MANION RANCH, EST. 1979
Manion Ranch was established in 1979 & for over 40 years has stood many of the leading cutting & reined cow horse sires including the legendary SMART LITTLE LENA, his son, SMART LIL RICOCHET, bred & raised his son, IM COUNTIN CHECKS, & is currently standing $34.9 Million Dollar Hall of Fame Sire, SMOOTH AS A CAT.
& SMOOTH AS A CAT
The Tommy Manion Ranch is located in “Horse Country USA”– Aubrey, Texas. You can’t drive up Highway 377 without noticing the beautiful Spanish-style home and the famous stallion names listed at their front gate.
The Manion family’s vision of becoming a world-class breeding operation came to light & dreams came true as they narrowed their focus to breeding the best and most prominent cutting horse stallions in the industry.
For over 40 years, Manion Ranch has stood many of the leading cutting sires including the legendary SMART LITTLE LENA who spent his life at the Tommy Manion Ranch standing at stud from the age of 5 to the time of his death at age 31. In his show career, he earned $743,000.00, and he is only 1 of 3 horses to win the Triple Crown of Cutting. To date, his offspring have earned more than $43 million, he is the No. 2 All-Time Leading Sire, & joined the ranks of the NCHA & NRCHA Hall of Fame.
Another stallion close to The Manion’s heart, one they bred and raised, is IM COUNTIN CHECKS by The Manion’s stallion & son of SMART LITTLE LENA, SMART LIL RICOCHET, & out of Autumn Boon, by Dual Pep. Known as the sire with the perfect outcross pedigree, “Checkers” has been ranked in the top 15 for Leading NCHA Sires for the past 6 consecutive years. IM COUNTIN CHECKS amassed lifetime earnings of $514,757 and his offspring have earned over $7.3 million and include the 2017 NCHA Open World Champion and the 2019 NCHA Non Pro Horse of the Year.
Following the success, The Manions had experienced by now was no small feat, but then along came SMOOTH AS A CAT, whose offspring earnings to date top $34.9 million. SMOOTH AS A CAT is the only NCHA Horse of the Year to sire not only one but two NCHA Open Horses of the Year. Only 3 Stallions have sired an NCHA Horse of the Year and sired an NCHA World Champion Open or Non-Pro Horse. They are SMART LITTLE LENA, HIGH BROW CAT, and SMOOTH AS A CAT. Between just SMOOTH AS A CAT & IM COUNTIN CHECKS, their lifetime earnings combined over one million dollars.
With a vision to provide the best, most versatile and most prominent bloodlines in the cutting & western performance horse industries, the Manion family continues their success story with more than 43 World Championships to date, many of them with horses from their own breeding program.
