It’s like playing catch. Miss Abigail caught a lot with American Quarter Horses: an All American Futurity (G1), a world record at the classic distance, five world championships and consecutive titles as champion owner. All this as the industry’s all-time leading female breeder at the reins of an operation that has produced the earners of more than $10 million.
Born April 20, 1926, as the last of the royal lineage descended from legendary King Kamehameha of Hawaii, Miss Abigail found her home in Honolulu and her passion in Quarter Horse racing. Introduced to the sport in the 1970s, she climbed the ranks until her crowning as the AQHA champion owner in 1994-1995.
The climb hit a high step the year before her first title, when she scored in the 1993 All American Futurity with A Classic Dash.
A Classic Dash grew into a champion earner of $1,078,617 who went on to sire champion Royaltime Classic, 34 other stakes winners and the earners of more than $6.7 million.
Miss Abigail bred her first Quarter Horse in 1980 and nine years later got her first homebred stakes winner: Royal Trips. The six-figure-earning Royal Trips was just the first of what so far are more than 40 stakes winners and nearly 300 other winners bred in Miss Abigail’s name.
She bred Florentine to Chicks Beduino to create This Snow Is Royal, who sired champion Blazin Fire, 43 other stakes winners and the earners of more than $13.9 million.
And then there was Evening Snow. A full brother to champion This Snow Is Royal, the flashy gray gelding was acquired at birth when Miss Abigail bought Florentine in 1993. Evening Snow became the first Quarter Horse in history to break the 21-second mark at the quarter mile when he clocked :20.94 in October 1996.
“Horses have always been the next-most important thing in the world to me, besides my friends and Hawaii. What can I say? I’m catching the rainbow.”
Abigail Kawananakoa was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2018 and died December 11, 2022.
Biography updated as of June 2024.