Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee nev­er made a bad impres­sion with her own­ers, train­ers or admir­ers. Her great-mind­ed dis­po­si­tion and uncom­mon tal­ent will for­ev­er be her legacy.

Dynam­ic Dam: Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee
Those who know rein­er and reined cow horse Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee or her off­spring sing their prais­es. Great minds and excep­tion­al tal­ent define the family.

AQHA Pro­fes­sion­al Horse­man Todd Craw­ford of Blan­chard, Okla­homa, describes the now-26-year-old Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee with one word – excep­tion­al.
“She was just an excep­tion­al mare,” Todd says of the daugh­ter of Doc’s Hick­o­ry who was out of Miss Cee Nita by Peponi­ta, who went on to pro­duce Kel­by Phillips’s 2018 NRCHA World’s Great­est Horse­man mount, Hick­o­ry Hol­ly Time. “She did all three cow horse events very good. She was excep­tion­al­ly qui­et, but also excep­tion­al­ly quick and cowy, which is a hard com­bi­na­tion to get. I wish I could find about 10 more like her.
“Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee was very stout, a very strong mare, espe­cial­ly for a ‘Hick­o­ry,’ ” he adds. “A lot of them had a lit­tle slighter build, but she had a whole lot of hip and hind leg. She also had a very strong barrel/belly that helped her be such a strong stop­per.”
Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee’s pure dis­po­si­tion and ath­let­ic prowess gar­nered her life­time earn­ings of $161,422 between 1997 and 2001. The now-retired brood­mare has pro­duced 16 mon­ey-earn­ers from 24 foals, with aver­age earn­ings of $30,629.
A Cal-Bred From Texas
Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee’s breed­er, Ken Hill, was a good friend of the late leg­end Mat­lock Rose. The two friends often took turns “work­ing hors­es just for fun” between Ken’s Hacien­da Col­i­ma in Plac­erville, Cal­i­for­nia, and the Rose Ranch in Gainesville, Texas.
“Mat­lock told me I need­ed to buy this Peponi­ta mare (Miss Cee Nita),” Ken recalls. “He bred (Miss Cee Nita) and said she had a good baby on the ground and was in foal to Doc’s Hick­o­ry.”
Enter Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee. At the time, Ken had two train­ers work­ing at his ranch, Chris Bates and Jason Clark, who start­ed the bay fil­ly. Her qui­et dis­po­si­tion was front and cen­ter from the begin­ning.
“I start­ed her,” Chris laughs, “I wish I could steal all the thun­der, but I can’t.
“It was Jason Clark who real­ly rode her. From Day 1, she was just a nat­ur­al horse, a very good horse. She was easy, like a lot of those great hors­es are.”
Train­er Sandy Col­lier came to look at the green 2‑year-old Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee. But Ken, now retired and out of the horse busi­ness, raised many good hors­es and she ulti­mate­ly decid­ed on a colt. Todd did not hem nor haw when he sat on the fil­ly short­ly after.
“Todd rode the fil­ly around in a cir­cle twice and said, ‘I’ll take her,’ ” Ken remem­bers. “He knew she was a good one and just took her; it only took him five min­utes to make his deci­sion. The rest is his­to­ry. You know what she did.”
Don’t Fall Down
Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee did not dis­ap­point her new own­ers, Mary and Greg Whalen, who now reside in Scotts­dale, Ari­zona, nor Todd, who showed the mare her entire career.
Well, maybe once – by no fault of her own – the mare and Todd did expe­ri­ence the agony of defeat. After plac­ing third in her first show, the San­ta Ynez Reined Cow Horse Futu­ri­ty, earn­ing $8,400, she head­ed toward a larg­er prize: the 1997 Nation­al Reined Cow Horse Futu­ri­ty at Sel­l­and Are­na in Fres­no, Cal­i­for­nia.
Todd and Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee topped the pre­lim­i­nary rounds head­ing into the finals. Their fence run was excep­tion­al to the last frac­tion of a sec­ond and the cham­pi­onship only a heart­beat away. When the judges’ whis­tle blew, Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee had fall­en – not hard, just a slow-motion slip. She ulti­mate­ly fin­ished in a hum­bling 23rd place.
