On Oct. 7, 2026, longtime owner Missy Fischer announced she sold Zak 34 to a Solo Select partnership.
Shortly after, the 2018 stallion was sold again to C&S Equine, a partnership between PRCA world champion Shad Mayfield and the Barrilleaux family.
By $16 million sire Woody Be Tuff and out of Cat Digs Lucinda (by High Brow Cat), Zak 34 built a career that included the 2021 NRCHA Snaffle Bit Futurity championship and a 2026 reserve championship at the NRCHA World’s Greatest Horseman. His QData lifetime earnings total $429,295.
For Fischer, though, the accolades have always come second. Letting “Zak” go means entrusting both the stallion’s future and a piece of her son Seth’s legacy to someone new.
More Than a Name
Sitting in the stands of the Watt Arena, Fischer and her father, Lynn, watched a black colt consigned by breeder Center Ranch cut a cow out of the herd with Boyd Rice aboard. Fischer had no idea just how much that colt would come to mean to her.
“The moment I started bidding on him, I knew I had to have him,” Fischer recalled. “Everybody thinks I’m a little bit strange, but I knew Seth was telling me, ‘He’s yours, Mom. Get him. Get him.’ It was just the weirdest out-of-body experience I’ve ever felt in my life.”
The hammer fell at $88,500, well beyond what Fischer budgeted, and the sale’s highest price for a 2-year-old. But to Fischer, he was worth every penny.
As fate would have it, Justin Wright, a hungry young trainer, sat next to Fischer in the stands. By the end of the sale, the two agreed Wright would take the colt into training.
Fischer renamed him Zak 34 in honor of Seth’s nickname and the jersey number he’d worn all his life. A year later, the colt would make a name for himself in the show pen.
In the fall of 2021, Zak and Wright claimed the NRCHA Snaffle Bit Futurity championship with a record 670 composite, marking 221 in the herd work, 223 in the rein work, and 226 down the fence.
The win was Wright’s first Snaffle Bit Futurity championship and paid $125,000.
Their success continued into Zak’s derby years. The pair finished No. 2 at the 2022 NRCHA Western Derby, earning $35,000, and followed with a third-place finish at the 2023 NRCHA Stallion Stakes Derby, adding another $30,000 to Zak’s record.
“My whole goal was to get Zak to the place that he is, and have people remember my son through him.”
– Missy Fischer
From Cow Horse to Rope Horse
Following Zak’s success in the derbies, Fischer decided it was time for a change of pace. She sent the stallion to rope horse trainer Andy Holcomb, hoping a new discipline would give him a fresh perspective.
“I think as young horses, they’re pressed so hard,” Fischer said. “It was really a good move for him. In the hands of a different trainer like Andy, and doing something totally different, it just changes their mind and slows it down a little bit.”
Zak had $305,101 in QData earnings when he arrived, and Holcomb added to it right away. On their first trip to team-roping town, the pair placed third in the average of the Gold Buckle’s 6-&-Under Heading Maturity, worth $4,500.
Holcomb found that Zak took naturally to heading, although his cow horse training initially presented a challenge. When the stallion wanted to tuck his nose and bridle up too much, Holcomb switched him to a mechanical hackamore, encouraging him to carry his head higher and stay balanced while pulling a steer.
Holcomb and Wright kept sharing Zak’s training until late 2024. That’s when Fischer sent him to NRCHA $3 Million Rider Chris Dawson.
“I was feeling nudges towards World’s Greatest,” Fischer said. “I felt like Seth was saying, ‘Get him there, Mom.’”
2026 World’s Greatest Horseman
Building on the foundation Holcomb established in the roping arena, Dawson continued developing Zak’s versatility. He showed the stallion in the two-rein, including at the 2025 NRCHA Western Derby, before moving him into the bridle in 2026.
The work paid off in February at the NRCHA World’s Greatest Horseman. Zak 34 and Dawson posted an 887 preliminary composite, tying with Todd Crawford and CRC 1942 for the top score heading into the finals.
In the finals, the pair delivered another impressive performance, highlighted by a 226 to win the steer stopping. They also marked a 216 in the herd work, 222 in the rein work, and 217 down the fence. Their 881 composite secured the reserve championship and a $75,000 paycheck.
The performance also pushed Zak to the top of Woody Be Tuff’s highest-earning offspring list, according to Solo Select. But for Fischer, the accomplishment meant something far greater than another title or paycheck. She had reached the goal she’d set for Zak, and it was time to consider what came next.
Zak 34’s New Chapter
For Fischer, getting Zak to the World’s Greatest Horseman had been the ultimate goal. But taking him further, particularly as a breeding stallion, presented challenges she couldn’t overcome on her own.
“Standing a top-tier stallion is almost impossible as a regular, everyday person, unless you really have deep pocketbooks,” Fischer said. “I don’t have the financial resources to go out and spend six figures to get him into 10 different incentives. My dreams were too big for this horse.”
With new ownership comes new opportunities for Zak. The stallion will stand at Solo Select alongside his sire for a 2027 fee of $3,850. Solo Select’s Melanie Smith noted that Woody Be Tuff sons are rare because Center Ranch gelded nearly every colt.
New owner Shad Mayfield, a PRCA calf roping and all-around World Champion, plans to breed Zak to mares of all sizes to produce competitive calf horses.
“[Zak] is big, but he’s not like a big slow-footed horse,” Mayfield told Calfroping.com. “He moves like a little horse. He’s such an athlete, and we’ve seen that with him at the World’s Greatest Horseman. We’ve been looking for the right stud for a minute, and then when the opportunity came about, we just felt like he was what’s going to fit our program.”
Zak is already enrolled in the NRCHA Cow Horse Incentive, Riata, Royal Crown Roping, and Solo Select’s Reined Cow Horse and Rope Horse incentives, with plans to add the Gold Buckle.
And his show career isn’t finished. Zak and Dawson are expected to return to the World’s Greatest Horseman in 2027 for another shot at the title.
For Fischer, watching Zak continue his career under new ownership is bittersweet. Although she’s already accomplished what she set out to do with the stallion, saying goodbye means letting go of something deeply personal.
“I feel like a piece of me is missing already,” Fischer said. “Part of my son lives within that horse.”