“My interest in horses has always been toward mares,” Rick Johns said in 1984, when he was serving as AQHA’s 34th president.
“Some of the old-timers who I had an opportunity to be around in my younger days all said that the mother was a really important part of the program and I still believe that.”
Johns built an impressive broodmare band, half of which were show producers. The other half produced potential runners. But long before he was ever in the horse business, Johns was familiar with the working horses on his family’s vegetable farm in Arizona.
Johns first started showing in the mid-1960s, taking a real liking to the cattle events, and it was not long before he was hooked. He had connections with many active horse breeders and exhibitors, particularly Dan Opie of Oregon, who had owned and campaigned halter sire Quincy Dan. Opie was also the owner of a Quincy Dan son, Sir Quincy Dan, to which Johns bred many of his mares.
Some of the top horses that Johns was associated with were 1978 world champion yearling mare Triple Lindy, Superior halter horse Quincy Cupid, AQHA Champion and Superior halter horse Quincy Style, 1976 world champion aged stallion Son Of Sun and racing ROM earners Chicks Gann, Everything Lovly, My Gracious and Azure Sugar.
Johns became an AQHA Director in 1972 and served on the Association’s judges and membership committees. He was a past president of the Arizona Quarter Horse Association. Johns was also active in the Arizona Livestock Association and the Arizona National Livestock Show.
Johns was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 1997.
Biography updated as of March 1997.