American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame. Their Accomplishments Represent AQHA from Racing to Ranching
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≤ L I F E S HALL OF T Y L E FAME S Inductees represent the best of AQHA. SEVEN HORSES AND FIVE MEN JOIN THE American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame. Their accomplishments represent AQHA from racing to ranching. Their legacies live on in the lives of their Soffspring and their children and in the AQHA they leave better for having taken part in it. THE AMERICAN QUARTER HORSE JOURNAL MARCH 2008 43 LYNX MELODY LARRY REEDER WASN’T QUITE SURE WHAT WAS WRONG WITH 3- year-old filly Lynx Melody. She was getting a belly on her and the Stephenville, Texas, cutting horse trainer thought it might be worms. However, as her belly continued to grow, he began to suspect she was in foal. He was right. Tulia, Texas, rancher Billy Cogdell purchased the filly as a 2-year-old at the 1977 National Cutting Horse Association Futurity Sale. She was barely 13 hands, and no one wanted her because of her size. However, Cogdell and Reeder both liked the way she worked in the demonstration before the sale. “I knew she was the horse I wanted to select,” Reeder told Helena Biasatti in a February 1979 Quarter Horse Journal story. “You don’t measure a horse’s ability by the height of her withers.” The pregnancy turned out to be a surprise bonus of the purchase. The filly had unbeknownst to anyone, bred with Doc’s Stormy Leo while she was in training as a 2-year-old. Two weeks before she foaled, Reeder stopped riding her. A week after the bay colt was born on March 1, 1978, Reeder put Docs Accident on a Shetland mare and continued training “Melody.” In December 1978, Reeder took Melody to the NCHA Futurity. There, the spectators nicknamed the 13.2-hand mare “Little Bitty” and joked at the sight of 6-foot, 2-inch Reeder on her. His stirrups hit the sand several times when showing the mare. However, after Melody displayed her catlike, cowy moves in the pen, the joking soon ceased. “This mare displays the fact that there’s more to cutting “Whatever you bred her to, we were awful fortunate that than size,” one spectator told Helena in the February 1979 most of them wanted to cut and were pretty consistent,” said Journal story. “She might be little, but she was big enough to Cogdell’s son, Dick. “They all had her heart and skill, but they get the job done.” also seemed to have her quirkiness, too.” Melody marked a 221.5 to win the open title and give When Melody was in training, he said Reeder always had to Reeder and Cogdell their first Futurity win. She went on to keep her in the same stall and haul her in the same partition win the 1979 Pacific Coast Maturity and the 1979 NCHA in the trailer. Derby and was named the 1980 NCHA World Champion “Or she would get antsy,” Dick Cogdell said. “She liked rou- mare. By the time she retired, she had lifetime earnings of tine, and in her later years, when she lived up at the vet’s, they $113,681. would feed her inside and she’d pull it out of the feeder and Melody’s 1986 filly, Shakin Cee by Colonel Freckles earned take it outside in the run to eat it. And she’d also have to have $14,054. But her first foal by Mr Peponita Flo would shake the same horses on each side of her in the barn.” up the cutting world. The 1994 bay mare proved like her When Melody lived on the Tulia ranch, Billy Cogdell built granddam, Melody, that being small in stature was no her a special 40-acre turnout and named it Melody’s Meadow. hindrance in the cutting pen. With rider Sandy Bonelli, “She would be out there, and it was always amazing the Shakin Flo was the non-pro champion at the 1997 NCHA presence she had. She would just be out there in that pasture Futurity, the 1998 NCHA Super Stakes, 1999 NCHA Super and look like she was always posing for a picture,” Dick Stakes Classic, and 2000 NCHA Classic/Challenge. Shakin Flo Cogdell recalled. was the 1998 NCHA Derby champion, the 1999 NCHA Dick Cogdell said he halter-broke most of Melody’s foals. Classic/Challenge champion and the 1998 open NCHA “I think I got bit by every one of those colts when I was Horse of the Year. halter breaking,” he said with a laugh. “They weren’t mean or After 1990 though, Melody returned to the Texas Panhandle. hard to get along with, they just had little