Carla Jones is one of those people.

Aside from working as a mechanical engineer at Gamewell Mechanical, she raises and shows paint horses, recognized worldwide as one of the most beautiful breeds.

“It’s a full-time job keeping them up,” she says. “You have to love it.”

At the American Paint Horse Association World Championship in July, Carla made a huge showing with two of her horses winning world champion distinctions and one winning third place. The championship, held in Fort Worth, Texas, draws visitors from all over the world.

One of her favorites, “A Heathen Design,” captured the title of World Champion 3-year- old Mare in the open competition, defeating 22 other entries. (Open competition means that the horse is shown by a professional trainer.) “A Heathen Design” is a three-time world champion that Carla Jones and her family purchased last year.

Another one of Jones’ beauties, “Starletta Verse,” beat out nine other entries to win the title of World Champion Broodmare. A third horse, “Sensational I Am,” took home the third place award for Aged Mares.

The APHAWorld Show is the Super Bowl of paint horse shows. People come from all over the world to show off their painted beauties. Jones competes in the halter competition, in which the horse is led in, jogged and set up for judging. There are other competitions, jumping, roping, barrel racing; the usual horse show features.

For someone who has only been showing horses for four years, Jones certainly has an impressive record. She has competed in the amateur competition at the APHA World Show for the past two years, winning several awards. She was recently featured in a segment called “Focus on the Amateur” in The Equine Chronicle, the People magazine of paint and quarter horse owners.

Jones gives the horses’ trainer Buddy Laney of Cherryville most of the credit. Getting the horses ready for showing takes a lot of time and effort, which Jones often can’t provide. “I would never be able to do all of that,” she says. “I don’t know what we would do without him.”

Laney has a history of producing winners.

Jones got into the hobby after she began taking riding lessons in junior high school. It was her calling. “I couldn’t get out of it. It’s kind of addictive.”

When she started college at North Carolina State, her father decided to buy a farm on High Rock Lake, and the family bought their first horse, a quarter horse named “Sonny.” A few months later, she bought her first paint, and in 1997, she fell in love with and bought “Sensational IAm.” She lovingly calls the horse “Winona.”

The farm, Fox Hollow, is a beautiful 180-acre place in East Rowan. The entire family lives there; mother and father Larry and Kay Jones, Carla’s brother Brian, and grandparents Mr. and Mrs. Ray Grubb.

There are 16 horses on the farm, with plans for more. In fact, at the APHA show, the Joneses bought “Clue Katie In,” a World Champion 2-year Old Breeding Stock Mare.

Paint horses are a breed marked by their distinctive coats, with combinations of many different colors and patterns. The markings are different on every horse.

People often interchange the names “pinto” and “paint” when they refer to these horses. In the 1800s, Americans would overhear the Spanish calling the horses “caballos pintos” which translates to “painted horses.” The name stuck — for awhile.

But when the AmericanPaint Horse Association was created in 1940, Paints and Pintos were separated in name. The Pinto Horse Association registers all horses that meet the minimum color requirement, but the APHA only registers those whose parents were registered paint horses.

A horse cannot be registered as a paint unless it has at least one 2-inch long white spot above its knees and behind the line from its ear to jaw. “You hope for that 2- inch spot or it isn’t a paint, it’s a broodmare,” Jones says. Broodmares are used as breeding stock because of the high chance that their children will be paints.

Although raising the horses is mainly Jones’ venture, the whole family pitches in. “It’s pretty much a family thing, we all enjoy it,” she says.

She hopes to make a business out of raising horses, breeding paints and selling them. “We hope that it’ll turn into that. I’d love this to be my full-time job.”

The problem? It takes a long, long time.

“You’ve got to have 20 to 30 broodmares that are producing every year.”

Right now they have five.

Breeding can be a very lucrative business. The average paint sells for around $100,000. The Joneses were offered $150,000 for “Starletta Verse,” the champion broodmare. They didn’t accept.

“We just thought we could get more from her as a breeding horse,” Jones says. “I love the babies. We’ve raised three babies so far.”

Jones admits that her own horses are very spoiled. They’re never ridden, they’re rarely taken out to the pasture … they even have huge fans in their stalls to keep them cool and comfortable.

“As long as they’re happy, I’m happy!” she laughs.