OTTB Profile - Amber Callan and Sneak One In

The plain bay mare is often hidden in the crowd at tournaments but Alberta bred Thoroughbred Sneak One In certainly makes heads turn when she starts jumping. Owner and rider, Amber Callan, has proven the ability of her understated jumper over the past few years as they have steadily established themselves on the Alberta show jumping circuit. A growing show record at competitions around Alberta includes prestigious venues such as Spruce Meadows and Rocky Mountain Show Jumping where Amber and Sneak “keep up with the Warmbloods in the 1.20 jumpers.” This remarkable partnership has also won many Jockey Club Thoroughbred Incentive Program (T.I.P.) awards and competed in eventing competitions up to Training level, placing in the top 5!

Amber purchased Sneak in 2012 off Kijiji as a young prospect recently retired from the track where “to my knowledge, she was too slow to race so was being used as a practice horse for new jockeys and exercise riders.” Amber was in the market at the time, preferably for a warmblood, but “something in my mind told me to go look at Sneak so I hooked my dinky two horse trailer three hours to go check her out and took her home that day.”

Thoroughbreds often require a period of time to unwind before they move on to training for a new career but Amber found Sneak relatively easy to develop as she had never actually raced. Once proper ground manners were established, the mare was actually a quiet horse under saddle and had that ‘whatever’ attitude. Amber notes that ‘it wasn’t until I introduced her to jumping that her spark came out and she showed me her true potential as a show jumper.” The athletic ability of Sneak has allowed Amber to participate in higher levels of competition and “shown me a whole new level of horsemanship I would not have gotten without her.” As well as the regular A circuit jumper shows in Alberta, Amber and Sneak actively participate in the Jockey Club T.I.P. program. They won the T.I.P. high point Thoroughbred award and T.I.P. high point jumper at Killerney Farms in 2015 and last season, Amber and Sneak won a 1.10 Metre class at the Spruce Meadows February Classic III out of 39 horse and riders. Amber is very proud of her horse, adding that “I have about ten high point T.I.P. ribbons on my wall and about five reserve champion T.I.P. ribbons.”

Amber believes that the best trait of a Thoroughbred is their willingness to work, “they love their job and you can tell when you are riding them. You get that sort of magical feeling when their ears prick forward or swing back briefly to listen to what you’re asking and then they continue on. It takes a special kind of person to handle them – someone who is sensitive and knows how they work. They definitely don’t like people who man handle them into things!” Sneak has a very sensitive personality and can be hot and forward but remains easy to control. She's fast on the ground and very scopey over fences but, at home, Sneak can be pulled out of the field and allows small children to ride her. Due to time constraints this year, Amber is thinking of breeding her for a 2018 baby.

Amber has been riding and showing for about fifteen years and showing on the A circuit for about five years. She started at a facility just outside her hometown of Rocky Mountain House and sold her first 4-H calf to fund her first year of lessons. Eventually, she was able to ride OTTBs for her instructor to develop as lesson horses for the school horse program. Sneak is the first Thoroughbred Amber has actually owned herself and comments that” she is my best mare, I love her so, so much!” She doesn’t plan on ever selling Sneak as “I’m so thankful for a horse who loves her job. Sneak is truly a one of a kind horse for me and I never look at her without thinking how special I am to have had the opportunity to buy her.”

Sneak One In comes from strong bloodlines as her sire, Alberta based stallion Smile Again, is a graded stakes winner by Breeders Cup Classic winner Wild Again. Bred by Fares Farm, Smile Again was sold as a yearling to the Thoroughbred Corp. of Prince Ahmed Salman for $385,000 at the 1996 Keeneland Sale of Selected Yearlings. He was later purchased by Sid and Jenny Craig just prior to the 1999 Pacific Classic Grade 1 race and according to a 2009 Canadian Thoroughbred article, “Jenny Craig, the weight loss queen, paid $1.2 Million for him.” The grand dam of Sneak One In (and dam of Smile Again) is a Kentucky bred multiple grades stakes winner named Storm and Sunshine who earned over $385,000 in three seasons running. Storm and Sunshine was sold twice at Keeneland auction, each time for over $300,000.

Longtime Alberta Thoroughbred owner and breeder, Con Stavropoulos, purchased the stallion at the Barrets Winter Mixed Sale in California and has been standing Smile Again at his Kaltazia Farms just west of Edmonton where he entered stud in 2004. He has proven to be a successful Thoroughbred sire over the years in Alberta siring such successful runners as stakes winners Smile Again Theta ($182,097) and Smile N’Wave ($155,376).

Amber Callan can be assured that her jumper was carefully bred by the man who told writer Frank Fontana in his 2009 Canadian Thoroughbred profile that “I look for a nice looking, well- built individual, paying attention to breeding. I must have hundreds of books on the breeding of thoroughbred horses. Horses from a visual point, well that is a different thing altogether. Countless times, I have seen a horse purchased for say $10,000 go out and beat a million dollar horse.” The same is likely true for the jumper world where, as Amber proves, the Thoroughbred can shine among the more fashionable warmbloods.