Rock On Guys ran at the BFA World Championships as a 3-year-old and the Calgary Stampede as a 7-year-old.
In between, he headed steers at Cheyenne Frontier Days.
His sire, A Guy With Proof, a 2011 Frenchmans Guy stallion bred by three-time World Champion Brittany Pozzi Tonozzi, sells Oct. 10 at the Corsica Horse Sale in Corsica, South Dakota. A Breeders Challenge spot sells with him.
A Guy With Proof’s dam, American Proof, is by Extra Proof. She was trained and raced by Brenda Whatley, who ran her on the track in Louisiana in the days before divisional barrel racing. With nothing in the barn but racehorses, she decided she wanted to run barrels.
“She decided that she wanted to run barrels, and all she had was a barn full of racehorses,” Pozzi Tonozzi said. “She took American Proof and started jacking around with her on the barrels. Never trained a barrel horse, never had a barrel horse. So she starts just going to these jackpots and winning first. And there was no 2D, 3D or whatever. They were just straight jackpots. So she would take her to the jackpots on the weekends, and then she would go run her on the track during the weekdays and win races with her. Win races and then go win barrel races.”
American Proof went on to win an NBHA State Finals, before earnings on those were tracked in QData.
“American Proof was a great barrel horse herself and a pretty good racehorse, and just a good-minded individual to be able to go back and forth from the racetrack to the barrel pen,” she said.
American Proof was rabicano, a trait her son passes on.
“He does produce a lot of roan tendencies, a lot of big white blazes, a lot of stockings,” Pozzi Tonozzi said. “They’re very flashy horses.”
Replicating a freak
Pozzi Tonozzi found American Proof through another of her foals. She bought French Covergirlas a 2-year-old off a sale ad on Barrel Horse World. The mare, by Saintly Fellow and out of American Proof, set multiple arena records, carried Pozzi-Tonozzi to the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo and later sold to Brazil.
“She was just a freak,” Pozzi Tonozzi said. “She was my first big winner.”
When the woman who sold her French Covergirl decided to sell American Proof, Pozzi Tonozzi bought the mare and bred her to Frenchmans Guy. The result was A Guy With Proof.
He sat on the back burner early—the program had another stallion at the time—and he was late getting mares bred. Pozzi-Tonozzi futuritied him in 2015, his 4-year-old year, nabbing checks at a few futurities before her husband, NFR header Garrett Tonozzi, took him to the roping pen.
His first foals arrived in 2016. A Guy With Magnolias, out of Steele Magnolias, was third in the 2019 BFA World Championships Juvenile Futurity and earned through a 2020 futurity season gutted by COVID-19 cancellations. He has $68,533 in documented earnings that year alone. His foal-crop mate Magnolia Moon Shine won won $50,159.
The next crop produced Rock On Guys, out of Vital Rock. He was reserve in the 2020 BFA World Championships Juvenile Futurity, 10th in the 2021 BFA World Championships Futurity and 14th in the 2021 Pink Buckle Futurity. Then he went to work as a head horse.
Garrett Tonozzi roped on the big, blaze-faced gelding at Cheyenne Frontier Days in 2023, placing second in the first performance. The gelding also carried a header to fourth in the 2023 WSTR Finale average for $21,000. In 2024, he placed fifth in a Calgary Stampede pool round in the barrel racing. Remi Roberts runs him now, and this year they placed fourth at an American Contender rodeo in Glen Rose, Texas. His $214,009 makes him the stallion’s leading money earner.
“Rock On Guys was just the coolest horse ever,” Pozzi Tonozzi said. “Really, really cool horse.”
The younger crops are coming on. A Guy With An Alibi, out of Famous At Six, has $20,392, most of it from the 2023 futurity season. A Guy With Kisses, a 2021 gelding Pozzi Tonozzi rides, was second in the Royal Crown Buckeye Futurity Open 2D this year for $7,209.
Pozzi-Tonozzi said his foals share a mind for the job.
“I will say they definitely hunt barrels,” she said. “They’re not going to be free where you’re like, ‘Oh gosh, are they going to turn or run away or anything like that?’ They’re definitely born to run the barrels. They go to a barrel for sure, and pretty easy. And they’ve been super easy to train. You can tell they’re barrel horses. You’re like, ‘Oh, you came out knowing you want to run the barrels.’”
Her husband said the same foals cross over to the roping pen without a reset.
