I thought I would take a minute and explain who we are and where we are headed. First off we are pretty normal people...at least as normal as you can be with horses in your blood. Joela and I have been around horses about as long as we have been around each other. While my story is not very significant, her's is and I think it would bear telling. It is as much an indication of who we are as anything else and you might be able to take something from it.
We are both in our mid forties (that is being generous in my instance) and have been married for pretty near twenty years. Might have been a little longer except it took me eleven years to convince her I was the one. So...I have known her for a while. Way back in the early seventies I first met her in high school. She was about horse crazy then as she is now. She had acquired her first horse by that time...a significant fact that will bear itself out.
Joela came from a broken home. Her mother was a hard worker and did a remarkable job with seven kids. Of course the economics didn't allow for extravagances like horses, but at fifteen Joela got it in her head that she was going to have one. Now one thing about Joela, once she gets something in her head you just don't stand in her way. There wasn't to much a kid could do to make enough money to buy a horse in those days, let alone feed and care for one. After a summer of babysitting she managed to pull together about $150. Not much capitol for an equine enthusiast to work with. We had a horse trader in our town who also ran a tack shop and bred a few mares. Big Larry had just entered into the Paint Horse industry and managed to have a few around to do a little dickering with. At fifteen Joela didn't amount to much of a physical presence, but none the less that fall after school had started, she marched into Larry's and announced that she was there to buy a horse. I reckon it took her all of an hour to count out her money for Big Larry, and once he figured how much she was good for, he more or less let her know that $150 would barely make the first installment on a free lunch. No one could ever accuse Larry of not having a soft spot for kids as his place was a popular hangout for a generation raised on Roy and Dale, so he offered a chance to own a paint breeding stock filly for the amount laying on the table. Course the fact that the filly didn't have a lick of chrome didn't even phase Joela...it was a horse and that's what counted. The feeding and care of the filly was to be worked off by Joela as Larry had a lot of work to do around the barns and in the store. The dye was struck for a relationship between Joela and horses which will more than likely out last me.
Joela would have settled for anything with four legs and a tail, and a two year old for a kid is not the slickest idea. She made it work. Larry had done well by her too. The filly was sired by a horse named Leo Tom Jr. by Leo Tom. So...her relationship to the immortal horse Leo had its roots from day one.
Joela broke the horse herself, and at first that was pretty obvious. But, with a lot of luck, neither one got too tore up, and by the time she was a junior in high school she had achieved a little success in 4H and the open horse shows. Then one day she got a look at a barrel race and it was "Katy bar the door!". By the time Joela had finished her high school career she had qualified for National High School Rodeo Finals, won the Minnesota State Fair in both the Barrel and Pole Stakes Races, and was on her way in the local rodeo scene. That mare, Leo's Tommy Sox, not only tried hard for her in the pen, she raised Joela. Her job didn't end there. Over the next ten years the mare taught two or three girls to race and was still headed to Nationals at twenty one years young. There was one more thing she did for Joela before she went on to a new home...she raised a filly named Jo Leo J Bar.
Jo Leo J Bar was a Paint sired by Mr. J Bar Okie by Mr. J Bar. Big Larry owned the stud and worked a trade with Joela if she would breed the mare. Larry would cross "Okie" on "Tom" for the first colt, and Joela would get the second. Larry's colt died as a yearling, and when Joela's filly came along...whew...there wasn't hardly enough horse there to count. She was so thin she could hide behind a jack pine. With a ton or two of Omalene and Clovite the little mare turned into something close to a horse, and at two Joela broke her. More or less by accident "Joey" turned out to be a double bred Leo as Mr. J Bar Okie's momma had been a daughter of Okie Leo. She had a brief career as a barrel horse and the one thing that sticks in my mind is that at three years old no one in these parts could whip her in a Cow Pony Race...something unique to the APHA...kind of like an old Lap and Tap deal from the days of old Joe Hancock. About this time I had run out of patience and more or less said either we get hitched or I'm going into the priesthood. So..Joela relented, we got married and started a family. For the next few years all we did was change three cornered pants By the time the caboose arrived (son number three) the old barrel bug started to get under Joela's skin again and in 1990 old Joey was rolled out of the pasture and put back to work. When all the dust had cleared she managed to win the APHA World Championship in Barrel Racing, won five other national titles, and was a money earner in the pro rodeo circuit.
1994 rolled around, and old Joey was winning her share. Then, at a rodeo in Milwaukee, she fell down in the first turn. Didn't look like much, it was at the end of the season, so we just stuck her out for the winter to let mother nature and father time take care of the bruises. Late in January Joela took her to a local indoor series and came home a little flustered. The mare was off...and she wanted to try the world show one more time. I had been drinking a cup of coffee at the table that very morning...reading a copy of the Western Horseman. It was never lost on me that Joey was a double bred Leo, and I happened to notice that the last son of his was standing in Idaho at Wade Zollingers place. He had placed this little bitty add in the darkest recesses of that magazine. "Well", I told Joela, "I'm not so sure about running all the way to Nevada just to get whipped for old times sake...I think she is done as a runner. Let's just breed her and turn her out."
"Who would you breed to?" she asked.
"The last son of Leo" I replied not anticipating her acceptance of my observation.
Well, she had that mare booked in ten minutes and hauled off for Idaho the next week. Lad Leo. Wade's horse, was an oldtimer for sure. Wade AI'd mares with him as he was 27 years old. After the first insemination and ensuing vet check Wade called and said the vet didn't think old Joe would settle...she had a tumor in her vaginal canal. Joela was heartbroken. Wade decided to give her another crack, AI'd her on the next cycle, and tuned her out on leased government range. August came and went, and in September he brought her in and had her checked. "By God, we have a colt in there!" he said to Joela that night on the phone. Joela began to hope for another painted filly...but I had other ideas. In thirty years I never owned a stallion, never really cared to as I had enough to do with customer horses. The notion of a painted grandson of Leo had an appeal though. So...I put my order in with the Lord and for once I got what I asked for.
The next spring Slide By Leo came along. He's given us a lot of joy. He is a competetive horse who should continue to have a successful career. More important he has provided a vehicle that reminds us of where we came from and inspires us to where we are going. His first colts are here and next spring the first foal crop will be started. I know Big Larry would be proud of Joela and "Sly"...and every time I look at him I am reminded of a fifteen year old girl who babysat, mucked stalls, and toted fifty pound bags of Omalene from the feed mill on the handle bars of her bike just to have a horse. I'm not sure that they make kids like that anymore...but just in case they do I reckon I'll have a horse or two around to grow them up right.
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HOW WE GOT HERE...
