An excerpt from the October 1998 Paint Horse Journal by Frank Holmes...

Though he dealt primarily in cattle and hogs, Kenneth Reisinger was just as knowledgeable when it came to horses. Routinely, his spring and fall horse and pony sales attracted buyers and sellers from coast to coast. By the mid-1950s, his initiatives in the booming Shetland pony industry helped lead to Eldora’s being proclaimed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower as "the pony capital of the world." (See "The Making of a Showman," page 70.)

Known as a deal-maker and a risk-taker, Reisinger encouraged his three sons---Gordon, Gregg and Gary---to follow suit.

"The Reisinger boys worked at their dad’s sale barn from the time they learned to walk," long-time family friend and pioneer Quarter Horse breeder Stan Dreier said.

"They did anything there, from checking livestock in and pushing them through the alleys and pens, to taking bids in the ring and helping buyers load up their purchases.

"And those boys were all ‘ring-wise,’ especially Gregg. He had more sale ring savvy as a kid than most of us get during our entire lives."

Having grown up in the livestock business, it was only natural that Gregg Reisinger would eventually take a crack at buying and selling horses and cattle on his own. It was more-or-less expected of him, and, again age was not an issue.

When he was 13, Reisinger began buying weanling foals in South Dakota to re-sell at his father’s fall horse sale. The first few times he made the trip west, he had to hire someone to drive him. He was too young to have a license.

"Jack Buschbom, the ex-World Champion Bareback Bronc Rider, ran the auction in Mobride, South Dakota," Reisnger said. "He put on a horse sale there every month. I would buy a load of ranch-raised Quarter Horse weanlings at Mobridge every fall, truck ‘em back to Iowa, and resell ‘em.

"And I bought all the Paint foals I could get my hands on, too. There were a lot of them up there back then, and they’d cost less than the Quarters because they weren’t registered.

"But they were pretty, and I’d bring ‘em back to Iowa and double and triple my money."

At the same time that he began buying and selling horses, Reisinger also started trading in cattle and hogs. By the time he had graduated from high school in 1962, he was a familiar figure at the area livestock sale barns.

One of the teenager’s acquaintances in Eldora was Harry Cakerice, an elderly dairyman who had a home and 80-acre farm on the south edge of town.

In 1963, Cakerice approached Reisinger with an offer to sell the youngster his farm. A deal was struck and at the age of 19, Gregg Reisinger became a home and farm owner.

Four years later, Gregg and his high school sweetheart, Sandy Williams of nearby Steamboat Rock, Iowa, were married and took up residence on the farm.

The Couple raised their only child, Mark, there, and established their respective careers---hers as a school district nurse and his as a livestock broker and Paint breeder---from there.

Today, 35 years after buying it, Gregg Reisinger and his family continue to call the ex-dairy farm home.

As most sharp horse traders are prone to do, young Gregg Reisinger began gleaning a small band of "keepers" from his early trading stock. Among them were the best of the South Dakota Paints.

In February of 1965, he registered his first horses with the American Paint Stock Horse Association. Two years later, with a Paint broodmare band numbering around 30, he began looking for a stallion.

Reisinger’s search took him to the Stockyard Sales Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, where, on February 3, 1967, Doug Edwards of Ryan, Oklahoma, and Dalton Benton of Oscar, Oklahoma, were putting on a registered paint sale.

"I don’t recall who I went to the Fort Worth sale with," Reisinger said, "but I do recall that I bought a bunch of Paints there. I bought so many that everybody thought I was nuts.

"I can still remember calling my dad up that night," he continued "and telling him to send the big trailer down---that I’d bought a semi-load of horses.

"He was mad. He didn’t think I needed them. But he had the truck sitting in the sale yard the next morning.

"What else could he have done? He was the one who taught me that if you want to be successful in life, you’re going to have to be willing to take a risk now and then."

Reisinger was only 23 years old when he attended the Forth Worth Paint sale in 1967, but he already had a decade of horse buying experience under his belt.

That experience enabled him to make the kind of decisions about breeding animals that would get his embryonic Paint breeding program off to a flying start.

Among his purchases in Fort Worth was a 4-year old Paint stallion named Apache Norfleet.

In addition to being Reisinger’s first Paint breeding stallion, Apache Norfleet was also his first show horse.

