RENFREW — All her life, Jackie Robinson has been training horses.

But she never trained a national champion — until now.

Robinson, who runs Jack MacDonald Stables in Renfrew, trained 2-year-old Anglo-Arabian stallion Mak My Day to a reserve national championship at the Arabian Sport Horse National Championships in Lexington, Ky., last month.

The horse is owned by Andy Miller, 83, of Allison Park, who has four horses at MacDonald Stables. Miller has owned horses for 50 years and had never earned a national champion.

"I've worked with Andy's horses here for 20 years now," Robinson said. "You could tell this was a special horse, that it had a chance to do well."

There were more than 650 horses at the Lexington show, but a horse can't compete in the four divisions of under-saddle, dressage, pleasure carriage driving and hunter-jumper until it's a 3-year-old.

Robinson said that 2-year-olds are judged on different parts of the body, including head and neck, shoulder, saddle position and hind quarters, movement (walk and trot) and expression.

"At the regional level, a 2-year-old can be shown in all divisions," Robinson said. "Mak My Day won the Region 14 championship. That region covers Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia.

"His performance there gave me the expectations I had at nationals."

Two judges score the 2-year-olds at nationals, a perfect score being 100. Mak My Day received a 76 and a 67, good enough to win its division.

Mak My Day is half-Arabian, half-thoroughbred. The Sport Horse Nationals are put on by the Arabian Horse Association.

"I breed horses and send them up to Jackie," Miller said. "We've had a good working relationship for a long time."

Robinson's family moved to Butler County in 1964. Her father, Jack MacDonald, ran the stable and gave riding lessons. When he died in 1980, Robinson took over the stables.

"I've got a stable of 16 horses here," she said. "We won't take Mak My Day to the Sport Horse Nationals next year because they're in Idaho. In 2011, we'll take him back to Kentucky as a 4-year-old.

"We'll put him in under-saddle and his training level will be dressage. We'll see how he comes along. We're all pretty excited about him."