The game bay had only begun her win­ning career on a down note; she was soon to prove her­self a ver­sa­tile show horse machine. Todd broke her out again at the Nation­al Rein­ing Horse Asso­ci­a­tion Futu­ri­ty, just weeks after her untime­ly fall, fin­ish­ing in a tie for 7/9 and adding $22,776 to her earn­ings.
In 1998, Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee was the AQHA junior work­ing cow horse world cham­pi­on and junior rein­ing reserve world cham­pi­on. She picked up a num­ber of der­by wins in both rein­ing and reined cow horse, adding to her life­time earn­ings.
In June 1999, Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee was sold to Arcese Enter­prise of Weath­er­ford, Texas, and Todd con­tin­ued train­ing her.
“She won every­thing for us,” Mary says of the deci­sion to sell. “Arcese was here from Italy look­ing for hors­es and asked Todd if we’d sell her; Greg made the deci­sion to sell. She real­ly was a great indi­vid­ual. When we had her home, Ryan, our grand­son, rode her and she was real­ly good-natured.”
One of Todd’s favorite vic­to­ries on Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee came in 1999 when the pair gar­nered the cham­pi­onship purse of $50,000 at the Riv­er Front NRCHA Der­by in Med­ford, Ore­gon. They also split 5/7 in the NRHA Der­by for an addi­tion­al $7,991.
How­ev­er, Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee and Todd were far from done fill­ing their satchels. Anoth­er of the trainer’s stand­out wins came in the 2000 Unit­ed States Eques­tri­an Team rein­ing finals, earn­ing $26,889. That same year, they won the Hol­ly­wood Char­i­ty Rein­ing USET Clas­sic.
In her final year of show­ing (2001 as a 7‑year-old), Todd and Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee won the AQHA senior rein­ing world cham­pi­onship and placed third in AQHA senior work­ing cow horse. They also won open bri­dle titles at the NRCHA Hack­amore Clas­sic.
Also in 2001, Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee was Todd’s mount in the NRCHA World’s Great­est Horse­man con­test. The mul­ti­tal­ent­ed mare placed in pre­lim­i­nary herd, rein­ing and steer stop­ping go-rounds before fin­ish­ing fifth overall.

Mama Mia
The Whalens enjoyed Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee’s suc­cess­es and even bred their cham­pi­on to Lean With Me dur­ing her show­ing years in 1999, via embryo trans­fer, which pro­duced a 2000 bay stal­lion that was sold at the NRHA Futu­ri­ty Sale. While Cee Me Lean was not a mon­ey-earn­er, Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee has still proved to be quite the pro­duc­er.
Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee resides com­fort­ably at Jeff Oswood’s Stal­lion Sta­tion in Weath­er­ford, Texas, where Jeff man­ages Arcese’s equines. At 25, she enjoys a full retire­ment. Her final foal, Gun­na See Red, is a 2015 chest­nut stal­lion by Gun­na­trashya.
“We have not bred her for two years,” Jeff says. “We tried to do a bunch of stuff, but she just isn’t devel­op­ing any viable fol­li­cles any­more. She is very healthy, very sound, very fat and very hap­py. She is a babysit­ter for the babies.”
The only rela­tion to Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee now resid­ing at Oswood’s is her 2009 Shin­ing Spark daugh­ter, ARC Cee N Sparks. The buck­skin mare, bred and still owned by Arcese, col­lect­ed reined cow horse earn­ings of $19,870.

Like Moth­er, Like Son
Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee’s top mon­ey-earn­ing off­spring have been out­stand­ing show hors­es, very much rem­i­nis­cent of their dam. Her mel­low soul and ath­let­ic apti­tude has already car­ried through sev­er­al gen­er­a­tions.
Hick­o­ry Hol­ly Time is the high­est-earn­ing off­spring of Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee. The 2010 red roan stallion,by One Time Pep­to (Pep­to­boon­s­mal-One Time Soon by Smart Lit­tle Lena) has earn­ings of $231,025. Bred by Arcese Quar­ter Hors­es USA, the 9‑year-old has had four own­ers of record.
