JUDY’ S JOTTINGS
By Judy Byers Killer, Alabama
The amateur riders in North Alabama have some outstanding horses that they take to every show in Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi. In fact. Sam Hall of Tuscumbia has shown his black stallion MISTER PIDDLEY at shows from Houston, Texas to Nashville, Tennessee. MISTER PIDDLEY was raised by Sam and was one of the first horses under saddle by the MERRY GO BOY stallion PIDDLEY. He was trained and shown by Bud Dunn as a 2 and 3 year old for many blue ribbon wins. Owner Sam Hall has been training and showing him successfully in amateur classes this year. MISTER PIDDLEY has recently been put with George Witt of Athens who says he is one of the best amateur mounts he has ridden.
Gail Jones of Florence raised MAUGRAY’ S BIG MAN from her MIDNIGHT SUNSET mare and the old show horse MAUGRAY’ S CRITERION. Gail broke and started training the colt with the help of the young trainer Billy Stanfield. Bud Dunn put the finishing touches on BIG MAN this year and Gail has shown him very well in amateur classes everywhere.
Jack Darnell and Raye Graham have several top horses that they show in the amateur classes. Jack trains their mounts at his barn in Huntsville and Raye drives from
Meridian, Mississippi every week to make the shows in Alabama and Tennessee. SUN’ S PAPER DOLL and Raye Graham are a combination that is competition wherever they go. They usually take away the blue ribbon as does Jack Darnell on the good gelding MERRY BOY’ S JACKPOT. Darnell has a HANDSHAKER horse that is a show winner and PHIL’ S GO BOY was always hard to beat.
Connie Carmichael is an enthusiastic young rider that has been showing several years in the pleasure classes. She has a big sorrel OLD GLORY gelding by the name of GLORY’ S CHANCE that has taken about 34 ribbons including 16 blues. She hopes to show in the amateur classes this year a BIG SHOT gelding, being trained for her by Bud Dunn, as soon as he is ready for competition. Another young rider moves up in the horse show business from pleasure horses to amateur classes.
EL CID, a black Walking Pony, is shown by Charlotte Neill of Tuscumbia. This striking pair are seen at many shows and have won a number of ribbons. They took fourth place at the exciting Belfast show but won the blue ribbon at the equally good Ardmore show. I understand that Charlotte keeps and trains her own pony at her home. Very good indeed for such a young rider.
We attend every show in North Alabama, North Mississippi and Middle Tennessee and however small the Belfast show may seem compared in attendance to Fayetteville it certainly compares in quality of horses and riders. Belfast, Tennessee held its 4th annual horse show ' Friday, July 31 and announced that it had the largest crowd in attendance and possibly the greatest number of horses. When a show has such outstanding trainers as Doug Wolaver, Jimmy Waddell, Steve Hill, Charles Martin, Don Pascal, Buddy Black, Wink Groover, Robert Burris, Harold Kennedy and Albert Rowland and others showing their horses it couldn’ t be anything but good.
You v / ill find the official list of winners elsewhere in the VOICE but I must tell you about the most interesting and most exciting classes of the show. Interesting to me would be the gelding class because of the stories behind the first and second place horses. HILL’ S PERFECTION, who was the World’ s Champion Gelding last year, was tied first with Steve Hill riding him again to the honors. PERFECTION’ S history has already been published and most people know of his life on the range before his show career began. Wink Groover was riding an 8 year old gelding, shown under the name of SUN DUST RAM BLER, that was considered an outlaw by owner Roy Davis. The horse was sent to Wink Groover during last winter in hopes that he could break him though he was 7 years old. Wink tried the horse but the fight was too much and after several mishaps and injuries told Davis he wouldn’ t ride him. Wink has a big friend, Junior Carver, who agreed to try his luck for a fee. The horse finally found his match and after considerable work decided he would rather be a top show horse than an outlaw so Wink has trained him. He took 2nd place but gave Steve and HILL’ S PERFECTION a real contest for his show ring debut. Next time it very well could be the other way around. Be on the lookout for SUN DUST RAMBLER and Win ¥ Groover.
The Walking Stallion class was the most exciting, of course, with TRIPLE THREAT, the reserve World’ s Champion, and MIGHTY GO BOY, a top contender, battling it out to the finish. TRIPLE THREAT was tied first with Harold Kennedy riding. MIGHTY GO BOY was reserve ridden by Albert Rowland but that decision too could be reversed at their next meeting. Jimmy Waddell made an excellent show on SHADOW’ S SHADRACK for third place. Kenny Burke and MAC K’ S STINGRAY were tied fourth with MIGHTY MISSILE K and Doug Wolaver fifth. Quite a good show and I’ m sorry if you had to miss it.
36 VOICE of The Tennessee Walking Horse