Griffin Quarter Horses is a family owned and operated business located in southern Alberta and southern Oklahoma.
Lance Griffin along with his wife Terry and daughter Samantha have been involved with horses for many years. In the beginning you could find the Griffin’s travelling down the road from team penning to team penning with their four-horse trailer in tow.
In 1995, that all changed as Samantha began taking reining lessons – their world was never the same. Lance and Samantha headed to their first reining horse show, which was the first ever Cardston Derby, in Cardston, Alberta.
After a year of trying to rein on team penning horses Lance travelled down to Oklahoma and found his first good reining horse Dun It You Won It. This dun stallion opened many doors for the Griffins and was the first step in creating what is now Griffin Quarter Horses.
Many things have grown and changed since then, but one thing has remained constant. Lance, Terry and Samantha have always kept one goal in mind: to breed, raise and show the best horses possible. With this logic, Lance has been actively searching (and still does) for the right mare to add to his breeding program.
Over the years, Griffin Quarter Horses has been able to have such mares as Genuine Starbright, who, with the help of Duane Latimer, was the first Open Futurity horse Lance had entered in the NRHA Futurity. She was also a finalist in both the Open and Limited Open divisions.
This mare has gone on to produce horses with NRHA earnings in excess of $125,000, including A Bright Chic, the 2004 NRHA Non-Pro Futurity Champion. Another mare that has stood out since the day that she came to the Griffin ranch is a little bay mare named This Chex On Top, affectionately known as Donna.
Acquired as a weanling, this filly quickly stole everyone’s heart. Unfortunately, she suffered injuries as a three-year-old that kept her home from the futurity that year.
She went on to become an AQHA Amateur Reining World Champion with Samantha aboard and an AQHA Senior Reining World Champion with Duane Latimer. This mare has several NRHA Lawson and Morrison bronzes to her credit. Donna has now produced the 2006 NRHA Intermediate Open Futurity Champion, This Chics On Top.
Lance and family have 14 broodmares and with the evolution of embryo transfer the ranch is home to about 20 foals each year.
In 2003, the Griffin’s purchased a sorrel stallion from Bob Loomis named Whiz N Tag Chex. Sired by the four-million-dollar sire Topsail Whiz and out of the great Tag Chex (by King Fritz), “Tag” became the Griffin’s third NRHA Open Futurity Finalist. He went onto win two NRBC Non-Pro Championships and has multiple NRHA Lawsons and Morrisons under his belt.
He has NRHA earnings in excess of $115,000 and most recently was able to represent Canada at the 2006 World Equestrian Games in Aachen, Germany. Bringing home the silver medal in the team competition was an unprecedented event for Griffin Quarter Horses and Tag as it has brought the ranch to an international level.
Born in 2004, the oldest of Tag’s offspring will be headed to the futurities around North America in 2007.
In 2001, Samantha Griffin graduated from the Equine Science Production and Breeding Management Program at Olds College in Olds, Alberta. She now stands Whiz N Tag Chex both in Ardmore, Oklahoma, and in DeWinton, Alberta.
Managing mares, standing stallions, foaling mares, and hauling mares to be bred to outside stallions leaves little time in the spring months to ride her non-pro horses. That’s where their head trainer comes in.
In the fall of 2004, Cody Sapergia and his wife Lorie and son Shay moved to the Griffin Quarter Horse Ranch in Ardmore, Oklahoma. Sapergia has been a great addition to the GQH family and has helped the Griffin’s be the Current NRHA Top Money Earning Owner of all time.
In 2005, Sapergia was in the NRHA Top 20 Professionals, and has made the Open Finals in all major events. Sapergia, along with his open horses, rides and trains at least one or two horses a year for Lance as well as two or three for Samantha. With 20 to 30 horses in the training barn, Cody stays very busy, but enjoys when people come to the ranch.
With full breeding and training operations, Griffin Quarter Horses provides the ultimate in horse-shopping experiences including selecting a stallion to breed to your mare, buying and selling young horses, futurity prospects, and finished reiners ready to go to the open or non-pro divisions.
Located in Alberta just south of Calgary and in Oklahoma 20 miles north of the Texas state line off of Interstate 35, either location is directly in the heart of the reining world, both in Canada and the southern United States.
For more information, please visit www.griffinquarterhorses. com, call them at (580) 768-9797, or email griffinquarterhorses@ hotmail.com.