Jef­frey and Sheri Matthews’ Matthews Cut­ting Hors­es LLC, own­er of One Time Pep­to with ranch bases in North Car­oli­na and Weath­er­ford, Texas, assumed own­er­ship the day fol­low­ing Hick­o­ry Hol­ly Time’s birth. As an August year­ling in 2011, the colt dubbed “Oliv­er” was trans­ferred to pop­u­lar train­er Hay­den Upton, who spe­cial­izes in start­ing cut­ting horse colts in Weath­er­ford.
“I put togeth­er a deal for Jef­frey Matthews to sell One Time Roy­al­ty (2007 stal­lion by One Time Pep­to-Roy­al Ser­e­na Belle by Shorty Lena, NCHA LTE $442,674) to a lady in Aus­tralia,” Hay­den recalls of his acqui­si­tion. “It was a real­ly nice ges­ture from Jef­frey and Shari as part of a com­mis­sion and a thank you.”
Like his moth­er, Hick­o­ry Hol­ly Time was super-easy and ath­let­ic. He was, how­ev­er, not quite like most of the cut­ting hors­es Hay­den was used to start­ing, and he decid­ed to sell his big colt. The horse nev­er did any­thing wrong, the Aus­tralian explains, but he didn’t feel like Hick­o­ry Hol­ly Time was going to make a big time 2‑year-old, not one that would mature ear­ly enough to wow the NCHA sales crowd.
“When I got him, he had a big head and was like a gan­g­ly pup,” Hay­den says. “As far as a cut­ting horse prospect, he worked the flag and a cow well, but was always a lit­tle in slow-motion. He loped real­ly well and always showed that he was going to be a big stop­per. I could sure tell that he was going to do the reined work very well.”
“There is still not a brace in his body,” Hay­den says. “As a 2‑year-old, it gave him that big Gum­by noo­dle feel. What made him feel less effi­cient as a young horse, made him spe­cial as he matured.”
Fig­ur­ing the colt would make a cow horse down the road, Hay­den sent a video of Hick­o­ry Hol­ly Time to train­er Kel­by Phillips, who was then work­ing for Garth and Aman­da Gar­diner in Ash­land, Kansas. Kel­by liked what he saw, espe­cial­ly that big stop.
“I didn’t even go try him,” Kel­by acknowl­edges. “Every time Hay­den picked up on him, he drug his butt. He looked like he could move his front end plen­ty good, was cowy and loped pret­ty. Stop­ping was his biggest thing.”
The Gar­diners, who raise Black Angus cat­tle and Quar­ter Hors­es on their ranch, breed hors­es for mar­ket as well as show­ing. After buy­ing Hick­o­ry Hol­ly Time in July of his 2‑year-old year, the ranch­ers enjoyed watch­ing their big roan and Kel­by in the show pen.
Oliv­er wast­ed no time in estab­lish­ing his rep­u­ta­tion as a cham­pi­on. At 3, the colt col­lect­ed checks at the South­west Reined Cow Horse Asso­ci­a­tion Fall Futu­ri­ty, win­ning the open, lim­it­ed open and inter­me­di­ate open cham­pi­onships – a tri­fec­ta.
Dur­ing the 2013 NRCHA Snaf­fle Bit Futu­ri­ty, Hick­o­ry Hol­ly Time and Kel­by won the inter­me­di­ate open cham­pi­onship, the lim­it­ed open reserve cham­pi­onship and fin­ished 10th in the open futu­ri­ty. When includ­ing pre­lim­i­nary round income, they pock­et­ed a total of $52,629.
The fol­low­ing year, Kel­by rode the then-4-year-old Oliv­er to numer­ous finals appear­ances and pre­lim­i­nary monies. Their major event win was the NRCHA Der­by open cham­pi­onship.
