BLACK ARABIANS
believe he would be a champion, but we showed him in performance. Even though he’s by an English champion and he can trot big, western is just what he does so well.” For Holasek, a horse’s career should fit its individual preferences, and Uptown Fire’s athleticism made him a natural for reining’s demands. She pays attention to each horse’s mental and physical demands, and monitors their condition with an eye toward preventative care as well as career potential. That is part of her all-around approach to horse ownership, and it has contributed to her longterm success.
been color-oriented; I always bred for athleticism.” But in April, 2005, when her Kyd Bask daughter, Kaybette, presented her with a black son of Thee Outlaw, she was immediately smitten. “We named him an hour after he was born,” she says. Her horses are at Garrett Training Center, where Kaybette foaled, so she asked David Garrett’s little daughter what to name the colt. “She said ‘D,’” Vargas smiles. “That might have been her entire vocabulary at the time!” ‘Tanajib’ was added for a small town on the border between Saudi Arabia and Iraq where someone Vargas knew had been stationed during Desert Storm. With that suitably exotic name—D Tanajib—the colt matured into a promising sire and western horse.
Georgene Holasek got started in Arabians in the 1960s, and in years past trained and showed her own horses, as well as showed in halter in Minnesota. “I had the high-point halter horse for the state,” she recalls. “I That he fits a western also won in English saddle is appropriate pleasure classes, for Madeline Vargas’ which back then were background. She D Tanajib of YE Arabians. open. We had no came to Arabians amateur classes.” She from Quarter was also active in AHA, and served on its board at one Horses in the early 1970s when she acquired the Fadjur time; now she participates in the Minnesota Arabian grandson, Fadsyn. “He ended up seventh in the country Horse Association. And for 15 years she was a judge. It against open cutting horses,” she recalls, adding that all adds up to credibility, and over the years, Georgene he was trained by Jim Huddleston. “I received a Gladys Holasek’s horses have made her place in the Arabian Brown Edwards Award for his contribution, but I lost industry. Uptown Fire is the latest, and she is confident him to colic the winter after he made that wonderful of his potential. First and foremost, she emphasizes, show, so I never got a baby from him.” he passes on good conformation and a lot of type. And for those who want that magical black color, he has the Vargas had acquired a mare to be bred to Fadsyn, ability to sire it. however, and she went on in Arabians, breeding to other stallions. It was when she tried to interest a young trainer named Larry Hoffman in training one of the foals, and Hoffman instead selected the mare, that she found herself the owner of another champion Arabian competitor, this YE Arabians time in English pleasure. She still laughs when she recalls Corona, Calif. __________________________________________________ the mare’s progress in the show ring. “Against her first English pleasure class—42 horses—she won.” Some top After 40 years in the Arabian business, Madeline level trainers came out of the ring shaking their head Vargas has the horse of her dreams. “I’m not a big and wondering, “Who was that?” She was grateful to breeder,” she says. “I’m a little tiny breeder. I’ve never
Madeline Vargas
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