Stallion Showcase 2025 | Jesperson Horses
Horses that cut, cow horse, rein, ranch and rope
The Jesperson family of Ekalaka, Montana, breeds all-around horses.
Cassidy and Tandi, along with their four children, breed and raise horses that can be used for ranching, roping, cutting, ranch rodeo and reined cow horse competitions.
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Trainer Travis Young on Reyzin the Boon 18 “Boon,” by Reyzin The Cash and out of Pinkolena Boon 2009. Photo courtesy Tandi Jesperson.
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Cass & Hickory Smoked: Cass Jesperson on Hickory Smoked Ham at a Colorado Reined Cow horse Association event. Photo by Michael Magill Photography.
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Colt & Mister Ballistic: Colt Jesperson, Cass and Tandi’s oldest child, shows Mister Ballistic at the Colorado Reined Cow horse Association Firecracker Show. Their second child, Cai, also shows. Photo by Michael Magill Photography.
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Cai & Smart Bosses: Like her brother Colt, Cai Jesperson shows, this time on Smart Bosses Shine in Douglas at the CRCA event. Photo by Michael Magill Photography.
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Cambri on Smart Little: Cambri on Smart Little Brady in the branding pen in May of 2024. The horse started the Jespersons in the reining and cutting world, but when he didn’t get as big as they hoped, they gelded him and now use him for ranch work. Photo courtesy Tandi Jesperson.
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PRF Purrfect: PRF Purrfect Star, by Smooth Talkin Style and out of PRF Purrfection. The stallion is smaller and more of a ranch horse: Cassidy rides him for calving, and his colts “have super fun, gentle personalities,” Tandi said. Photo courtesy Tandi Jesperson.
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Cass and Tandi both come from families where horses were important. Their kids: Colt, Cai, Cambri and Cashlyn, are the sixth generation to be involved with horses. Photo by Dani Draine Photography.
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The Jespersons: Cass and Tandi, along with their children (left to right), daughter Cambri (9), daughter Cai (12), son Colt (14), and daughter Cashlyn, age two, with Tandi, ranch and raise horses near Ekalaka, Mont. Twelve-year-old kids’ guard dog Fynn poses with them. Photo by Dani Draine Photography.
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Cass and Tandi Jesperson pride themselves on horses that are not only versatile, but big-boned and stocky, to handle rough ranch country. Photo courtesy Tandi Jesperson.
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The couple, high school sweethearts, grew up around horses. Instead of putting away money for a college fund for Cassidy, his parents, Ken and Becky Jesperson, let him choose some mares and breed them, and his granddads, James Barrett and Bill Jesperson, helped him in riding, training and showing horses in 4-H.
Tandi rode horses throughout her childhood, with her mom, Jitt Schneider, and granddad, Vernon Walter. Her dad, granddad and uncle competed in high school rodeo.
The couple married in 2008, moving to the Walter Ranch the next year as the fourth generation of each family to be part of the ranch operation.
It was two years after marrying that they got their start in raising and breeding. They had the mares Cass had raised, and along with a friend, they bought a horse, Smart Little Brady.
They had wanted to make a better ranch horse, something that would hold up in rocky, forest-service country, but also have the natural and easy ability to watch and chase a cow, and be trainable in a variety of roles.
Smart Little Brady “opened up a whole new world to us,” Tandi said, when they realized the stallion leaned more towards the cutting and cow horse industry.
But Smart Little Brady didn’t get to the size and shape they wanted, standing only 14.1 hands.
“We gelded him after a few years, because he didn’t get big and solid. He’s a gentle little bugger,” Tandie said, “but he just wasn’t what we were looking for in a stud.”
But Cassidy had realized how fun Brady was to ride, “how smart he was, and how cow work came so easy in the pasture. You didn’t have to teach it. It was just there.”
So cow horse and cutting horse were the aptitudes they wanted in their next stallion.
They purchased Shiney Red Cielo, who was more of what they were looking for. A 2008 son of Shining Spark, out of Peeparoo, a National Reined Cow Horse Association World Champion and money earner, the deep sorrel stands 15.1 hands.
Spark, as they called him, had the size and versatility they wanted.
At 6’3″ and 250 lbs., Cassidy wanted a horse that was not only big but built to handle rough ranch country.
“We knew, if we were going to do this,” Tandi said, “we needed to be able to say, his offspring will be able to cut, cow horse, rein, and do anything you want on the ranch. We didn’t want our horses bred for just one specific discipline, and we wanted them to have size.”
Cassidy showed Spark for a few years, but in 2016, the horse contracted a virus that nearly killed him. When he came home from the veterinary clinic, he was no longer sound; his show career was over.
For two years, they leased different studs, but “it wasn’t working for us,” Tandi said.
