Mike Honald has been riding from more than four decades, and the 56-year-old from Oregon hit it big with Shiney Travalena at the Reno Snaffle Bit Futurity.
Guiding his buckskin gelding, Honald won the Futurity Non-Pro and Intermediate Non-Pro with a composite score of 640 on Sunday, Sept. 20 in Reno, Nevada. Throughout several grueling days of competition, Honald and Shiney Travalena scored a 209 in the herd work, 216 in the reining and a 215 in the fence work to outpace reserve champion Flogot To Smoke (Dual R Smokin x Floget Me Not x Smooth As A Cat) and Shannon Haskins by four points.
For their efforts, the duo received a $8,300 payout and the $3,000 Reno Yearling sale incentive check. Shiney Travalena passed through the ring in 2018.
According to Honald, Shiney Travalena has always been strong in the reining but has been rapidly improving in the fence work. The soft cows at Reno made things tricky but they managed to pull it off.
“Everything fell together in the right order,” said Honald, of The Dalles.
Sired by singer-songwriter and reining enthusiast Lyle Lovett’s stallion Smart And Shiney, Shiney Travalena is known as “Lyle” in the barn. Out of $33,000-producing mare Travalen Easter (by Travalena), Lyle was bred by Hilda Anne Baisel of Clements, California.
“He’s super chill. He’s a lover, he likes a lot of attention and he’s easy to get along with. He likes people,” Honald said.
Honald trains his futurity mounts primarily by himself, but says he has a good group of training buddies he can get help from. He also thanked Jesse Spence for starting Lyle for him.
Although traveling to Fort Worth, Texas, for the National Reined Cow Horse Association (NRCHA) Snaffle Bit Futurity isn’t in the cards for Honald this year, he hopes to make the trip in the future.
