My name is Angelika Pretorius. Under the Studnix banner, I have bred, raised, shown, and developed American Quarter Horses and American Paint Horses across Southern Africa for nearly two decades. I am now pointing that experience toward a single, consuming goal: competing as an AQHA non-pro in ranch riding and reining in the United States.

This is not a retirement plan. It is the sharpest version of what I have always wanted to do.

The Origin: Stevie Nicks

Studnix began with a Thoroughbred mare named Stevie Nicks — my first horse, my foundation, and the origin of the name I have carried ever since. When she died of colic, the grief was the kind that rearranges things. I bought another Thoroughbred to fill the silence. His name was Gosforth Park, and he was wrong for me in every way that matters — volatile, forward, and relentlessly unpredictable.

The fall happened on an outride. I walked away physically, but not entirely intact. I stopped riding. For years I circled horses from the other side of the fence — as a breeder, as an administrator, as someone who loved the animal too much to give it up, and feared the saddle too much to return.

The way back was a mare called Tiaans Banjo Lady — a young American Quarter Horse I bought not knowing she would change everything. She was grounded where Gosforth Park had been scattered. She did not give me my confidence back so much as she replaced it with something sturdier. She was the beginning of Studnix as it would come to be.

Building the Programme

While Banjo Lady was being started under saddle, I bred my first foal: Studnix Peppa Gun, by CT Gunner — reserve APHA Reining World Champion and own son of the legendary Colonels Smokin Gun — out of a leased mare. She was sold before she was even weaned. Banjo Lady herself, bred to Sail On Frozen Shadow imported from Italy, produced Studnix Lady Jac Frost, later sold to a breeder in Namibia. Foal by foal, the Studnix programme took shape.

In 2013, I co-founded the American Paint Horse Association of Southern Africa — APHSA — as an affiliate of the American Paint Horse Association, and served on its founding committee. My husband served on the SAQHA board as International Director. Together, we developed and implemented EquineNix, the software management system adopted by both APHSA and SAQHA — a commitment to the infrastructure that keeps these disciplines alive in Southern Africa.

2019: Junior Prince Hawk

I returned to competition on my American Paint Horse stallion, Junior Prince Hawk. At the National AQHA and APHA Show in Parys, Free State, I won his Western Pleasure class and placed in Ranch Riding. It was not a spectacular return — but it was real, and it was mine. It confirmed, categorically, that I belonged in the pen.

The Decision

While living in the Netherlands and navigating a cancer diagnosis, I bought a stallion. Arabesque Cats Whizkers — Whiskey — carried four imported grandsires drawn from some of the finest Quarter Horse bloodlines in the world, including High Brow Cat and Topsail Whiz. He was a dream of building a world-class reining and colour programme, kept alive through the hardest of it.

That dream has served its purpose. Whiskey has been gelded, is entering work, and is available to the right home. The breeding programme is winding down. The horses are finding new hands. I am no longer building a stud — I am building a riding career, and I am taking it to the United States.

What's Next

I am based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Later this year, after seven years away from the saddle, I return to active competition — training with my trainer at her ranch in Conway, South Carolina, and competing on the North and South Carolina AQHA circuit. The discipline is ranch riding and reining. The division is non-pro. The commitment is without qualification.

Twenty years of working with these horses — breeding them, raising them, showing them, building organisations around them — have been preparation for this. The Studnix name comes with me. Results, competition updates, and horse developments will be documented here as they unfold.