In 2015, Hick­o­ry Hol­ly Time was the NRCHA open hack­amore world cham­pi­on, NRCHA Stal­lion Stakes open reserve cham­pi­on and fin­ished fourth in junior work­ing cow horse at the AQHA World Cham­pi­onship Show.
Kel­by depart­ed Gar­diner Ranch ami­ca­bly in 2015 and went to work at Dean and Leslie Tuftin’s DT Hors­es, locat­ed in Ore­gon at the time. (DT Hors­es has since relo­cat­ed to Scotts­dale, Ari­zona.) For­tu­nate­ly, Hick­o­ry Hol­ly Time remained in Kelby’s care. Dean kept watch­ing the big, strong horse train­ing at his ranch and the more he saw, the more he hoped to own the Gar­diners’ stal­lion.
“He stuck out like a sore thumb,” Dean laughs while explain­ing his infat­u­a­tion with Hick­o­ry Hol­ly Time. “He is such a spe­cial horse, we didn’t pur­sue buy­ing him at first because we didn’t think Gar­diners would sell such a once-in-a-life­time-type stud. Then Garth offered me some colts he was sell­ing and I jok­ing­ly told him I wasn’t inter­est­ed, but I’d sure buy the stud. We got him bought, and the rest is a fast blur.”
Garth and Aman­da thought hard before sell­ing Hick­o­ry Hol­ly Time. He was pret­ty spe­cial to them, too. But in the end, they were breed­ing hors­es as a busi­ness. Watch­ing the stallion’s con­tin­ued suc­cess was sim­i­lar to being proud of your kids doing well, Garth says.
“Dean kept com­ing back, offer­ing me more mon­ey until I couldn’t turn it down,” Garth adds with a laugh. “It was a bit­ter­sweet moment; it made eco­nom­ic sense to go ahead and sell him to Dean and Leslie. The tim­ing was per­fect and the peo­ple were per­fect.
“It was tough because we loved that horse and, obvi­ous­ly, we love Kel­by,” he says. “The fact that Kel­by worked for Dean made it eas­i­er. When he won the (2018 NRCHA) World’s Great­est Horse­man, I was over­whelmed with a lot of dif­fer­ent emo­tions. Even though we didn’t own him, we still felt a part of that win.”
The Gar­diners had bred Hick­o­ry Hol­ly Time to a very small group of mares in 2014 and 2015. Fol­low­ing his World’s Great­est Horseman’s win, Dean sent him to stand at Jeff Oswood’s Stal­lion Sta­tion in Weath­er­ford. To date, the stal­lion has 165 AQHA foals, includ­ing one impres­sive mon­ey earn­er from that very small first crop of per­for­mance-age off­spring.
Jule Of A Time, the first foal by Hick­o­ry Hol­ly Time to present in a show ring, made an impres­sive debut. The 2015 red roan fil­ly was bred by the Gar­diners and is out of their won­der­ful pro­duc­er, Soula Jule For­ev­er by Soula Jule Star.
Shown by Ken Wold for own­er Daniel Perez, Jule Of A Time won the Reno Snaf­fle Bit Reined Cow Horse Futu­ri­ty inter­me­di­ate open and placed fourth in that event’s open divi­sion. Her total earn­ings added up to $26,000. Not bad for a stallion’s first per­former.
Ken says Daniel pur­chased Jule Of A Time from the Gar­diners as a year­ling and that she was nice from Day 1. The own­er plans to cam­paign her through the aged events and even­tu­al­ly have a nice brood­mare.
Per­form­ers and Pro­duc­ers
While Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee has brag­ging rights to Hick­o­ry Hol­ly Time, she also pro­duced ARC Cat­man­do, her sec­ond high­est earn­er. The 2006 geld­ed son of High Brow Cat has life­time earn­ings of $103,770 – all col­lect­ed in the cut­ting pen.
ARC Cat­man­do earned his nick­name of “Deets” with his “always will­ing” per­son­al­i­ty sim­i­lar to the Lone­some Dove char­ac­ter of the same moniker. Deets was bred by Arcese Quar­ter Hors­es USA and was pur­chased by Phil and Mary Ann Rapp of Weath­er­ford, Texas, in August of his 3‑year-old year.
