Mildred Janowitz may have been small, but her influence on the Quarter Horse industry was huge.
Janowitz found her love for horses when she met her husband, Jack Janowitz. She was a city girl headed for a career in journalism. Janowitz had embraced her husband’s passion for horses and changed her mind about her career. The couple built Horse Patch Farms from the ground up.
Their goal was to raise a beautiful Quarter Horse with a perfect golden color that could win at halter and performance events alike. With the bloodlines of their foundation sire, Horn’s Stormy Gold, and Sucaryl, a son of Sugar Bars, they bred and raised champions in the show arena and also some that made it to the track.
The palominos raised on Horse Patch Farms were featured in a 1970’s Marlboro advertising campaign. Jack and Mildred were later inducted into the Palomino Horse Breeders of America Hall of Fame.
Jack died in 1994, leaving Mildred to run the operation. In 1997, she had 24 broodmares. She used four stallions: Moolah’s Choice, Rosy Sweet Choice, Andrew R Sweet, and Lee Bee Sweet.
Janowitz would stay involved in AQHA by attending the annual AQHA conventions.
“I go in and speak my mind, but I don’t get up and talk just to be talking,” she would say. “It’s never something just for me or because I have a particular horse. If I have a crusade that I think is good for the Association and its members, that’s what I like to bring out.”
Janowitz was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2004. She died in December of 2014.
Biography updated as of December 2014.