COMMITTED TO EXCELLENCE

Trainer, Corey Holden, has spent most of his life surrounded by horses and great horseman, in particular, Max McTaggart, an NCHA Hall of Fame Inductee. At 15yo, Corey began an 8 year stint working for Max at Elgrando Stud. Gaining invaluable knowledge, he was the only one to work for Max for that long, going out on his own after Max retired. Corey would travel across to the USA each year for 4-6 weeks, spending time with Winston & Paul Hansma at Bar H Ranch, in Weatherford, Texas.

Ask Corey about his industry achievements and you’ll get a quiet, rather unassuming reply, but one that is very sincere – he just loves training horses. He’s trained and ridden horses to victory both in Australia and the USA, finaling in the US NCHA Futurity, in 2004. He travelled to Texas to work for Strawn Valley Ranch, where he started and rode Dual Smart Rey in his 2yo year. He later took a position in Colorado, working for Linda Holmes, at Holmes Cutting Horses, where he trained Halreycious, successfully showing at Fort Worth, Vegas and Augusta and showing at the NCHA Futurity.

Corey worked and rode Rey Dual as a 2yo, made the Texas USA NCHA 2004 Open Futurity Final riding Chandolena Rey, owned by Holmes Cutting Horses, and made the USA NCHA Semi-Finals 3 times, once for Strawn Valley Ranch, and twice for Holmes Cutting Horses. He finished off 5 great years in the USA working & training horses with Eddie Flynn over the last 12 months.  

Today it’s not hard to find Corey’s name up around the high-scoring end of a major show’s result sheets.

·       Inducted into the NCHA Hall of Fame in 2010 for a LTE of 350K 

·       Open Classic NCHA Futurity, 2016 on Reylee Play (Sire: Reys Ya Garter)

·       Open Derby NCHA Futurity, 2017 on Garter Cat (Retained for breeding purposes)

·       Inducted into the NCHA Hall of Fame in 2018 for a LTE exceeding $1M

FIRST CLASS facilitIES

It’s evident that the Holdens put their hearts and minds into their work, taking pride in every horse they train or breed. They’re a family that’s professionally committed to delivering exceptional horse education and breeding winning performance horses, all with a clear focus on the result they constantly chase - ultimate success!