In addi­tion to being a con­sis­tent final­ist in both open and non-pro cut­tings, Mary Ann and ARC Cat­man­do were the 2009 Bra­zos Bash Futu­ri­ty non-pro cham­pi­ons and reserve cham­pi­ons in the Pacif­ic Coast Cut­ting Horse Asso­ci­a­tion Non-Pro Geld­ing Stakes. In 2010, the pair was the NCHA Super Stakes non-pro co-cham­pi­ons.
Ora and Frank Diehl of Ruskin, Flori­da, took over 11 months lat­er, before sell­ing him to his cur­rent own­er, Bar­ney McCain Smith, at the end of 2012.
ARC Cat­man­do was Barney’s first cut­ting horse, a sport he became infat­u­at­ed with when just out of high school.
“I hauled him to win the NCHA $50,000 ama­teur world cham­pi­onship (in 2015),” says Bar­ney of Whitt, Texas. “I won $50,000 to $60,000 on him in just a year or two. He’s been turned out the past year and a half, but I’m about to get him back out and give him a job. I buy, sell and trade hors­es, but Deets is not for sale. He is that one horse.”
Jo Anne Car­ol­lo of Atas­cadero, Cal­i­for­nia, received numer­ous NRCHA and NCHA acco­lades as a non-pro before recent­ly turn­ing pro­fes­sion­al. When Jo Anne sold home­bred Hick Chi­ca­roo (Doc’s Hick­o­ry-Roost­ers Chi­ca­roo by Gal­lo Del Cielo) in 2005, she found her­self afoot, need­ing a cow horse futu­ri­ty mount. She bought ARC Hollys Chi­cadee by Chic Please from Arcese, then trained and showed her to be the third high­est earn­er out of Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee ($65,263).
“I couldn’t stand to miss the futu­ri­ty,” Jo Anne admitts with a laugh. “With (ARC Hollys Chicadee’s) mom and dad being two of my favorite hors­es at the time, I struck a deal for her. She was a very sweet mare.”
And like her fam­i­ly tree, ARC Hollys Chi­cadee was also very tal­ent­ed in the show pen. Jo Anne and her bay mare won the herd work pre­lim­i­nar­ies and fin­ished sixth in the 2005 NRCHA Non-Pro Futu­ri­ty ($9,600). The mare was spec­tac­u­lar and near­ly unde­feat­ed as a 4‑year-old, with major wins that include the  NRCHA Non-Pro Der­by and Stal­lion Stakes, Cir­cle Y Ranch Non-Pro Der­by, as well as the NRCHA Hack­amore Clas­sic Non-Pro.
The next year, dur­ing the NRCHA Hack­amore Clas­sic, Jo Anne and ARC Hollys Chi­cadee had a hor­rif­ic wreck going down the fence.
“That was in the 2007 Hack­amore Clas­sic,” Jo Anne recalls. “I had a con­cus­sion, screws and a plate in my ankle, dou­ble vision and a patch on my eye.
“I was bat­tling all the side effects from my wreck and couldn’t ride, so Todd Craw­ford showed my mare at the (NRCHA) Der­by,” Jo Anne adds. “Todd had nev­er been on her, just catch-rode her, made the finals and fin­ished eighth.”
While Jo Anne was recu­per­at­ing, ARC Hollys Chick­adee was bred to One Time Pep­to, which pro­duced the 2008 mare One Times Chic. Jo Anne made the 2011 NCHA Futu­ri­ty $50,000 ama­teur finals on her and placed fourth in the PCCHA Winter/Spring Der­by $200,000 Non-Pro.
All in all, Hick­o­rys Hol­ly Cee did every­thing right – as a show horse and a pro­duc­er. Train­ers, own­ers and breed­ers can agree they wish there were more hors­es like her.
“As a breed­er, you spend a lot of nick­els to earn a nick­el,” says Garth. “So it is always good when you have a good one that is suc­cess­ful not only in the show pen, but also goes on and pro­duces the great ones out there.”