“Everyone out here does a really good job to make the Colt Sale such an enjoyable community event.”
A cowgirl, born and raised in Valley View, Texas, Taylor is valedictorian of the 2025 Valley View High School graduating class and headed to Texas A&M this fall to become a large animal veterinarian. She also is a four-time world champion in mounted shooting.
When Taylor sets an intention, no one doubts her ability to make it happen. “We all want to be just like Taylor when we grow up,” said her mom, KC Goin.
Taylor’s goal on Saturday, July 12, at the Annual Hashknife Colt Sale, was to successfully bid on a filly that she would raise, train and ride. “Number 18 is the one I have my eye on,” she said, before the auction began.
Taylor was not alone, she learned. When number 18, a stunning blue roan bay filly, ran into the arena with her mama, buyers took notice. Ranch Manager Clay Rodgers described her lineage and noted that the filly was part of the late Ranch Manager Vic Howell’s personal line of horses. Auctioneer Reed Flake described the mare as “a transformer – she rides like a sports car but can be a tank when you need it.”
That’s when Taylor’s dad, Jeff, entered the bidding competition on his daughter’s behalf. But when Flake said, “I have 18, do I hear 18.5?” The Goin family waved him on. The final bid, $19,000, set a record at the Colt Sale. The blue roan was sold to Jordan Diehl of Ohio. He and his cousins, Caleb and Marcus, bought three Babbitt Ranches colts that day, one last year and one the year before for their ranch in Ohio, where they raise horses largely for rodeo competition. “The Babbitt horses have a lot better bone,” said Diehl in 2024.
Meanwhile, Taylor remained stoic. The family jumped back into action with horse number 20 and successfully bid on the brown filly. “The first one we bid on was a really nice filly. She was my dad’s pick. But I felt better about the second one. She was my pick and she is going to become a mounted shooting horse and a team roping horse.”
A few colts later, the Goin family was successful again. “I would like to make the sorrel filly, number 23, a range cow horse,” said Taylor. “We decided after a long time of working with horses that fillies and mares have more heart than geldings do.”
The Goins first heard about Babbitt Ranches and the horse program from cowboy Will Vest, a family friend from Texas who has been working for Babbitt Ranches for more than a decade. “And then we started seeing some of the horses,” said Taylor. “We could see that they were really nice – big-boned, tough and hardy. They have big lungs and can go all day. That’s not very prevalent in Texas.”
Elsewhere in the stands that morning were Kent Graymountain and Jennifer Benally of Tuba City. “I didn’t come with the intention to buy a horse,” said Jennifer, “but I saw that little horse and I could just feel it – she spoke to me – and I thought of my great grandbaby.”
Kent and Jennifer knew that “Tank,” the horse that belonged to their 5-year-old great granddaughter, would soon need to be put down. “Rea just loves that horse,” said Jennifer. “She loves to take care of it and climbs up on the water truck to get water for it. She is going to be heartbroken.”
Rea Bennett, who wants to be a veterinarian, is turning 6 in a couple of weeks. Kent and Jennifer smiled with great-grandparent joy when they won the bid for a sorrel horse and realized they had found the perfect birthday gift.
“I felt good about the way the horses showed up,” said Ranch Manager Clay Rodgers. “Everyone out here does a really good job to make the Colt Sale such an enjoyable community event.” QCBN
By Bonnie Stevens, QCBN
Photo by Kay Lyons: Taylor Goin, 18, now owns two Hashknife-branded fillies that her family will be able to pick up next spring after being raised by the mare and the herd on the sprawling open spaces of Babbitt Ranches north of the San Francisco Peaks.
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