What hasn’t Shawn Flarida done and won? The hottest hand in the reining business, Flarida has dominated 2010 with back-to-back wins at the NRHA Futurity and Derby. He capped the season with a win at the Adequan USEF Open Reining Championships in July to earn the No. 1 qualifying spot on the Team USA reining squad.

A return to the USET reining team gives Flarida the opportunity to reclaim the WEG individual gold he won at Jerez de la Frontera in 2002.

Flarida will ride the Buffalo Ranch stallion RC Fancy Step, a palomino with more than $337,000 in career earnings. Palominos have been strongly associated with the smiling, affable Ohio horseman, who is particularly associated with the great sire Wimpys Little Step, a palomino that carried him to victory in the 2002 NRHA Futurity and 2002 Quarter Horse Congress and whose progeny have won more than $2 million.

Look for Flarida to wear a green shirt, a clothing item that has become both his trademark and a superstition.