.

There is another reason that Thurston’s smiling face was also filled with tears this afternoon. What sparked the initial conversation was a pink breast cancer pin she wore on her hunt coat during the class.

“She’s really good in her neck, and she’s really tight-built. You really don’t have to worry about making her go slow. She just goes slow naturally.”

The crowd applauded a touching moment when Starnes’ proud husband gave his wife a kiss while she was still on horseback.

Tearney says Goober definitely lives up to his nickname by partaking in all sorts of crazy antics. He’s something of a class clown.

“The NSBA World was my first show since I was ten,” Green says. “I’ve been going to the shows with them, and I wanted to get back into it.”

There is special meaning to Anderson’s win today considering the fact that she’s owned “Teddy” for just a few months.

“The first thing he said when he got up this morning was, ‘Ride Aunt Sarah horse,’ ” Kathy says. “We told him that might be a little bit of a rodeo this morning.”

“Her neck is a mile long. It’s really clean, and that right there will set a show horse apart from the rest of them.”