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Sherrie Szucs - Doing What She Was Meant To Do
By Sarah Gee
©Voice, April 2006
Growing up in Bellevue, Ohio, Sherrie Szucs was a typical horse crazy girl. She recalls, “I always wanted a horse and my dad wouldn’t buy me one. Well, when he bought my older brother a car when he turned 16 my mother forced him into buying me a horse for my 14th birthday. I would have been happy with a mule to ride, but the horse just happened to be a Tennessee Walking Horse.” That horse’s name was Pickaway Babe and Sherrie spent the next couple of years showing her in 4H, training her to pull a sleigh, and riding her in a mounted posse group. Sherrie relates, “She was just kind of an all-purpose good horse.”
Having wet her feet in the 4H arena with Pickaway Babe, Sherrie quickly decided that she wanted to move on to bigger venues. Within two years of receiving her first pleasure horse, she and her family had a padded show horse named Destiny’s Fancy Lady. At that point, Sherrie’s parents, Ted and Anita Bilger, had become as enchanted with walking horses as Sherrie.
Of her early years showing walking horses, Sherrie states, “We only had horses in training three times and each time it was for a very short period. We always worked our own and it’s been a lot of trial and error, and asking people questions.”
Of Destiny’s Lady, she says, “Looking back, she was extremely gifted, but we were not. I showed her for a couple years and got fourths and fifths. Being a competitive person, I thought I needed something better. Paul Whitehead had a stud at that time that I thought I just had to have, so we did some horse trading with him. He took Destiny’s Fancy Lady and won 27 blue ribbons with her the next year.”
By the time she got to her senior year in high school Sherrie had decided that she wanted to be a horse trainer. She remarks, “My senior year I was all set to go to college when I decided, all of a sudden, that I didn’t want to do that, I wanted to train horses. My mother wasn’t too happy about that decision. Although both my parents have heavily supported me through the years, she certainly did try to get me to go to college.” After graduation, Sherrie began training horses for other people. Her earliest customers included Doris Squier, Phil Havens, Evan Williams, and Doug and Carolyn Andrews. She enjoyed a fair amount of success showing in Ohio and surrounding states during those early years.
By the mid 1980s the padded horse had declined in popularity in Ohio. Sherrie actually considered leaving the horse industry all together but a trip to the Ohio Celebration changed her mind. She remembers, “I went to the Ohio Celebration and that’s when I saw Symbol’s Nite Hawk. I got my veterinarian’s wife to buy him and that started my career as a pleasure horse trainer. That horse sparked my interest because he walked like a padded horse. He opened my eyes to what I was meant to do.”
Interestingly, in the early 1970s, Sherrie had trained Nite Hawk’s dam, Black Suns First Lady, and had encouraged Doris Squier to trade another horse for her. Doris crossed the mare with her stallion, Shocker’s Symbol, and produced Symbol’s Nite Hawk. Later, that same cross produced a number of other successful flat shod show horses including Symbol’s Hawkette.
In 1987, Sherrie took Symbol’s Nite Hawk to the Celebration where he and owner Sandra Mansperger claimed the Plantation Pleasure Mare or Gelding Amateur Ladies Reserve World Championship. In 1990, he, with Sherrie in the irons, walked away with the Plantation Pleasure Reserve World Grand Championship. Later, Symbol’s Nite Hawk went on to win numerous ribbons in the lite shod division as well as the trail pleasure division.
Another talented product of Doris Squier’s breeding program arrived at Sherrie’s barn in 1988. Genius’ Boy Pride, owned by B & H Enterprises at the time, would carry Sherrie on her first Celebration victory pass, for the 1988 Three-Year-Old Plantation Pleasure World Championship. In 1989, he claimed the four-year-old title and in 1990 he walked away with the stallions and geldings specialty win at the Celebration.
Sherrie’s success with Genius’ Boy Pride and a number of other Pride’s Genius offspring such as Genius Ginger, Mysterious Genius, and Genius Fashion Show, brought her talents to the attention of legendary Tennessee Walking Horse breeders Bill and Barbara Harlin. The Harlins sent her a horse to train. She relates, “Mr. Harlin sent me a horse, I think it was a trial. Fortunately, I got along with it pretty well. Then he sent me Praise Hallelujah who was, at that time, named Mr. Macho. I sold him right before the Celebration and still brought him down and won the 1990 Plantation Pleasure Two-Year-Old World Championship.” Since that time, Sherrie has trained a number of horses for the Harlins. She says, “That’s one of the highlights of my career, when Mr. Harlin decided to give me one of his horse’s to train.”
By the early 1990s, Sherrie had fully established herself as one of the premier pleasure horse trainers with customers from all over the Midwest and Southeast. Her horses were consistent performers that placed near the top at shows from Michigan to Tennessee.
In 1991, she directed Genius Fashion Show and Rich And Smart, both owned by Dr. Judy Moore, to two world championships and one national futurity championship. Genius Fashion Show came back in 1992 and claimed a second world championship with Adrian Rehkemper on board.
Sherrie directed another Genius horse, Genius Precious Pearl owned by Mike and Lori Lowe, to the Two-Year-Old Lite Shod World Championship in 1994. The next year she rode the Double Springs Farm entry Summer Wishes to the Plantation Pleasure Three & Four-Year-Old World Championship.
Another Double Springs Farm entry, Dixie Spirit, walked, under the direction of Sherrie, to 1996 and 1997 national futurity championships. City Lights, yet another Szucs trained Double Springs horse, claimed the 1997 Amateur Western Trail Pleasure World Championship with Kathy Owen in the irons. Also in 1997, Sherrie directed the Harlins’ Coin’s In A Row to the Four-Year-Old Lite Shod World Championship, and their Show Shine to the Two-Year-Old National Futurity Championship.
1998 saw Show Shine and Sherrie in the Celebration winner’s circle as Three-Year-Old Lite Shod World Champions. That same year, Sherrie took the four-year-old lite shod title with Paul and Bonnie Herman’s Newt. At the 1998 national futurity, she directed WIZO, owned by Kathy Owen and Martha Child to the Two-Year-Old Championship. WIZO walked to the three-year-old title the following year.
In 2000, WIZO, with new owner Roger Heuring up, strolled to the Celebration winner’s circle as Amateur Novice Lite Shod World Champion. 2000 was also the year that Sherrie directed Jim Todd’s The Man Of Fashion to the Two-Year-Old Lite Shod National Futurity Championship. From 2002 to 2004, she picked up four more national futurity championships with Kathy Owen’s Reved So High and Wishing For Cash, and Bill and Barbara Harlin’s Revealing Fashion.
In addition to training, showing, and selling Tennessee Walking Horses, Sherrie has worked tirelessly to support and promote our breed. She has served multiple terms as a director on the Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders’ and Exhibitors’ association board and she and her husband Paul are heavily involved with the Buckeye Walking Horse Association. She is also a licensed judge, popular clinician, and an avid trail rider. She states, “To put it in my accountant’s words, ‘My whole life revolves around horses.’”
Discussing how the walking horse industry has changed during her years of involvement, Sherrie remarks, “I think the horses are better prepared for the show ring. I think we have a much better horse to work with in a lot of ways. I really do believe that the growth of interest in the pleasure horse has helped the breed. It helped the breed maintain its presence in areas like Ohio.”
From horse-crazy girl to accomplished trainer, Sherrie Szucs has spent her life among Tennessee Walking Horses. She has developed some of the finest pleasure horses our industry has ever seen and she has given freely of herself in support of all aspects of the breed.
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