If people in the stock-horse world laughed, this West Coast vaquero horsewoman and her Arabian horses never heard them.
Interview by Jennifer Zehnder, this article was originally published in the December 2007 issue of Western Horseman
She was a woman, an amateur and a schoolteacher. In 1961, those three factors alone should have kept Sheila Varian from entering the most prestigious stock-horse competition, but they didn’t. That year, she and her Arabian mare Ronteza made history, winning the open reined cow horse championship at California’s Cow Palace and planting a seed that would change people’s perception of the Arabian breed, one Varian horse at a time.
AN ARABIAN HORSE will leave his hay and come be with you. And, if I’m going to clean up after one, I want him to like me.
I NEVER MINDED NOT HAVING A LOT of other things. I was perfectly happy to spend whatever it was on the horses. It was good fortune because it made me really learn all my lessons. I did the trimming, breeding, cleaning stalls and training. I did everything myself and not unhappily.
PEOPLE DIDN’T TAKE ME SERIOUSLY because, for me, every horse had to prove himself under saddle. Then again, I was a young girl and people weren’t going to take me seriously anyway.
IF WE FENCE a horse in, then it’s our responsibility to give him attention and an education.
YOU COULDN’T GROW UP around [trainer] Sid [Mary] Spencer and not have confidence. She taught me the use of the hackamore, two-rein and spade bit. I learned all of these before I was 15 years old.
IT WOULD BE DIFFICULT for a kid to make it today, especially a girl, if she didn’t have parental involvement and support—the stand-there-with-you kind.
I DON’T SELL HORSES at auction. I want to look you in the eye and make sure I put the right horse with the right person.
I’M NOT SET ON [breeding for] one discipline. I happen to like them all. And I don’t breed just to make somebody else happy. If I’m happy, then somebody else is going to be happy. It’s just the way it is.
GIRLS, YOU ARE NOT going to have a groupie following. All the pretty girls will be following the male trainers and you will be walking alone, pulling your own cart. It’s just the way of life.
THEY CAN KNOCK YOU DOWN, but they can’t eat you.
WHEN BAY ABI++ WAS NAMED national champion [at halter in the Arabian Horse Association], we didn’t get any breedings because I was an unknown. Nobody considered him of any importance. But I knew that he was really a fine horse. Not because Sid Spencer and Tom Dorrance told me, but because they taught me.
I’M NOT PREPARED to have horses about which you have to say, “Well, he didn’t make it.” Mine have all got to be able to make it and do something well. And, unless they break a leg, I don’t expect them to be lame. Even if they are, I just might tell them to get over it.
YOU CAN TALK YOUR WAY out of trouble with an Arabian and he’ll listen. That’s probably why people who don’t know much often get by with them, because an Arabian will usually try to take care of you.
YOU NEED TO TAKE LOSS with graciousness, but it should eat on you a bit.
YOU ARE A GIRL. Do not try to become a guy. You have an advantage of being different and that will pay dividends to you in the long run. But don’t misuse it. Be proud. Don’t take it as a negative. Make it your positive.
PEOPLE THINK NOW that I don’t ride. They think of me as just a breeder. They forget that I’ve done it all. I’ll always have my training projects. I ride out when someone calls and says there are cattle to gather.
* Sheila Varian sadly passed away on the morning of March 6, 2016, after a three-year battle with cancer.
