Whizards Baby Doll and Stacy Westfall (photo by Jeff Kirkbride)

Whizards Baby Doll (Whizard Jac x Boot Scootin Dolly x Gunners Rambo) was affectionately knows as “Roxy” and was famous through the reining community, performance-horse world and beyond as Westfall’s bridleless and bareback freestyle reining champion mount.

As reported by Westfall Horsemanship, the 11-year-old mare, owned by Greg Gessner, Strasburg, Ohio, and bred by Jody Penrod, Powell, Ohio, was receiving treatment at Valley View Animal Hospital in Dover, Ohio, for an injury sustained after apparently becoming cast in her stall during the night of Feb. 5. After medical efforts proved unable to save the mare, Whizards Baby Doll was euthanized. A foal, due in early March, was delivered via C-section, but did not survive.

Shown by Westfall and her husband, Jesse, in Open reining competition and by Gessner in Rookie competition, Whizards Baby Doll amassed just shy of $40,000 on her Equi-Stat record. With Jesse at the reins in 2004, the mare made her show-career debut as the All American Quarter Horse Congress Reining Futurity Limited Open Reserve Champion, but she rose to fame as a freestyle mount for Westfall. Beginning in 2005, they won multiple freestyle titles, including the National Reining Horse Association Futurity Championship, two Congress Championships and two Ariat Tulsa Reining Classic Championships.

Westfall first amazed crowds with an unprecedented totally bridleless freestyle routine on Can Can Lena at the 2003 NRHA Futurity. After winning there, the innovative trainer looked for a new challenge: riding bridleless and bareback. She would perfect the art on Whizards Baby Doll, whom she received for training as a 2-year-old.

Whizards Baby Doll and Westfall enter the NRHA Futurity pen

Whizards Baby Doll is the No. 4 money-earning offspring of her sire, Whizard Jac, who is on the cusp of becoming an Equi-Stat Elite $1 Million Sire with $984,000 in offspring earnings. The first of Whizards Baby Doll’s four foals reached performance age in 2011. The 2008 mare Smart Ms Whiz (by Smart Spook), bred and owned by Gessner, won $100-plus last year and logged her dam’s first offspring earnings.

View Westfall's and Whizards Baby Doll's 2006 Congress Freestyle Championship run here, on Westfall Horsemanship's YouTube channel.