Jenna Tolson, of McPherson, Kansas, first fell in love with horses while on a trail ride in Colorado with her family.

For months she and her sisters, Jillian and Gretchen, begged their parents to take lessons somewhere, so Brent and Sue Wall found a semi-local pony club for the girls to join. All three girls would be dropped off early in the morning and stay all day riding during the summer months when they didn’t have school.

“We cleaned stalls and worked all day so we had the chance to ride more horses and take more lessons,” Tolson recalled. “I think my mother grew tired of this routine, so that’s when the idea came up that maybe we could get our own horse.”

The first horse the family bought was a 5-year-old Paint gelding named Arts Frosted Sonny. Because they started in a Pony Club, the girls had a background that was primarily English, but Arts Frosted Sonny was trained to everything from ranch work to Showmanship. Together they learned to do more and began showing in local open and American Paint  Horse Association (APHA) shows.

Sonny got along better with Tolson’s sister so the family ended up buying another gelding, Tobiano Wind, for Jenna to jump on for Pony Club. The family still owns both of those horses and they are 25 and 28 years old this year.

In 1996 the Wall girls switched gears when the family purchased a western horse, a 1996 tobiano mare named Skip To My Dance and the girls switched gears from Pony Club to breed shows. Together they earned a Pinto Reserve World Championship in Youth Dressage Training in 2005.

In 2004 Tolson started classes at the University of Kansas where she was active in collegiate intramural athletics programs and served on the board of the KSU Horseman’s  Association. But she still spent a lot of time with her own horses.

“I didn’t ‘take a break’ from horses like some kids choose to. I graduated summa cum laude in 3 1/2 years of school with a major and a minor, so that didn’t leave a lot of extra time for free time,” Tolson said. “I did go to pretty much all of the KSU basketball and football games. K-State Football is like a religion in my family. I have gone to games my entire life, so I definitely wasn’t missing that.”

While she was in college Skip To My Dance was bred to Zippos Sensation, a stallion long admired by Jenna and her family. From that cross came a very white overo filly that was given the registered name of Zippos Whiteout but that Jenna called Daizie.

In 2008 Daizie was the unanimous champion of the Amateur Yearling Longe Line Class at the Pinto Horse Association (PtHA) World Championship Show and was also the very first APHA In-Hand Trail World Champion. Tolson broke Daizie out herself and Sara Simons helped her finish the mare. Tolson showed her to a fourth place finish in the 2-Year-Old Color Classic at the Reichert Celebration in 2009. They also won the Amateur Western Pleasure at the World Wide Paint Horse Congress that year and placed in the Top 5 in the 2-Year-Old Non-Pro Western Pleasure at the APHA World Show.

“She was a crowd favorite everywhere she went and that meant a lot to me, but she started battling issues with bone chips and had to be retired way too early,” Tolson said. “It was really hard on me to have to retire Sensational Whiteout so early and I didn’t really want another pleasure horse at the time, so I bought the mare I show now as a weanling back in the fall of 2012.”

TheFairestOfThemAll is a 2012 bay tovero mare by All Time Fancy and out of the appendix Quarter Horse mare, Dancin In The Truck. Tolson tapped APHA trainer Alyse Roberts to help her get back into the irons.

In 2015, “Scarlett” and Roberts were PtHA Reserve World Champions in 5 & Under Hunter Under Saddle, and at the APHA World Show, they earned a Reserve World Championship in Green Hunter Saddle. They also placed third in both the 3-Year-Old Hunter Under Saddle Challenge and the 3-Year-Old Open Hunter Under Saddle.

This year, Scarlett will continue showing in Junior Hunter Under Saddle with Roberts and Novice and Amateur Hunter Under Saddle with Tolson. They are also working on adding Showmanship and she is in training part-time with Brian Holmes to learn Pleasure Driving.

“Scarlett looks like she is going to be really good with both of the new classes, so I am definitely excited to add those this year,” Tolson said. “She loves people and loves her food. You can’t walk by her stall without her talking to you. She either wants attention or food, and either one will work just as well as the other. She has always been super quiet and tame, but her biggest downfall is she is super lazy.”

Tolson really admires the work of trainers she has worked with over the years but two – Sara Simons and  Alyse Roberts – have had a great influence on her these past few years.

“Sara is one of the most talented people I have ever been around when it comes to horses,” she said. “Her success speaks for itself and I can only hope to know half as much as she does about horses by the time I die.”

And she can’t sing the praises of Roberts loud enough.

“Not only is she talented beyond her years, she is a great friend,” Tolson said. “Alyse does things the ‘right way’ and that is one of the things I admire about her the most. She works tirelessly to have our horses prepared well and they always are.”

Tolson has big dreams and a strong desire to accomplish them and that’s what motivates her most to compete.

“I believe that all your dreams are attainable in time. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, or in a year or five years, but in a lifetime, your dreams are attainable if you work hard enough,” she said. “There are many that I have yet to accomplish, but I know they’re out there and that’s what keeps me going. That feeling you get when you’ve caught a dream is like nothing else. My motto is not only to dream big, but dream bigger.”

But along the way Tolson also believes it is important to welcome others to the industry she loves.

“Be friendlier and helpful to new people,” she encourages. “I was one of those newbies to the breed show world at one time, and some weren’t so friendly, unfortunately. You automatically don’t think you’ll ever belong or are wanted. Smile at people, make conversation, encourage others to do well. Another person having success does not prevent you from having success. We must remember that.”

When she’s not riding or at a horse show, Tolson is busy as a partner in Certified Environmental Management, Ltd.of Salina, Kansas, an industrial hygiene services company and laboratory which she owns with her husband, Lantz. Together they travel all over the country and in a very basic sense, collect air samples on employees to make sure they are not exposed to hazards in the work place that could potentially cause disease or harm to them down the road.

In her spare time she enjoys hanging out with her husband and their 145- pound “child,”a not quite 3-year-old Newfoundland dog named Brodie that is their absolute pride and joy. She also spends quite a bit of time at the gym these days and says it makes her feel so much better and has helped manage her Type 1 Diabetes immensely. And of course in the fall, there is a lot of Kansas State Football!