"there weren’t many Paint shows in Iowa in the late ‘60s, "he said, "so we had to show ‘Apache’ in all-breed Western Pleasure classes. I had a lady named Judy Adams riding him and he won just about every class we put him in.

"Looking back, I feel that Apache really did a lot during the late ‘60s to further the popularity of Paints in this part of the country."

One of the first mares that Reisinger bred to his new stallion was Honera Q, who he had picked up at the Fort Worth sale. In 1968, Honera Q foaled a filly named Awhe Honera.

Reisinger showed Awhe Honera to her APHA Championship, and in 1972, won the National Junior Reining title in Columbus, Ohio, with her. That same year, he won the National Senior Reining title with Indio Jack---another Fort Worth purchase.

Four years after purchasing him, Reisinger sold Apache Norfleet to Larry Sheriff of nearby Sheffield, Iowa. His decision to do so was prompted by several considerations.

"By 1971," Reisinger said, "I had a nice set of Apache Norfleet fillies. I also had a young stallion who was showing signs of being a good breeding horse. So when Larry, who was just getting into Paints at the time, made me an offer to buy Apache, I could see it was time to let him go."

Awhe Chief, Reisinger’s "young stallion," came to Iowa inside his dam.

Muddy Squaw was another one of the mares that I bought at the 1967 Fort Worth sale," Reisinger said. She was in foal to a horse named Kickapoo Chief, and Awhe Chief was the resulting foal.

He was a roan horse who had pretty good conformation and a certain amount of performance ability. The main reason he never got a chance as a show horse was because we were shoeing Apache Norfleet at the time.

"As a breeding horse, though, Awhe Chief was outstanding. I used him as a sire for 15 years, and during that time he sired over 80 percent color for me, mostly out of Quarter mares.

"His foals really made a name for themselves as performance horses, and his daughters have put him on 12 of the 16 Lifetime Leading Dams’ Sires Lists.

"So, like Apache Norfleet, Awhe Chief made his mark on both my program and the Paint Horse industry."

The Mid-1970s saw Gregg Reisinger firmly established as one of the Paint industry’s leading breeders. With an excellent set of Awhe Chief broodmares on hand, the Iowa horseman was in the market for a junior sire. With a little help from older brother Gordon, he found one on the back of a cattle truck.

"In March of 1971," Reisinger said, "my brother, Gordon, was on a cattle buying trip in Indiana.

"He called me one night and said he had found a yearling cropout Paint stallion he thought I might like. He was owned by Dr. Barry Wood of Carmel, Indiana, and was for sale.

"I got Dr. Wood on the phone that night and bought the colt, sight unseen. Gordon had a little room left on one of his cattle trucks, so he just loaded him up and delivered him to me the next day.

"The colt’s name was Teddy’s Splash," Reisinger continued, "and he was a line-bred Skipper W. horse. According to his pedigree, he should have stood around 15 hands high, and been as broad as he was tall.

"Instead, he stood 16 hands, and built along the lines of a classic hunt seat horse. He was just what the doctor ordered to put on my Apache Norfleet and Awhe Chief mares."

Reisinger showed Teddy’s Splash just enough to get him his APHA Championship, then retired him to stud.

"’Teddy’ really took our program to new level," Reisinger said. "He was so ‘breedy’ and modern. He added size and disposition, and was really a great color producer, especially when I bred him to cropout mares. He’d put at least a belly spot on most of his foals, and it was rare if we couldn’t find a way to get them registered."

Not only a sire of color, Teddy’s Splash was also a sire of show horses.

From 1985 through 1993,the big sorrel cropout held down the number one spot as the Lifetime Leading Sire of APHA World Champions. In both 1993 and 1994,he was also ranked as the number one Lifetime Leading Performance Sire in the Points Earned category.

Today, even though there are few of his get still competing in APHA-approved events, Teddy’s Splash still appears on nine of the 16 Lifetime Leading Sires lists.

"We kept ‘Teddy’ until he passed away in 1996," Reisinger said. "He did a great job for me as a sire, and his daughters are now turning out to be some my best producers. We have about a dozen of them in our current broodmare band."

Even though he kept and used Teddy’s Splash for his entire life, by the late 1980s, Reisinger was again hunting for a junior sire. This time he didn’t have to look far.

