HORSE BEATS ODDS TO WIN WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

By Pat Blair
Senior Staff Reporter

 A betting person would have given low odds on Casino Express making it to the World Championship Paint Horse Show this year.
   The big gelding (16.1 hands tall - just a fraction over 5 feet, 4 inches at the withers) had qualified for the world championship three previous years and had not gone.
   This year though was different.  This year, Hilary Carrel with a little coaxing from her husband overcame her reluctance to travel the 1,200 or so miles from Sheridan to the show's Fort Worth, Texas venue.
   And this year - Casino's first time at the Forth Worth show - Carrel rode the big horse to first place in open jumping, competing in a field of 16.
   Neither Carrel nor her husband, Charlie, ever doubted Casino - a combination of Thoroughbred, quarter horse and paint horse bloodlines - had the ability to win.
   "I've always believed in him." said Hilary, who has been riding the gelding since 1995 (at first for a friend) and has owned him since 1999.
   Charlie added.  "We knew we had the horse for the (World) show.  It was just a matter of doing it.
   He added Casino is "very competitive."  The gelding also does well in speed derbies and "mini-pris" - both jumping events for horses - a tribute to Casino's breeding.
   The gelding was sired by a son of Moon Lark, a racing bred quarter horse, and his dam is granddaughter of the Thoroughbred Raise A Native, sired by Native Dancer.  Also in the mix is the blood of Easy Jet, another fast quarter horse sire who passed the speed gene on to his offspring.
   Casino Express, now 12 years old, started his career as a racehorse, earning more than $10,000 on paint horse tracks before being retired.
   Hilary said she was skeptical at first when a previous owner told her Casino would jump round bales in his pasture. "I was like, oh sure," she said. But she quickly discovered the gelding has a natural talent for jumping.
   The Carrels who met three years ago at a horse show in California - use Casino strictly for jumping on the show circuit, but the gelding has other chores at home on the Carrels' Colts Unlimited training and sales facility just outside Sheridan.
   "We pony colts off him," Hilary said, and Charlie added a young horse getting his first ride will be dallied off (tied to) Casino.
   "He's stout, honest and workmanlike," Charles said.  Charlie and the Carrels' two sons, Isaac and Seth, also have competed on Casino.




Picture Description:

Charlie and Hilary Carrel with Casino Express, the horse Hilary rode to a first place finish at this year's American Paint Horse Association World Championship Paint Horse Show.  Casino is wearing his first-place ribbon.