Boon Docs Freckles pictures

Boon Docs Freckles Part 2

several years after acquiring leo lena socks we were raising some pretty good colts out of some really nice mares and bred several select outside mares.
  During that period I was approached by a friend that needed to sell a piece of property he owned that I always wanted and  as is usually the case with me I had more money tied up in expensive  horses than I had in the bank. at that point I made the executive decision to sell off some of the horses to purchase the property and build the new ranch.
  In that group of horses for sale was the stud horse. I agreed to sell out to some relatives of ours as long as I still had the option to breed to him any mares registered to me for free.
     A year later found us living on the new ranch and it was business as usual all horses all the time. Every now and then I would take in an outside horse to ride and one evening I got a phone call from a friend of mine that divided his time between his place in Nebraska and his place in new jersey.  he told me he had just hauled in a horse that he had acquired in a dispersal sale in Manitoba.  The horse was an unbroke 9 year old bay stud horse that was a grandson of zippo pat bars on the top and a grandson of poco Bueno on the bottom he asked me if I would be interested in getting him going for him. he informed me the horse was completely gentle once you had ahold of him but was very man shy. his intentions for him was to take him back to Nebraska and use him in the feed lot and rope some with him.I have always been a stud horse guy and I told him im a little overloaded at the moment you give  me a couple weeks ill get turned around a bit and have the time. about 2 weeks later I got a phone call from his daughter telling me her dad got a little antsy and decided to give it a shot himself and had a major wreck  he was in the hospital and the horse had shattered her dads leg and ankle could I please come get the horse this coming weekend.  I  agreed to come get him on Saturday morning .upon arrival at my friends place that morning I headed rite for the house to speak to my bed ridden buddy and get the scoop on what happened he told me his story and I was heading out to get the horse loaded he hollered hey mike that mare I bred to your horse last year foaled last night could you do me a favor and catch him up and iodine his naval I agreed . so off to the barn I went as I approached there was a narrow trap that led up to the barn where the mare was turned out when I opened the gate momma popped her head out the door and was coming for her breakfast all of a sudden it struck me here comes one of  the prettiest little newborn buckskin colts ive ever seen he trotted rite up to me no fear he looked like a mini stud horse just hours old I decided rite then I was gonna keep my eyes on this colt.
  4 months later I was bringing the big bay back to his owner for delivery. while I was there I decided to check in on that colt at 4 months old sure enough he was everything I thought he was going to be and at that moment I told my buddy that colt there whatever your plans are for him know that I want first rite of refusal to buy him so don't piss him away. and by the way the bay horse turned out to be a super nice kind of horse and was a cracker jack rope horse big stop lots of feel and incredibly gentle he had one hang up he got goofy if more than one person tried to fool with him while saddling up.That led me to believe at some point a bunch of cowboys tried to snub that big boy up ear him and saddle him. idiots....he needed to trust you and would give you all he had to give.
     The following spring my phone rang and its my buddy telling me he wanted to make a deal on that colt I said im on my way.i pulled up trailer hooked up and ready to roll.he needed some fillys started so we struck a deal with some cash and some breaking  work I could have the colt....DONE DEAL...I now have my replacement stud horse

The Breeders Story- Part 1, by Mike Kelly

I asked Mike to write something about how his program came into being. In other words, where did Mabel come from.  The following is part 1 of the story:

BOON DOCS FRECKLES,   mables sire is the culmination of a project that started back in the early 90s. after spending the better part of a life time making silk purses out of sows ears I had reached a point in my life where priorities of family life took us away from the horse show circuit. in order to keep my hand in it I had decided at that point it was time to take my horse passion in another direction that would enable us to be a stay at home horse family instead of a traveling circus.              
       The natural progression for me  was to start raising our own colts and getting them started as futurity prospects.
  We already had a pretty nice set of mares bred the rite way and id trained them all so knew exactly what we had
    The next step was to search the countryside looking for the kind of horse it takes to be a herd sire..i had always admired the horse COLONEL REY LENA and knew i would be looking for a horse bred that way. a herd sire for me anyway needs to come from a program where the herd sire stamps his get to look just like the last one uniformity in type was a big requirement and pretty from every angle.
      We came upon a stallion by the name of COMMANDER FRECKLES by COLONEL FRECKLES out of the mare MEMORY KING by COMMANDER KING  out of a daughter of MONSIUR JOE
after touring thru the ranch and looking at better than 50 head of colts that all looked like carbon copies of their sire i knew i found the rite spot . so i started going thru the papers and noticed most of his mares all went back to another horse i was always impressed by THERMO SOCK  who was by POWER RIO  by POWER COMMAND who is a full brother to KING COMMAND sire of COMMANDER KING
i really liked seeing this blood doubled up in a breeding horse so i settled on a really nice 2 year old buckskin stud horse LEO LENA SOCKS.

Introduction

About a year ago I met a guy named Mike Kelly from Waterford Works, NJ. Mike is an engineer by day and trains and breeds horses on the side.  We became friends by starting a Facebook group called Quarter Horse Tales: the Long & Short of It. As a group we arranged the purchase of Wimpy P-1's original registration papers for their donation to the AQHA Museum in Amarillo. My daughter even went over and rode with him while she was on a trip to Philadelphia, PA. While there she saw a foal by Mike's horse Boon Docs Freckles, named Lil Miss Maybelline (aka Mabel). At the time I thought she was cute and it wasnt until I saw a pic of her full sister that I really took notice. I studied her pedigree and noticed that on the topside she had Colonel Freckles, Boon Bar, Great Chance and John Berry. As well,  I'd seen Mike ride some nice horses by him and really liked the look of Boon Docs Freckles. On the bottom side she was out of an own daughter of Crockett Gay Bar, a good son of Gay Bar King, and went back to King many times on the bottom side. Here is a link to her pedigree: http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/lil+miss+maybelline

So, based on all that information I knew I had to have Mabel for myself and 13 year old daughter Megan for us to show at the Stock Horse Shows down here in Texas. The idea with this blog is to document her progress and training with words, pictures and video. I've trained and shown lots of horses but I've never documented the process and thought this would be something that might help others as to what a process training and developing a horse is really like and share with our friends. Besides, we are regular people with jobs and other commitments and we do not have a fancy arena and facility that makes this process challenging much like most people that have horses and might consider taking something like this on as a possible endeavor.

There will be guest blogs from Megan and her breeder, Mike Kelly, from time to time to add background and add some flavor to this blog. I hope you enjoy following our journey....