Laura Logan’s family’s eight decades of involvement with the Missouri State Fair Society Horse Show was recognized with a special presentation at the Mathewson Center.
Logan, born in Sedalia in 1956, but now living in Lee’s Summit, received the Missouri State Fair Society Horse Show Family of the Year Award along with approximately 15-to-20 family members Friday evening.
Logan was notified in March that the family would receive the honor. It was unexpected.
“I was absolutely thrilled,” she said.
“The Missouri State Fair Society Horse Show every year selects a noteworthy Missouri horse person to honor and to dedicate the horse show to,” Show Manager David “Toughie” Ownes said Thursday morning. “Some of them have been the biggest names in the horse business over the years. For the Logan and Krahenbuhl families there is no more deserving family in all of Missouri.
“It may be overdue,” he added. “They have been such a big influence in Missouri for so many years. To have Laura’s name out there on Friday night and to have them be a part of the big celebration party is going to be a really neat thing.”
Ownes said all the family members are involved in the show in one aspect or another.
“Tom (Krahenbuhl) is the barn manager, Shannon (Krahenbuhl) is the ringmaster, Laura is showing,” he noted. “For me the Society Horse Show is all about family first, and it’s such a neat thing to be able to share. Because you can have an 80-year-old lady driving a pony and then her daughter is showing a horse, and then the kids are showing … it can be for all ages.”
“My first memories of her was driving those adorable roadster/hackney ponies,” Marcia Turner, show office manager, said Thursday morning. “With just a big smile on her face always and the crowd just going wild …
“One of my fondest memories of her, is the year that she showed for the first time here.” Turner added. “Her five-gated, saddle-bred won everything. She was magnificence and he was magnificent. When Laura won, when she rode that five-gaited, it was a great thrill for me to get to present her the trophy in the qualifying class and the trophy for the championship.”
Turner said the family has always been “big supporters” and “wonderful patrons” of the MSF Society Horse Show.
“This one is fearless, let me tell you, fearless,” Turner said of Logan. “She is always a huge addition to the horse show ring.”
Logan was showing her five-gaited horse, I Second the Motion also known as Perry, again this year. She said as far back as the 1930s her mother, Dorothy Logan, attended the show with Logan’s great-grandmother Kate Bashore.
“My mother and father were both born and raised in Sedalia,” Logan said.
Eventually the family moved to Lee’s Summit, but Logan spent many summers in Sedalia with her grandparents. Logan’s mother, now 82, has cancer, but still planned to attend the award ceremony Friday night.
“My great-grandmother is the one who got us all into horses,” Logan said. “Her husband (Frank) was a trainer. So we never missed a show. I was talking to my mom and we figured out that she started attending the horse shows in the late 1930s at the old Coliseum.”
Over the years Logan’s sisters, Shannon Krahenbuhl and Kyla Stoltz and their families have all become involved with the show. Krahenbuhl’s daughter Katherine, 30, sang the National Anthem Thursday night at the show. She also showed horses along with her brother Patrick, a trainer who owns Fired Up Ranch in Raymore.
“We are honored, absolutely, we’ve been coming since we were born practically,” Shannon Krahenbuhl said of the honor. “It’s part of who we are. I think I’ve missed one year in 54 years and that’s when I went to pick up my daughter at basic training. Sedalia’s kind of a second home for us.”
Stoltz’s daughter McKenna, 13, is also involved showing horses making her MSF debut this year with her Arabian horse Zorro.
Logan began showing in 1974 at age 18. She also shows hackney ponies. She said her pony Locomotion, either won the amateur or open roadster pony championship every year from 1989 to 2001.
“We just lost him this spring,” she noted. “He was 36, we had birthday parties for him.”
Since losing Locomotion, Logan only has one horse, Perry.
“He’s my dream horse,” she noted. “I had some gaiter horses when I was showing in the 70s and I always wanted a top notch five-gaiter amateur horse.”
Logan said her trainer encouraged her to buy Perry. This year she showed Perry on Wednesday in the amateur five-gaiter class and on Saturday her trainer showed him in the five-gaiter grand championship.
Logan was proud to introduce Perry on a tour of the MSF horse barns Thursday where one of her trainers Greg Haston, with Touchstone Farm in Lee’s Summit, was giving the horse a treat of peppermints.
Haston said Perry measures 17 hands and is a good horse.
“He’s a sweet boy,” Michael Graham, also Perry’s trainer said. “He gets nervous sometimes, but if you treat him like he’s a baby, you get a lot from him.”
“He’s very powerful, he’s got a big powerful engine,” Logan added. ” … He wants to please.”
Another horse being shown by the family was 18-year-old Rose who survived a barn fire and due to a genetic disorder has a permanent tracheotomy. Rose belongs to Logan’s mother, and Shannon and Katherine Krahenbuhl.
“She has won two world championships and was reserve last year,” Logan said.
“She still jumps,” Katherine Krahenbuhl added. “This is her saying, ‘Heart of a champion, miracle of God.’”
Both Rose and Jama Party, owned by Katherine’s brother Patrick, like to show off. Jama often nodding her head up and down as if to say yes. The family takes the horses to libraries and other places to educate others about the equine world.
“My mom is very big on education for the public,” Katherine said. “It’s educating the public.”
The family agreed that owning and showing horses is much more than winning championships and awards, its about the animal itself and what it brings into the relationship.
“All of our horses are pets first,” Katherine said. “We do it for fun and family, but the horses are first.”
