Suzi works for Luby’s Corporation in the Main Office and hauls to WPRA rodeos every weekend. I come from a barrel racing family. My sister Donna had been running barrels for 14 years before I started. I have been around horses all my life. My most favorite memory of horses comes from a renegade mare that no one else could handle.
At age ten I was the only one she would let mess with her. That gave me the idea that I had a gift to get along with horses that other people couldn’t handle.The mare coliced and died 3 months after she foaled. That colt was the first horse I did everything with from the ground up.
At 15 I got my first car and moved away from horses. I was in all forms of drag racing (boats, motor cycles and cars). I meet Suzi a few years later, got married then meet Bud Jones who became like a dad to me. Bud pulled me back into the horse industry and Suzi followed suit. I worked under all types of trainers; Reiners, Western Pleasure, John Lyons horse handlers, Hunter Jumpers, even rode racehorses, read every book, watched every video, went to clinics and worked with farriers because I believe you have to understand every aspect of a horse. Because of my background I have had a 75% success rate with problem horses.I have rehabilitated racehorses and barrel horses, even the horse my wife is rodeoing on is rehabilitated barrel horse I really like.I break racehorses and barrel horses for other people, starting them for the first 3 months then someone else takes them on from that point. I also take stallions and a lot of people don’t like stallions.
My most favorite win was the 98 Elite Derby in Glen Rose, TX. I got the mare 7 days before the Derby and it was the first competitive run at a BFA event. She had been giving her owner a lot of trouble and I turned her around. They ended up selling her as soon as we got home from the Derby.
In ‘99’ I won the 4th of July Shootout at Stockdale, TX. on a little bay horse called “Tadpole”, he was a gift from Bud Jones. I also had a Beduino mare that I placed 6th on at the Super Series at the Rose Palace. Another horse I really liked was a stud that I rode this year for 3 months and placed 10th in the SALE Futurity.
I would really like to train a Futurity/Derby Champion that would go on to be a WPRA horse for my wife and ultimately become an NFR winner. I believe barrel horses should run with their heart and soul not out of fear and intimidation”.