Bear Creek performance Horses is named for the meandering seasonal stream that accents the property during the spring and winter months. We are located where the Sierras meet the San Joaquin Valley, with California’s famed, golden foothills growing to the east, and vineyards and orchards growing to the west. Roughly two hours from Yosemite National Park, and two hours from the Pacific Ocean, beautiful Calaveras County is the place where our dreams were made reality.

It’s a Family Thing

Mark and Judi Materne did not always have horses, but they did have four daughters. From its earliest days, the Materne family household brimmed with My Little Ponies, Breyers, and Barbie horses whose broken legs would magically heal without the hint of a crack. To Judi’s delight (and Mark’s dismay), their daughters were horse girls to the core. Like Velvet Brown, the Materne girls spent countless hours dreaming of horses, playing pretend, watching Black Beauty, wishing that someday they could have ponies of their own. All at once, their dreams came true.

What started with one horse, a pretty palomino named Blondie, that all of the girls learned to ride, quickly became two, then three, then thirteen or so before we quit counting. Gymkhanas, playdays, and trail rides were favorite family activities, though they eventually fell out of favor to AQHA events, Horsemastership, and cow horse events.

Mark and Judi purchased the Calaveras County ranch in 2008 to accommodate the needs of their growing herd of quarter horses, paints, mustangs, and rescues of all kinds. Some of those first mares became foundational to the current breeding program at Bear Creek, with names like Poco Tivio, Bueno Chex, Colonel Freckles, and Doc Bar on their papers. Later entries into the program include mares by Tomcat Chex, Catalano, Mister Dual Pep, and Doc Tom Tucker. These proven lines have paired nicely across disciplines as our mares have produced excellent foals by some of today’s leading studs for reining, cutting, and cow horse. Our broodmare band now includes mares by Mylanta Lena, TR Dual Rey, Dunit With A Whiz, and Electric Code. The diversity of our band’s lineage has allowed us to breed with intention to industry leading studs, producing athletic and beautiful foals.

We added One Rowdy Bet 19 (Bet Hesa Cat) to our herd in 2020 and have been promoting his show career ever since. He is currently shown by Ron Emmons who has piloted him to over $40,000 in winnings. He is not yet available to the public.

Judi and the girls are all active horsewomen to some degree, though some more than others. Mark, (still to his dismay) has been the champion of all girl dads, as we could never get through daily operations without his constant hard work feeding, medicating, hauling, tractoring, fence mending, car fixing, and cheering from the bleachers. To this day, he has never agreed to any of this.

Samantha Gordon

Samantha began colt starting using foundational and natural horsemanship techniques when she took an apprenticeship with Charles Wilhelm. Under his tutelage, she created the foundation for the methods she uses to train our family horses today. While competing in California State Horseman’s Association events, she eventually caught wind of the cow horse, a bug she just never could let go. She went on to work with cow horse trainers including Benny Guitron, where she learned from his traditional methods.

She took a brief hiatus to work in Yellowstone National Park as a wrangler and chuck wagon driver. It was there she met Eddie, learned to survive in below freezing weather conditions.

When she returned to California, she brought with her a future husband, another horse (money earning ex-racehorse, Brick, who’s still with us today), and a desire to go all in on the cow horse. She’s trained with a number of talented horsemen including Will Pennebaker, Ivan Flores, Martin Padilla, Steve Schlesinger, and, of course, Ron Emmons.

She performed well in the non-pro with her gelding, Smokums Chex, winning. After selling Tommy to make room for a more competitive prospect, she focused on training our home-grown colts instead. She has continued to show locally on mares and foals from our program, and, after years of hard work and dedication, entered her first non-pro futurity season on Double Diamond Jewlz.

The FU Bar None

In 2008, we lovingly dubbed our ranch the FU Bar None as severance to the folks who wanted to see us fail. Since then, we’ve had the good fortune of owning, breeding, and training a magnificent herd of quarter horses in a program that is continuously evolving and improving.

Who We Are

We are animal lovers, nature enthusiasts, horsemen and women, firefighters, travelers, a nurse, volunteers, competitors, a veteran, builders, gardeners, and at least one Disney princess. Most of all, we are family.