So, five years ago, at the National Cutting Horse Sale in Ft. Worth, they purchased their next stud, Reyzin the Boon 18, by Reyzin The Cash and out of Pinkolena Boon 2009.
Bred by James Eakin, who has bred several world champions, Boon has the versatility the Jespersons breed for.
“He fits the bill, pedigree-wise. In his line, you could cut, cow horse, rein, ranch and rope. We were looking for the whole package.”
Travis Young, Big Sky Performance Horses in Absarokee, Montana, started him and shows him. Boon is nearly at $30,000 in earnings in the NRCHA. He will show at the World Show in February in the 2-rein rig.
Standing 15.1 hands, “he’s not a tiny petite little cutting horse like Smart Little Brady. He’s a big soggy bugger. He has a bigger hip and he’s stockier built than Spark. He is everything we would want in a stud for ourselves and our program.”
They’re always on the lookout for a horse with the “wow” factor, and Boon had that.
“Walking up to a stall, you want people to notice” the horse, Tandi said.
Boon is eye-catching, she said, with his blaze face and white socks.
At the Black Hills Stock Show in Rapid City, “there’s not a soul that goes by (Boon’s stall) that doesn’t say, ‘gosh, that horse is pretty. I like that horse.’ That’s exactly what we were looking for.”
The Jespersons’ other stallion is PRF Purrfect Star, “Tornado,” by Smooth Talkin Style and out of PRF Purrfection. He’s smaller and more of a ranch horse. “We just love him,” Tandi said. “We call him our ranch stud.” Cassidy rides him for calving. Local folks have brought mares for Tornado to live cover and he also breeds older mares and mares hard to settle by AI.
“We are loving his colts. They have super fun, gentle personalities.”
It’s not easy showing reined cow horse and living in the Northern Plains, but the family makes it work. Cassidy and the kids show as members of the Colorado Reined Cow Horse Association, hitting between four and five shows a year.
Son Colt (14) and daughters Cai (12), and Cambri (9) (Cashlyn is two years old) have won money, buckles and scholarships. When his parents tried to persuade Colt to play basketball, he couldn’t be swayed. “All he does is think about roping, riding and cows.”
Jesperson mares have to prove themselves. Almost every single one has won money in a discipline, some of them with Cassidy and the kids. “We know what our mares are,” Tandi said.
“Most of them have won money in the cutting, cow horse, or roping, or have sires and dams in their pedigrees that have won money.”
Cassidy and Tandi recognize they can’t show every horse they raise. They send the yearlings to Travis, who starts them, then takes his top picks for showing. The rest come home to ranch on, and are part of the cavvy of about thirty ranch horses.
They are grateful to a host of family members and their show support system, who help them: their parents; Travis and Stephanie Young, David and Laura (Bell) Beckett, and Clayton and Danielle Malson.
In addition to the horses, the Jespersons partner with Jitt under the ranch name of Bar T7 Cattle Co., LLC. They have 2,500 yearlings, 1,250 bred heifers, and about 2,000 mother cows. The horses get ranched on, with the family and their hired men.
Tandi is quick to also give credit to their help on the ranch. With the ranch, horses, and showing, it takes an army at home to keep things going. Jitt helps with kids, and the ranch has seven hired men, American and South African, who hold down the fort.
“We have really great guys who work for us,” Tandi said, “and keep things going. Without any of them, we couldn’t do this. I don’t know what we’d do. There aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done.”
Someday Cassidy and Tandi would love to have a national reined cow horse champion, a horse that was bred and raised by them. They also plan on competing in the World’s Greatest Horseman contest in the next few years, with Boon and Travis.
But there’s a great deal of satisfaction that comes from selling horses that fit people
Tandi’s dream is that horse people “walk into our pasture, and look at colts, and somebody wants a colt to cut on, and someone wants a colt to rein on, and rope on, and someone else wants one to show in the reined cow horse, and someone wants one to ranch on, and someone wants a gentle one for their mother-in-law, and we have one in our pasture, right for each one of them.”
“It’s a good feeling to show one that you bred and raised,” Cass said. “It’s even more fun walking into a branding or show pen or wherever and see one of the horses you bred and raised being used. That’s exactly what I’m after. When I see friends, family and customers riding one of our horses, it just reminds me what our program is all about.”
The couple is working not for themselves but for their kids and grandkids. Just as their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents laid foundations for their descendants, they hope to do the same.
“I hope this is part of our legacy,” Tandi said. “I hope what we’re doing carries on for generations. The way it’s going with the three older kids, I’d say they’re horse crazy. I hope this is part of our ranching legacy.”
More information on the Jespersons can be found on their website: JespersonHorses.com.
