SDQHA Cow Horse Trainer of the Year Frank Kenzy
Frank Kenzy was training horses with his father before he was ten years old. Growing up on the family ranch near Iona, South Dakota, riding was just a part of their way of life. Frank’s father, Harry, raised quarter horses. Frank’s boyhood years were full of starting colts and hauling mares to be bred.
Kenzy got started training cow horses when he had the opportunity to attend a horsemanship clinic put on by Kevin Stallings in Chamberlain, South Dakota.
“Kevin was showing cow horses and he had one there,” Kenzy recalled. “We hit it off, and he came back several times to put on clinics. I rode with him some; that’s how I was introduced to it.”
Kenzy tried his hand at training a cow horse after riding with Kevin and watching video tapes. There were not many opportunities to show a cow horse in the area at the time, but in 1989, Frank took his home trained horse to a show in Gillette.
“He wasn’t very good, but we went,” Kenzy said.
Kenzy said that one difference between training a ranch horse and a working cow horse is the finesse that goes into the reining part of the competition.
“You need to get your reining maneuvers so precise in showing, and the horse has to be able to figure out the cow horse part of it as well,” Kenzy said.
Kenzy showed cutting horses for several years, and after the South Dakota Reined Cow Horse Association got started he was able to start going to those shows and migrated more into cow horses than cutting. Time in the cutting pen helped him get the herd work down.
“A cow horse show is a triathlon event,” he said. “You have herd work, reining and fence work. Getting it all tied together is a challenge.”
As both a breeder and a trainer, Kenzy said that finding a horse that can do all three events well can also be challenging.
“They have to have the right pedigree and conformation for it,” he said. “Then it’s just up to the individual. We start them all the same, and gear them towards the cow horse events, but some of them can’t do all the events. Some can’t change leads or turn around enough to be a reiner. Hopefully the ones that turn out you can make a show horse out of and win something on them.”
For a time, Kenzy had a group of area friends that he was able to ride with frequently.
“There were several guys I rode with who helped me quite a lot,” he said. “Tom Eliason and Don Ulmer were a couple of them. We had a good group of people who came and rode all the time and we really worked at it together.”
Kenzy said that many aspects of training a cow horse were similar to training ranch horses.
“It just meant getting them more broke; being able to read a cow is very important to both ranch horses and cow horses. When you’re working on the ranch your horse needs to be able to handle cattle. Timing and rate are important when you start fencing or boxing a cow. Just knowing your cattle is a big part of both.”
Around 2000, Kenzy gravitated back to showing cow horses. By this time, South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska and Colorado all had cow horse shows established, so he had more opportunities for showing in the region. In 2004, per Equistat, he made the list of the top 21 trainers of three year olds in the nation. In 2008, he was ranked 14th in the top trainers for cowhorse and cutting horses combined.
The family’s stallion, Annies Little Pepper also made the top 25 list of cow horse sires.
“We rode a lot of horses by him,” Kenzy said.
Throughout his showing career, Frank had the opportunity to show at the NRCHA Futurity, NCHA Futurity, and the AQHA World Show in cutting, cowhorse and reining.
One of Kenzy’s favorite horses was the stallion Dual Playin, owned by Dick and Linda Caulfield of Nebraska..
“We trained and showed him throughout his career,” he said. “He was fun to show.”
He also had many customers who purchased prospects and then left with him for their training and showing.
“Jessabelle Pepper and Reggie Pepper were both mares that we raised and trained,” he said. “We sold them as prospects and our customers left them here for us to ride and show. We were lucky to have good customers that wanted to work with us that way.”
As Kenzy’s children got older and started to rodeo in high school, Frank stepped away from showing. He still starts a few colts every year.
Frank and Jeri Lynn’s children, Charli, Erin and Myles, have all been involved in showing horses with their dad while growing up. All of his children excelled in cutting in High School Rodeo. Charli qualified for the National High School Rodeo in cutting three years. Erin also qualified for NHSR three times and won the SD High School Cutting Championship three years. After the girls graduated from High School, the NHSRA added cow horse as an event. Myles won the SD High School Cowhorse Championship the three years that he competed in it.
“A lot of kids compete in working cow horse and cutting in high school rodeo now,” he said. “In the spring a lot of my time goes to working with those kids.”
With their own breeding program, they are doing more roping these days, but still breeding for cow horse prospects that can also be used on the ranch.
“Once you get a cow horse trained right, you can do anything you want to do with him,” Kenzy said. “They adapt to all disciplines, no matter if it’s barrels, roping or ranch work. They get so broke because they have to do such a variety of things well in the cow horse.”
