Dynamic Duo
Good news (times two) for American Saddlebred Western world champion Suzanne Bradshaw and trainer Carol Jones.
By Lisa Broadwater

It's been an eventful few months for Little Rock's Suzanne Bradshaw. First, at the American Saddlebred Western world championships at the St. Louis National Charity Horse Show in late September, her horses picked up four world grand championships. Then on Oct. 1, her trainer, Carol Jones, opened American Acres Training Center at Bradshaw's Spring Valley Equestrian Center in Ferndale.
It was just a little over a year ago — shortly before the 2001 Saddlebred Western world championships — that the two women first began to work together. At the time, Jones was living and training in Pine Bluff.
"Suzanne needed someone to help her with her Western horses, and there wasn't anyone around here who specializes in Western Saddlebreds," Jones recalls. "So she asked for my help to get her Trail horse ready. We had a good show at St. Louis last year, and then this year had a particularly good show."
That's an understatement. Bradshaw's mare Thanksgiving (ridden by Carrie Kessler) was named Saddle & Bridle Working Western world grand champion; her gelding The American Flag (ridden by Bradshaw) was named Sadlle & Bridle Shatner Western Pleasure world grand champion; Thanksgiving (ridden by Carrie Kessler) was also named Trail Class world champion; The American Flag (ridden by Bradshaw) was also named world champion Western Pleasure horse for Riders 45 & Over; and Thanksgiving (with Carrie Kessler) won the Working Western for 2003 qualifying class.
Until she joined forces with Jones, Bradshaw says, she had never kept her horses in-state.
"I've been showing since 1947, and I've never been able to keep them in Arkansas because I couldn't find a trainer," she says. "I've always kept them somewhere else. Until the last 10 years, it was Kentucky; then I kept a few in Plano, Texas. When I lived in Tulsa, I had my own barn and trainer."
The duo's initial meeting proved fortuitous.
"I took one lesson with Carol by accident," Bradshaw recalls. "I've taken from everybody. When I go to Kentucky to visit my daughters, I'll take lessons from a bunch of different trainers. But I couldn't believe how much I learned in that one lesson with Carol. I was so impressed I asked her to take my horse home with her."
What sets Jones apart, Bradshaw says, is that "she explains EXACTLY why you have to do something. What also impressed me is she walked along with me. Most people sit in a chair, stand on the rail or stand in the middle and yell at you and hope you hear. But she was walking right along. And she'd say, 'If you raise your hand just a little, this is what the horse will do.' And sure enough, she was right.
"What made this year's championship so thrilling," she adds, "is that Carol and I had been together one year, and the first day we won three firsts." And I said, 'Let's pack up and go home.' "
Needless to say, they didn't.
Bradshaw grew up in a family of horse lovers; her parents owned Thoroughbred racers (in fact, one was fourth in the Kentucky Derby in 1972). So how did she get involved with Saddlebreds?
"In Tulsa [where she grew up], Saddlebreds are the biggest thing going," she says. "I went to a private school, and every child took lessons at an American Saddlebred barn. It was all English, though; in fact, that's all I showed until the past seven years or so."
In those seven years, Bradshaw has made her presence known in the Western Saddlebred world. The first year that she showed, she won the Western Pleasure national championship in Milwaukee. In 1996, she was named Ladies Western Pleasure world champion. In '97, she was the reserve world grand champion for the Shatner finals.
Not that placing at Saddlebred shows is a new experience — at her Ferndale home, two open closets are lined from floor to ceiling with first and second-place ribbons in a broad spectrum of classes. Perhaps her most memorable acheivement, however, occurred In 1998, when she and her daughters Lindsey Sowell and Malissa Shirkey — who worked with three different trainers — all won English world championships at the World Championship Horse Show in Louisville (Sowell won Country Pleasure, Shirkey won Three-Gaited Show Pleasure, and Bradshaw won Show Pleasure Driving).
What Bradshaw loves about Saddlebreds, she says, is that "they're gorgeous, and they're a THRILL to ride."
Jones, who grew up in Pine Bluff showing horses, has a degree in equine technology and a degree in agriculture and animal science. For most of her life, she says, she's had a barnful of horses. Previously, she worked primarily with Appaloosas and Quarter horses.
What she likes about working with Saddlebreds, she says, is "the people are great and the fact that the horses' carriage is so different; it's up. So instead of trying to get these horses to put their head down below their knees and go slow, you can actually let a horse move in a much more natural way, with their head in an appropriate place for their body style. To ask one of these horses to put their head down would be impossible. It doesn't look natural at all. They're made to put their head in the air; they're made to look pretty.
"I've found them so far to be very intelligent and easy to work with," she adds — "a little flighty from time to time, but that's how they're bred. They're bred to be a little excitable; it makes them have some energy that sometimes we don't get in the other breeds."
At her training center (which she's leasing from Bradshaw), Jones has a variety of charges.
"I have a few pleasure horses," she says, "a couple of nice riding horses that need to be broke a little more, some Trail horses I just got back from the Appaloosa Worlds with.
"I do have more show horses than anything else," she adds. "But I give lessons to a lot of people who don't show at all; all they want to do is learn to ride a little better. So it's not a show program per se.
"And I do a lot of Equitation, a lot of Horsemanship kids — I probably do more of that than anything else. I think I had five in the Buckaroo Horsemanship class at the last State Show; all five made the finals, and three were in the top 10."
Her strengths as a trainer, she says, include working with Saddlebreds on Western Pleasure and Trail; with Appaloosas on Trail and Hunter Under Saddle; and working with youth.
"If I have a strong suit," she adds, "it's that I can take a horse and train it for the owner to ride. There are a lot of trainers who can train a horse for THEM to ride. But I can take one and train it and then let someone else show it and ride it and get the same results I can."
As an example, Bradshaw recalls the second show she and Jones attended together:
"It was 35 degrees, and they had added a Working Western class. And I had never had a Working lesson on this horse. And Carol said, 'Why don't you go in it?' And I said, 'But I don't know a thing.' And she said, 'I'll tell you.' We went in, and he did well enough to win. And I was amazed. I had never asked him to do any of that before."