1996, Magness-Blake downsized the horse operation and by 2014 owned about 15 horses. In 2004, she married Ernie Blake, an attorney and the mayor of Breckenridge, who also loves horses. The couple, along with two other people, are part of Thunder's ground crew at football games. The first horse trainer for JB Kobask as Thunder was Tom Hudson, the trainer for Magness Arabians at the time. The mascot's first rider was Angela Moore, then a 19-year-old assistant trainer to Hudson and a graduate of Colorado State University. Ann Judge, also known as Ann Judge-Wegener, became Thunder's rider in 1998. A year later, Judge took over as trainer as well as rider. She has been the trainer and rider of Thunder II for his entire career with the Broncos, and also does so for Thunder III. Judge grew up on an Arabian horse farm near West Lafayette, Indiana, and graduated from Purdue University in 1980 with a degree in English Education. She has ridden horses since she was five years old, was a participant in 4-H as a youth, and after finishing college became a horse trainer, first working in South Carolina and then in Colorado. Judge has been described by Broncos' management as an "accomplished equestrian". She has competed at the national level in Arabian and Pinto horse show competition. She is also a horse show judge who has adjudicated national and international events. Both Thunder II and Thunder III are stabled at Judge's farm in Bennett, Colorado. Horses Thunder Sr. JB Kobask, a purebred Arabian stallion foaled in 1983, became the first live horse mascot for the Broncos in 1993 after a successful horse show career. He was a son of the reserve U.S. National Champion Arabian Stallion GG Jabask, and a grandson of the Polish-bred Arabian *Bask, a multiple U.S. National Champion after his importation to the United States. JB Kobask also had a substantial amount of Crabbet breeding in his pedigree. The stallion was kicked by a mare in a 1997 breeding accident, resulting in a fracture that required two arthroscopic surgeries on his stifle, akin to knee surgery on a human, and was out of commission for six weeks; another two months was needed before he could gallop at full speed. Following his recovery, he resumed his mascot duties and appeared at Super Bowl XXXII in January 1998. He served as the Broncos mascot for 11