Sheila
Varian

Santa Maria to Arroyo Grande — A Life Built Around Arabians

Sheila Varian was born on August 8, 1937, in Santa Maria, California, and grew up with a deep passion for horses that she traced to the Walter Farley Black Stallion series. She graduated from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo and taught physical education at Arroyo Grande High School for three years before resigning to manage Varian Arabians full-time in 1963.

In 1954, with her parents' support, Varian launched a breeding program at the family's small ranch near Arroyo Grande, California. That program would grow over the following decades into a 230-acre facility carrying approximately 150 horses, and would eventually register 1,180 Arabian horses — producing nine generations of Varian-bred horses from the same Polish foundation mares imported in 1961.

Varian trained and showed her own horses in the vaquero tradition, focusing on the hackamore-to-spade-bit progression that defined California stock horse horsemanship. Her second Arabian mare, Ronteza — by the Polish stallion Witez II out of Ronna — became the horse that would make history.

1961 — Ronteza at the Cow Palace

In October 1961, while still teaching school, Sheila Varian rode Ronteza into the Open Reined Cow Horse Championship at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. The field included fifty horses of all breeds, the competition dominated by Quarter Horses and professional cowboys. Varian was a woman, an amateur, and riding an Arabian — three factors that had never before produced a winner in that arena.

Ronteza won. Varian became the first woman, the first amateur, and the first rider on an Arabian horse to win the Open Reined Cow Horse Championship at the Cow Palace. The victory changed how the industry viewed the Arabian breed's athletic capability in stock horse disciplines.

The following year, 1962, Varian showed the Varian Arabians foundation sire Bay-Abi++ to win the United States National Champion Stallion title. In 1969, she trained and showed Bay Event — by Bay-Abi++ out of Ronteza — to open Reined Cow Horse championships throughout California. Bay Event went on to win the US National Champion Arabian Stock Horse title in both 1971 and 1976, unanimously both times.

• October 1961 — Open Reined Cow Horse Champion, Cow Palace, San Francisco, on Ronteza (first woman, first amateur, first Arabian)
• 1962 — Bay-Abi++ United States National Champion Stallion
• 1969 — Bay Event trained and shown to open Reined Cow Horse championships throughout California
• 1971 & 1976 — Bay Event, US National Champion Arabian Stock Horse, unanimous both times
• USEF 2008 Leading Breeder Award (across all breeds, selection committee)
• Arabian Horse Times Readers' Choice Breeder of the Year, 2010
• Arabian Professional and Amateur Horsemen's Association Breeder of the Year, 2010

Varian Arabians — Nine Generations of Influence

Varian recognized that both Ronteza and an earlier mare, Farlotta, were daughters of Polish-bred stallions crossed on American mares. Believing this bloodline combination was a significant source of their quality, she sought to import Polish-bred Arabian mares. With Poland behind the Iron Curtain, she enlisted British horse breeder Patricia Lindsay, who traveled to Poland and purchased three mares — Bachantka, Ostroga, and Naganka — which arrived in California in December 1961.

Breeding Bay-Abi++ to these Polish mares proved foundational. Over the following decades, Varian Arabians bred through five generations of sires — Bay-Abi++, Bay El Bey++, Huckleberry Bey++, Desperado V, and Maclintock V — and nine generations of mares descending from the original Polish foundation stock. By 2014, 84 percent of the Arabian show horses winning at the US National Show carried Varian blood. Bay El Bey++'s bloodlines alone influenced more than 189,000 direct descendants worldwide.

Varian was a co-founder and director of the Arabian Breeders Association and a founding director of the Arabian Professional Horseman Association. In 2011 she began presenting "The Varian Way," a photographic program chronicling the history of Varian Arabians and the horses it produced. She passed away on March 6, 2016, at Varian Arabians Ranch, surrounded by friends, after more than 60 years devoted to the breed.