attitudes about them.” Melody produced two fillies by Peppys Boy 895 in 1996: Melody produced 16 foals with NCHA lifetime earnings of Martina Cee and Shania Cee. It was Shania Cee who would go $1,101,700 and died quietly in September 2004. on to make history. In 1999, trainer Shannon Hall rode the “She was so special and so good to our family,” Dick Cogdell palomino mare to the NCHA Futurity championship. The win said. “She’s definitely one you always hear about: one good put Melody in the record books as the only mare to win an wife, one good dog and one good horse. And she was that good NCHA Futurity title and have a foal do the same thing. one. We were awfully blessed to have her.” 46 MARCH 2008 THE AMERICAN QUARTER HORSE JOURNAL LIGHTNING BAR WHEN ART POLLARD FIRST SAW THE SORREL COLT, THE TUCSON, Arizona, breeder thought maybe he should put the foal down. “When he was born, I was green as grass, and he was very buck-kneed,” Pollard told Jane Pattie of Quarter Racing World in September 1973. “I was entertaining the thought of doing away with him when he was about 5 days old. My friend, Dink Parker came by, and I told him, ‘Dink, I’ve got a crooked-legged colt, and I guess I ought to just knock him in the head.’” Parker suggested the two take a look at the foal. “There he stood, with his little bucked knees. Dink just looked at me and shook his head. ‘Ain’t you ever gonna learn nothing? That colt’s just what you’re looking for. You only worry if a colt’s calf-kneed with his knees bent the other way. Hell, in two or three weeks, he’ll be straight as a string!’ And of course, he was.” If Pollard had followed his first inclination, the American Quarter Horse industry would be quite different today for horse he used. He replied, ‘The stud.’” the foal was Lightning Bar, sire of the legendary Doc Bar. In 1955, Lightning Bar only bred 11 outside mares. One Pollard had bought Lightning Bar’s dam, Della P, from of those mares was Dandy Doll, the dam of Doc Bar. Parker with the stipulation that she be bred to the He was to be a horse that could do it all, but Doc Bar was Thoroughbred Three Bars. a dismal failure as a runner and earned only $95 in four starts, In 1950, a filly named Bardella was foaled. In her first lighting the board only once. However, the sorrel stallion racing season at Rillito, she won $5,100 and was the co- was a champion in the halter arena. He won his class 12 times champion quarter running 2-year-old filly in 1952 with Chi- and was given the title grand champion 10 of those. His off- cado V and the champion quarter running 3-year-old filly spring excelled in the performance arena. in 1953. Out of her 51 starts, she had 19 firsts, 11 seconds Although Lightning Bar is most known for Doc Bar, he and eight thirds and earnings of $36,822. did sire several other outstanding Quarter Horses. Pollard returned Della P to Three Bars in 1950 in the Fantasy and Hula Baby, both 1955 mares, were Lightning hopes of getting another horse like Bardella. What he got Bar’s first AAA runners. Pana Bar, a 1956 stallion, was the was Lightning Bar. co-champion quarter running 2-year-old colt in 1958 and The sorrel stallion would never match his sister’s race went on to become a AAA AQHA Champion and earn a record. Lightning Bar only raced in 1953 as a 2-year-old. Superior in halter. Bouts of pneumonia, distemper, cut coronet bands and an Another 1956 stallion, Cactus Comet, earned a AAA rating injured knee hampered the young horse. on the track and his AQHA Championship, like his sire. He Pollard retired the 3-year-old Lightning Bar from racing and would go on to sire several AQHA Champions. in two years of showing, he earned a grand championship, a Light Bar was the 1960 co-champion quarter running 3- reserve championship, 18 halter points and an AQHA year-old colt, while 1958 stallion Lightning Rey went on to Championship. become an AQHA Supreme Champion and earn a Superior “Lightning Bar had the best hip and back leg that I have in halter. ever seen before or since,” Pollard told Gala Nettles in a Lightning Bar daughter Glamour Bars, the dam of halter November 1995 Quarter Horse Journal story. “He was a sight sire Impressive, was born in 1960. to see. I think in halter, he was only beaten one time.” In 1960, Pollard decided to move his ranch from Tucson In 1954, Pollard stood Lightning Bar for a fee of $250.