Mary Hopkins

An AQHA member since Harry Truman was in the White House, Mary Hopkins was well-known as a topflight trainer and top-level judge throughout Mississippi and the Southeast. In 1997, she was the inaugural recipient of the Merle Wood Humanitarian Award, established by the American Quarter Horse Foundation to recognize benevolence, philanthropy and charitable and humane efforts.

Born July 11, 1933, Mary Hayes Holmes added “Hopkins” to her name in 1952, the same year she and her new husband joined AQHA. The Hopkinses welcomed daughter Andree in 1954, and five years later founded their Hopping H Ranch on 75 wooded acres of what they called “hills and holes” a few miles southeast of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Though adamant that a good horse is a good horse regardless of breed, the Hopkinses preferred Quarter Horses such as Pearl Bristow, a mare of Peter McCue and Joe Bailey blood that they bred to the King P-234 grandson Poco Paxton to produce the palomino colt Brister King.

Andree rode Brister King to a performance Register of Merit and a Superior in cutting. It was through the mother/daughter connection that Mary in 1961 became the first 4-H Light Horse Club leader in the Magnolia State. She was involved in some capacity with Mississippi 4-H until her death on July 19, 2020.

A member of the Mississippi Quarter Horse Association for more than 50 years, Mary spent immeasurable time volunteering, teaching, judging and serving in numerous offices for the AQHA state affiliate. As Mississippi’s first youth adviser for AQHA, she took her charges to the inaugural AJQHA (now AQHYA) World Championship Show in Amarillo and the All American Quarter Horse Congress in Ohio.

Mary became an AQHA judge in 1975, judging many times at three AQHA world shows–open, amateur and youth–and everything from local playdays to the equestrian games at the Special Olympics in 1991 and 1995. She also had judge’s cards with the National Cutting Horse, National Reined Cow Horse, National Snaffle Bit and American Paint Horse associations, as well as the Palomino Horse Breeders of America and the Appaloosa Horse Club.

Working with the Dixie National Quarter Horse Show as everything from exhibitor to manager, secretary and ringmaster, she helped establish the Dixie National’s Equestrians With Disabilities competition, invented the Halter Stakes and designed the distinctive ribbons and medallions awarded to Dixie winners. Mary came up with the show’s “Southern Classic” nickname, and in 2015 helped guide the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Dixie National.

Everything changed in 1989 when Andree died in her sleep at age 35. Honoring her daughter’s dream to have camps devoted to teaching disabled people to handle and ride horses, Mary founded the therapeutic riding program Equi-Able Inc., a nonprofit organization through which she trained hundreds of volunteers and gave countless hours of lessons to the disabled, with no rider ever charged for the work.

Mary was presented the AQHA Special Recognition Award in 2004 and the Professional Horseman’s Lifetime Achievement Award four years later. In 2010, Mary was inducted into the MQHA Hall of Fame; three years later, MQHA named her Most Valuable Professional.

Though celebrated as the “First Horse Lady of Mississippi,” neither Mary’s efforts nor the recognition of them were limited to people who prefer to survey the world from a horse. She served on Mississippi’s Children’s Justice Task Force, and Vicksburg selected her as a Hometown Hero to help carry the Olympic Torch across town in 1996.

The lady whose love for horses and people, and her dedication to bringing them together, now takes her place in the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame and was inducted in 2022.

Biography updated as of August 2022.