My husband, Jake, makes a living as a cowboy for Tiffany Cattle Company at the Allen Division, in Allen, Kan. His family has a cow/calf operation that he grew up on in Sedan, Kan. Jake has always made a living on the back of a horse and spent a lot of time starting horses, but had little show experience until recently.

Dehlia and Jake Sutton (Courtesy of Dehlia Sutton)

In 2018, he watched my team and I compete in the Team Horse Division on Baby Beach (our first horse bred by Craig and Tina Minten). It was my first experience at the Retired Racehorse Project’s Thoroughbred Makeover and it was a blast! Beach showed great and the team was rewarded with her finishing first in Show Jumper and second in Show Hunter to win the first Team Horse Division held at that Thoroughbred Makeover. 

On the way home, Jake mentioned he would like to try his hand in the Ranch Horse discipline in 2019. I started searching for a partner for Jake and came across Toast to Ghost on reseller Amy Paulus’ page. I looked him up and saw that the Mintens had bred the cute stallion, so I called Craig to see what he could tell me about him. It turned out they had lost him in a claiming race and lost track of him but had been trying to find out where he was. I put him and Amy in touch right away. A few days later, Craig called to see if we would be interested in taking him and another one of their horses, Man of the Sword, to the 2019 Thoroughbred Makeover. 

We jumped on it and a month later, both made their way to Kansas! Jake and Ghost finished in the top five in the Ranch Horse Division and 14^th in the Freestyle. I am pretty sure this was when the horse show bug officially bit him the first time.

Ginger in Disguise (Courtesy of Dehlia Sutton)

In the fall of 2021, Jake and I were talking in the kitchen about what goals we wanted to set for ourselves in 2022. We had recently returned from the National Reined Cow Horse Snaffle Bit Futurity, where he had been invited to compete in the Cowboy Invitational Division, and the show bug had hit him hard — and honestly, after watching him show and enjoy it, it bit me again! We had spent all of 2021 working together with the young horses we had. I had hung up my English saddle for the whole year and just focused helping put the basics on the young ones in the arena under Western tack, while Jake introduced them to the “real world” of ranching.

That’s when inspiration hit me: “Let’s do the 2022 Thoroughbred Makeover as a team entry for the Ranch Horse discipline!”

Why not take both of our strengths and combine forces? And so it began … again!

Like all of us who decide to do the Thoroughbred Makeover, I jumped right into finding a horse. This was a little more challenging than I was expecting. I knew what we were looking for, but it took checking a lot of pages and just emailing to finally find one! My first call was to Craig and Tina Minten, who bred and raised the past three Makeover horses we have taken, but unfortunately for us, they didn’t have anything coming off the track.

Finally, I landed on the Thoroughbred Retirement, Rehabilitation and Careers (TRRAC) website in West Chester, Pa. Through the help of Nina and Jen with TRRAC, Jake and I found Ginger in Disguise, who is by the same sire as my 2019 mount, First Samurai!

We had to wait patiently while she was assessed and released for adoption. We had her set to ship out to the Mintens in Midway, Ky., until we could make it out to pick her up, but then the fuel prices started to skyrocket.

The Sutton children meet Ginger in Disguise. (Courtesy of Dehlia Sutton)

The week she was set to ship out, I called the shippers to see if it would even be possible to have her shipped to us in Kansas. Equine Express was great to work with and got back to me the same day with a new quote and route if we decided to change things. With diesel averaging $5 per gallon, the new route ended up being cheaper (although we missed out on seeing Craig and Tina). On March 15, Ginger arrived at the ranch and Jake brought her home!

For those of you who are wondering, I am writing this article on March 18, so if you feel like you are behind in your Thoroughbred Makeover preparation, have NO fear — most of us feel that way right now! To add to this, is currently raining or snowing, depending on Mother Nature’s mood that day.

I work at the David Traylor Zoo of Emporia as the Education Coordinator. My background is in eventing and hunter/jumpers. I grew up in hunter/jumper land until I was in high school, and then I started to event with Becky Holder while she was still based out of Leavenworth, Kan. I fell in love with the world of eventing!

Eventually, after college, I went east to train and event, and I galloped on the racetrack at Laurel Park in Maryland for Dove Houghton. I loved working for her and learning about the racehorse industry; so many event horses came off the track, and it was wonderful to learn about their training on the track. That knowledge has been wonderful when transitioning an OTTB from the racetrack to another job.

The past two Thoroughbred Makeovers I have competed in, I have stayed within my “safe zone” of the hunter/jumper ring … doing two Western-based disciplines is NOT in my comfort zone, but I am looking forward to the new challenges it will bring!

We are so excited to start and share this journey with Ginger and together as a husband-wife team. I know the journey will bring ups and downs (it always does), but normally you don’t have to worry about adding a number of a marriage counselor on speed dial along with your vet and farrier (just kidding … kinda)!