"I’ve always been a fan of Sonny Dee Bar," Reisinger said. "He spent most his life in Des Moines, and I tried to breed a few mares to him each year. I also added some of his daughters to my broodmare band whenever I could."

In 1987, while attending a Des Moines horse sale, Reisinger got wind of a yearling cropout son of Sonny Dee Bar. After finding out that the young stallion was located just south of town, he went to have a look at him.

"A man names Ivan Archer owned the yearling," Reisinger said. "When I got to his place, he had him standing in a box stall. The colt was just so good looking---a beautiful-headed red sorrel with four high socks, bald face and belly spot---that I had to have him.

"I asked Ivan what he wanted for him, and he told me. It was a lot on money, and I tried to talk him down a little. I saw right away that wasn’t going anywhere, so I just wrote him a check for the full amount."

In Dirty Sonny, the yearling in question, Reisinger found yet another sire to carry his program forward.

Like Teddy’s Splash, "Sonny’ was shown to his APHA Championship. After garnering Superiors in Halter and Western Pleasure, he too, was retired to stud.

" ‘Sonny’ has been a very consistent sire for us," Reisinger said. "His foals have that Sonny Dee Bar look, and he sires about the same 75-80 percent color that Teddy did.

"Crossing the Sonny Dee Bar and Skipper W. Families, which we are doing by putting Dirty Sonny on the Teddy’s Splash mares, has really produced a good-looking set of horses that have excelled in both English and Western Pleasure."

From his first foal crop, Dirty Sonny also sired a loud-colored sorrel overo colt named Dirty Rocki.

In keeping with farm tradition, the 1989 stallion was shown to his APHA Championship and Superiors in Halter and Western Pleasure, and then retired to stud.

"Dirty Rocki is out of a Painted Robin-bred mare," Reisinger said. "So he’s got good performance blood on both sides of his pedigree. To this point he looks like he might be the best sire I’ve ever owned.

"In fact, he is the youngest stallion on the Leading Sires list, and finished up 1997 as the Number 1 Leading Performance Sire of ROM Qualifiers and ROM’s Earned."

The current Reisinger Farms Paint breeding herd is headed by Dirty Sonny and Dirty Rocki.

Teddy’s Last Splash, a 1995 sorrel overo by Teddy’s Splash and out of Mista Note, and Zippin Rock, a 1995 sorrel overo by Dirty Rocki and out of Zippos Cherokee, are being groomed as junior sires.

The programs’ broodmare band numbers between 80 and 100. In it, genetics are of paramount importance.

"Bloodlines have never been more important than they are in this age of specialized horses," Reisinger said. "We’re trying to produce competitive pleasure horses here, so we’re loading up our herd with horses that come from that kind of a background.

"Along with our daughters of Teddy’s Splash, Dirty Sonny and Dirty Rocki, we’ve also got some daughters of The Invester, as well as a few mares by up-and-coming young pleasure sires.

"Also, each year we try t breed some of our best producers to horses that have either won World Championships at pleasure, or that have sired World Champion Pleasure Horses. It helps us broaden our genetic base."

Today, after more than 40 years of plying both trades, Gregg Reisinger remains at the top of his game as both a cattle buyer and Paint Horse breeder.

From early fall to early spring, the 53-year-old Iowa native attends from five to six cattle sales week---order-buying for some of the West’s largest feedlots.

As far as buying and selling horses goes, Reisinger doesn’t do very much of that anymore. Nowadays, he breeds most of the horses he sells.

But any way you care to look at it, whether buying and selling or breeding and selling, he is still swapping stock, still making the deals.

As she has from the early days of their marriage, Sandy Reisinger strives to balance a full-time career as a registered school nurse with the demands of being a homemaker, mother and business partner.

After growing up in the AJPHA youth program, and serving a term as its president, Mark Reisinger went onto earn his undergraduate degree from Iowa State University in Ames, and his law degree from Drake University in Des Moines. The 26-year-old currently works as a legislative counsel in Washington D.C., but will no doubt one day wind up back in Eldora, breeding Paint Horses and lobbying at the state level on behalf of agriculture.

For more than three decades, horsemen and women have been making the trek to Eldora, Iowa, and Reisinger Farms to see what kind of Paints might be for sale there.

Gregg greets them just as he always has. Matter-of-factly, Low-keyed. Quiet.

With eyes that don’t miss much.