A Starlights Magnum and Kyle Trahern Lengthen Winning Streak with NRCHA Snaffle Bit Futurity Open Bridle Championship
A Starlights Magnum (Magnum With A Dream x Shiny Starlight x Grays Starlight) may have skipped his futurity and derby years in the show pen, but he’s no stranger to the National Reined Cow Horse Association (NRCHA) Snaffle Bit Futurity Open Bridle class. In fact, it’s where he and Colorado trainer Kyle Trahern started their winning streak just a year ago.
Since then, the duo has added titles to their record including the 2024 NRCHA Two-Rein World Champion, 2024 NRCHA Intermediate Open Bridle Reserve World Champion and 2024 $200,000 The Run For A Million Cow Horse Challenge Champion.
“In the last couple years, he’s won everything we went to for the most part,” Trahern said. “He didn’t let anybody down this week.”
Though the horse was up against the best in the business and tough cattle, he got the job done again. The Open Bridle class on Oct.17 posed a special set of challenges.
“So, I drew up close to the last of that set. You know that run-in pattern is great and all, but you look down there and there’s not a lot of place to stop,” Trahern explained. “You’re running in a straight line there, so there wasn’t no fresh ground. I went down there and stopped, and he went to the ground, maybe a little too hard, and slipped in that used-up ground. I mean, it wasn’t the worst stop you’ve ever seen, but it wasn’t like he should have been. He threw a dirt clod up in his ear, and that whole first set of circles the son of a gun was slinging his head, shaking his head around there trying to get rid of that dirt clod out of his ear.”
Trahern pointed out that from a judge’s perspective, both incidents probably took away from his score. But neither were the horse’s fault.
Kyle Trahern and A Starlights Magnum circle their cow. * Photo by Amy Olson
“Then, when we changed leads and started the right set of circles, he must have got it out [the dirt clod] because he was game on after that,” Trahern said.
Moving into the cow work, the judges granted Trahern a new cow after the first one wasn’t giving them a good chance at working it.
“Thankfully, they blew the whistle and called me a new cow. The second cow was a lot of cow. We boxed around there pretty good. When we went around that corner, he started really strong, and then that cow just kind of came up into me on that right turn, and he [A Starlights Magnum] just annihilated that cow off the fence,” Trahern said. “It couldn’t have been much better. Got the other side, and we had to go and do it again on the left, but he was perfect. I switched sides and went to the middle, circled right in the center. I mean, I don’t know how much better we could have done.”
The judges seemed to agree and marked him a 221.5 in the rein work and a 222 down the fence for a 443.5 composite. The earned $11,720 for winning the NRCHA Snaffle Bit Futurity Open Bridle class. Trahern wanted to thank his family and everyone who has had a part in the gelding’s life.
He hopes to be ready for the NRCHA World’s Greatest Horseman next spring. “We’ve roped a jillion of them [cows] on him, and he’s really good to rope on. We haven’t started steer stopping on him, but I think that’ll take 10 minutes to get him good there,” Trahern said.