Out of pedigrees gathered on 40 of the winning ranch sorting horses at the 2025 Cinch RSNC World Finals, a few sires were found to be a common thread across several champion horses. A look at the mares, however, wasn’t quite as telling.
Instead, it took looking back to the granddams to see where the patterns emerged, and they did so in the 1991 mare Shes Pretty Smooth.
Her World Champions
In 2025, a total of five ranch sorting horses out of Shes Pretty Smooth claimed World Champion titles at the Cinch RSNC World Finals. Four are second-generation get, and one is the great-grand-foal of the mare.
GRAND-GET
Ashados Hot (2014 Mare)
Owned and ridden by Scott Knight in the #18 HC 3-Man, 2-Gate
Callie Cats Meow (2008 Mare)
Ridden by Sierra Woods in the Hyer #11 Rookie
Hessmoothandstylish (2012 Gelding)
Owned by Ramón Novoa and ridden by Alejandro Serpone in the Cinch #13 Gold Shootout
Hot Baloo (2020 Mare)
Owned and ridden by Joel Lesh in the Open
GREAT-GRANDS
Hotnsmooth As Stella (2014 Gelding)
Ridden by Abigail Knight in the #8 Youth
About Shes Pretty Smooth
Shes Pretty Smooth (1991–2016) is a sorrel mare with $75,526 in lifetime earnings by Wheeling Peppy, a 1980 own son of NCHA Hall of Famer Peppy San Badger, and out of Smooth Hickory. As a 3-year-old, Shes Pretty Smooth was the NCHA Non-Pro Futurity Champion and, just a year later, was piloted to the Augusta 4-year-old Non-Pro Futurity championship title by Tommy Manion, who purchased the mare—bred by Augusta, Georgia’s William S Morris III—in 1994.
Shes Pretty Smooth’s Foals
In her own breeding career, Shes Pretty Smooth produced at least 17 money-earners that won more than $1.26 million.
Smooth As A Cat
Out of Shes Pretty Smooth’s foals, Smooth As A Cat (1999–2024) takes the cake with $500,000 in lifetime earnings. By AQHA Hall of Fame sire High Brow Cat, the colt was bred by Aubrey, Texas’s Manion Ranch and is an NRCHA $2M Sire as well as an NCHA Horse of the Year and Hall of Famer. Of the ranch sorting world champions descended from Shes Pretty Smooth, Smooth As A Cat sired two—Hyer #11 Rookie champion Callie Cats Meow (out of Anniversary Acre) and Cinch #13 Gold Shootout champion Hessmoothandstylish (out of Stylish Roseanna). The stallion is also the maternal grandsire of #8 Youth world champion Hotnsmooth As Stella (Hottish x Smooth Stella, out of Stella Starlight).
Ashado
Not to be confused with the 2001 Hall of Fame Thoroughbred, this Ashado (b. 2005) is another product of the Manion Ranch, this time by $42.3 million sire Smart Little Lena. Purchased by Morris in 2020 and in service at Creek Plantation, Ashado was bred to NR-CHA Million Dollar Sire Hottish to produce the 2025 Cinch RSNC world champion Ashados Hot.
Hotstuff An Then Sum
Sired by $28 million stallion Peptoboonsmal, Hotstuff An Then Sum (b. 2008) was yet another Manion Ranch baby who was most recently acquired by cutting’s 2010 Zane Shulte Award recipient JB McLamb in January 2025. In between, the mare has earned $12,475 in LTE and is the dam of a handful of money-earning foals, including Joel Lesh’s Hot Baloo (Lil Catbaloo), aboard whom he won the 2025 Cinch RSNC Open ranch sorting world championship.
This article appears in the Fall 2025 issue of The Ranch Sorter.
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