Page 34 - August 2015

by Diane Rice ,
Kirk Goodfellow Forged a Life Around His Passions
Kirk Goodfellow’s breeding and racing resume includes a Who’s Who of broodmares, stallions and runners: Dashing Phoebe, Pritzi Dash, Catchmeinyourdreams, Furyofthewind, Heartswideopen and Tempting Destiny to name a few.
Yet, as much as he enjoys his horses’ successes, he also appreciates the seemingly small blessings he enjoys every day. “Last year I was having a
lot of health problems — I took a pretty severe kick to the head that caused some serious vision problems,” says 60-year-old Kirk. “As part of my recovery, my wife, Barbara, and I went on a little vacation for 10 days to Seal Beach in California. We just relaxed and did nothing. At the end, we came home and I’d missed my dogs
and my horses and my ranch. I
looked out the window and
there was a young bald eagle
out in the pasture, munching
on a morsel he’d found, and
an older eagle
came down and took it away from him. I told my wife, ‘Every day we’re out here with God’s most beautiful creatures and the privilege of getting to do that is what I like most about my life.’ Every single day, I get to be out there just living that life.”
HIS EARLIER DAYS
Born in Spokane, Washington, Kirk moved to a farm in Loveland, Colorado, as a child. In his mid to late teens, he had a saddle horse and rodeoed a bit. At age 18, he moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, where he made his living in real estate and property rentals. It was there that he met his longtime friend Stuart Sprouse, who sold him his first racehorse in 1979.
“I hooked him up with a horse I’d started in the chariots,” says Stu, formerly an
owner, trainer and longtime president of both the Utah Quarter Horse Association and Utah Racing
Association.
“I started with a $1,200 horse
and I campaigned her in the chariots,” Kirk says. “I flat tracked her after that. She did okay — she qualified for a futurity and as soon as she did that, I was addicted!”
But life stepped in and Kirk stepped out of the horse
business while he raised his family, partly as a
single dad.
In 1990, Kirk met Barbara, now his wife, through mutual friends. “She was living in California, and I was living in Salt Lake City,” he says. “I had three children; she had four. We dated long-distance for a while and after we got married in 1990, she moved her clan out to Utah. We had our youngest daughter in 1994.”
In the mid-1990s as the older kids started reaching maturity, Kirk re-entered
horse racing on a small scale. By the late ‘90s, spread thin with their family, their real estate business and their horse interests, Barbara asked Kirk what he really wanted to do with his life. He thought back to his youth on that small Colorado farm and realized he’d always wanted that lifestyle. “We started to put more thought into it and decided to move to Texas,” he says. In 1999 they moved to Nacogdoches and started Dreams Come True Ranch.
STANDOUT HORSES
Kirk bought the broodmare Lizas Mystique (White Tie – Elans Special,
Special Effort) in 1998, in foal with what would become his first stakes winner, Catchmeinyourdreams, by Dash For Cash son Pritzi Dash.
“He was born in Utah, but we moved to Texas by the time he was a yearling,” Kirk says. “We sent him back to Lee Giles to train. His first stakes win was the California Challenge Championship in 2003 at Los Alamitos. The
...asmuchasheenjoyshis horses’ successes, he also appreciates the seemingly small blessings he enjoys every day.
32 SPEEDHORSE, August 2015