“They’re just very versatile,” Garrett Tonozzi said. “They can go straight from the barrel pen right to roping on them, or vice versa. I can start them roping, and Brittany can go right to running barrels on them.”
“We have had no issues with any of them not being able to stand in the box and score like a rock and be great in the barrel pen, literally walk up to the mouth of the alleyway and take off,” Pozzi-Tonozzi said. “And they’ve been solid as a rock. All of them that we’ve done well on have been just super solid horses from the very get-go.”
“A lot of his babies are kind, and they’re easy,” she said. “For just the general public, they’re very trainable horses.”
They also tend to be big.
“They’re usually a bigger-style horse,” she said. “He does produce a strong, sturdy.”
A Guy With Proof has been bred by live cover, pasture breeding and frozen semen. Pozzi-Tonozzi said their vet puts him at eight to 10 mares per collection, and his frozen semen has performed well. Plus, he’s still sound.
“We’ve hand-bred him before and done some pasture breeding with him when he was younger, and he’s experienced it all, from being out in the pasture and breeding to being collected and hand-bred,” Garrett Tonozzi said. “He’s done it all. So I think he’d fit any situation.”
“He’s been a rock star in the breeding barn,” she said.
“In the breeding barn, he’s so versatile, and in the performance barn, he’s so versatile,” she said. “You can go so many different ways with this horse.”
The Breeders Challenge spot that sells with him is hard to get, and Pozzi Tonozzi said it gives a new program a head start. “That’s huge for somebody who’s wanting to start out,” she said.
The spot already has a track record with his foals. Per QData, his offspring have won $30,290 in Breeders Challenge events, $24,300 of it by Rock On Guys.
The Tonozzis are keeping a pipeline of his foals. Pozzi Tonozzi has two 3-year-olds she plans to run as 5-year-olds, and the program has kept 2-year-olds and yearlings by him.
“He was kind of our first real stallion to sell, and I think that all the hard work is done with him, and someone can go enjoy what we’ve created,” Pozzi Tonozzi said.
Pozzi Tonozzi said the sale is about fit, not quality.
“We now have the mares that I ran at the NFR, and their babies are coming of age,” Pozzi Tonozzi said. “And so that’s part of the reason that we’re like, OK, well, he’s getting thrown on the back burner because of our other stallions, and he needs to go to somebody’s program where he can shine, because he is still a very marketable horse and would be an asset to someone’s program that’s just starting out.”
ROCK ON GUYS: $214,009
A GUY WITH PROOF X VITAL ROCK X FIREWATERONTHEROCKS
Gelding, foaled 2017
Owner: Kristi Roberts
Career Highlights: Reserve at the 2020 BFA World Championships Juvenile Futurity, then $52,047 heading, including a fourth in the WSTR Finale average worth $21,000 and a second at Cheyenne Frontier Days. Remi Roberts now runs him in the youth and open.
A GUY WITH MAGNOLIAS: $68,533
A GUY WITH PROOF X STEELE MAGNOLIAS X MAGNOLIA BAR JET
Foaled 2016; registered stallion — confirm current status
Owner: Lake Mehalic
Career Highlights: Third in the 2019 BFA World Championships Juvenile Futurity; reserve in the Fizz Bomb Classic Futurity BCB incentive average in 2020.
MAGNOLIA MOON SHINE: $50,159
A GUY WITH PROOF X WILLOW WISP MOON X RUNNERELSE
Mare, foaled 2016
Owner: Rylie Rainns Ellis
Career Highlights: Won the 2020 Ruby Buckle Central Open 2D for $21,719.
A GUY WITH AN ALIBI: $20,392
A GUY WITH PROOF X FAMOUS AT SIX X DASH TA FAME
Gelding, foaled 2019
Owner: Kevin Parker
Career Highlights: Reserve in the second round of the 2023 Royal Crown Buckeye Futurity for $6,900.
MY GUYS GOT PROOF: $17,776
A GUY WITH PROOF X STREAKING IS EASY X DASHIN IS EASY
Gelding, foaled 2022
Owner: Relentless Remuda LLC
Career Highlights: Fourth in the 2026 ARHFA Old West Guthrie Open Heading Pre-Futurity for $10,388 under Trevor Brazile.
This Guyz Got Fire and Garrett Tonozzi | Jennings Photo courtesy Tonozzi
