Lifelong Colorado talent Kim Schulze rode Aint Seen Sassy Yet to the 1D average title at the Run at the Rose Futurity in Montrose on a two-run 30.475.
Schulze was second in Round 1 in 15.255 for $2,394, won Round 2 in 15.220 for $2,634, and took the average and the 1D championship for another $3,512. The same two runs kept cashing in the opens, fourth in the Saturday Open 1D for $1,190 and the Sunday Open 1D win for $2,047, for an $11,777 weekend.
She won the aggregate by nearly .5 over No. 2. See full results here.
The mare, a 2021 bay Schulze calls Gritty, runs like a coiled spring.
“She feels like a slingshot,” Schulze said. “She’s quick-footed and she leaves a barrel so hard. She goes in there deep and never really quits running and moving her feet, and then just cracks back hard. I don’t know what Jordon does to do that, but it’s incredible.”
Aint Seen Sassy Yet (Aint Seen Nothin Yet x Hotsass x Royal Shake Em) was bred by Lisa Miladinovich. Justin and Jordon Briggs bought her as a yearling, Justin broke her and Jordon put the foundation on her, and Schulze bought her in May 2025.
Her style took some getting used to, because it ran opposite to the way Schulze trains.
“I always train to rate going in, and she rates on the backside,” Schulze said. “When I first got her, I couldn’t get around the barrels because I was setting too soon. You’ve got to just ride her deep, clear up into the hole. If you can get that done, she does fantastic.”
“The first time I ever took her through, she left the first barrel and snapped my head back,” Schulze said. “I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, I have whiplash.’”
Off the pattern, Gritty is as sassy as her name, chewing on a hat or a belt flap and, when something rattles her, grabbing her hip and bolting instead of bucking.
- Jordon Briggs’ Drill for Nervous Barrel Racing Colts
- The Return of Rollo: Jordon Briggs Talks 2024 Cheyenne Frontier Days Championship
Schulze, who calls herself high-strung, slowed down to match the mare and moved her into a rope-nose DTE hackamore she spotted in Lora Nichols’ trailer.
“She’s just like, ‘Hang on, stay out of my way,’” Schulze said.
Schulze brings a lifetime of seasoning to a mare like that. She grew up in the Rifle and Meeker country of western Colorado and has run barrels nearly her whole life, taught to ride as a girl by her babysitter, decorated barrel racer Paula Frazier.
Chuck and Kristie Peterson, Jordon’s parents, later gave her the horse she rode to 16th in the world, one spot shy of the NFR. She has been close to the Briggs family for years, and her boys grew up alongside Jordon.
She built that career on horses she made herself, and she still races to win.
“I win every now and then, but I’m not going to go just to hear my name called,” Schulze said. “I’m too competitive for that.”
“I’ve never had the money to just go out and purchase a finished horse, which I’m thankful for, because I’ve learned so much,” she said. “Every single one of them has taught me something, even the hard ones.”
That resolve carried her through a hard stretch, losing her mother in 2016, a hospital stay after being kicked, and putting down a good horse the next summer.
“I couldn’t have done it without God,” Schulze said. “It was some really hard, dark times, and he just saw me through it all. I give him the glory.”
Schulze has the résumé to take the bow. She would rather hand it to the people who made the mare.
“Justin and Jordon Briggs are truly amazing horse people. I just love them so much, and I give them all the credit,” Schulze said. “They gave that horse the foundation and the confidence, and it’s made it easy for me to go win. I’m out here getting, ‘Oh, Kim Schulze and Gritty,’ but it’s Justin and Jordon who deserve the credit. I want that known, because it wasn’t me.”
