Page 90 - January 2017

“I was the horse LOVER,” she says. “Walt was the horse LIKER. He said he was glad they weren’t dog-size because I’d have had them in the house!”
THEIR EMERGING OPERATION
Carolyn received her first Paint horse at age 5, which explains the tender place the breed
has held in her heart. She still rides a Paint for her ranch work at home and she worked with the Michigan legislature to include Paints in pari-mutuel racing. “It was really important to me that when Mt. Pleasant Meadows closed and racing went to Detroit, the Paints were included,” she says. But when Walt and Carolyn started breeding and racing, they started out with Quarter Horses.
Carolyn had an AQHA pleasure mare named Princess Perky whom she used on the ranch
and who produced several foals that did well
in pleasure futurities. One of that mare’s foals, Moxi (Silky Delmark-Princess Perky, Chipper’s Star), was a really good halter mare. “She was beautiful, with wonderful conformation, and even placed in the big futurities in Michigan,” says Carolyn. “She had a wonderful disposition and her babies also had that. But, she was so slow. Instead of timing her, you dated her!”
When someone suggested racing to
Carolyn and Walt, Carolyn bred Moxi to the Thoroughbred Treasury Secretary. “If you can imagine this very slow mare being bred to a son of Secretariat — it was a miracle that he ran!” she says. Foaled in 1986, that foal was Te Bill 123 (for treasury bill) and literally put the Bays on the map in racing: The Bays named their racing operation after him.
“Te Bill wasn’t the fastest wheel, but at least he won a race and was competitive here in Michigan,” Carolyn says. “When he retired,
we trained him to do dressage and he was good enough to place in that and he also had the skill to jump. He was so well behaved. A lady bought him and continued on with him.”
The “123” suffix that distinguishes horses bred by T. Bill Stables comes from a fond family tradition. When Carolyn’s mom and dad fell in love as high schoolers, her grandparents didn’t approve of the romance. So, they developed a code to communicate without speaking: “1-2-3” meant “I love you.” They’d write notes back and forth using the code and if they saw each other, they’d hold up three fingers or say “1-2-3.” Obviously, the story had a happy ending. The couple eloped, but didn’t tell their
parents for months. When they did, Carolyn’s grandparents accepted her dad, and her parents were married until Carolyn’s dad passed away at age 81. The code remained in the family. “We all use it on our letters or as we say goodbye on
the phone,” she says. “Yes, my grandsons say ‘1- 2-3, Grandma!’ when they hang up the phone or write a note or letter. And Walt never left the house without tooting the car horn three times.” THE CONLEY CONNECTION
Always an independent woman who
made nearly all of the T. Bill Stables breeding decisions, Carolyn says she kept a personal stash and when her trainer, Jay Hall of Midland, Michigan, advised her to get some horses with stronger racing bloodlines, she had accumulated $12,500 as seed money. She went to see
Dr. Walter and Barbara Conley in Remus, Michigan. “I’d heard he developed his breeding program over 40 years,” Carolyn says. “He had really good mares and a good stallion.”
This resulted in a close friendship between the Conleys and the Bays, and when Dr. Conley and then Barbara contracted cancer and dispersed their herd, they gave some of their horses to Carolyn so they could be sure the animals had
a good home for the rest of their lives. “I was nervous and scared when we took them because Dr. Conley was like a legend and developed
this breeding program, and here I was with it. I thought, I hope I don’t ruin it!” she says.
Among the Conley mares Carolyn ended up with were retired stakes winner Lou Etta Deck (Chick’s Etta Deck-Lou Deck, Top Deck); stakes winner Tiny Lou Etta (Tiny’s Gay-Lou Etta Deck, Chick’s Etta Deck); stakes winner Love Ya Lucy (Last Hurrah-Lou Etta Deck, Chick’s Etta Deck); stakes placed To Hot To Hug (Six Fols- Tiny Lou Etta, Tiny’s Gay); and Very Striking (Striking Bunny-Lou Etta Deck, Chick’s Etta Deck), a graded stakes winner who ended up as Horse of the Year in Michigan.
A MULTIPLE WORLD CHAMPION PRODUCER
Carolyn bred To Hot To Hug to Dash For Cash son Takin On The Cash, producing T. Bill Stables’ good broodmare Hot Cash 123 in 2002.
After Hot Cash 123’s brief stint on the track, Carolyn bred her to the Paint stallion Judys Lineage in 2006, resulting in I Do One Two Three, who became 2010 World Champion Racing Paint Horse as a 3 year old.
The following year, Hot Cash 123 produced Oak Tree Special colt Cold Cash 123, who became a multiple graded stakes winner. The gelding ranked fourth by earnings and seventh by wins that year, being named AQHA World Champion, Champion 3 Year Old and Champion-3-Year-Old Gelding.
He finished as the fastest qualifier to the All
88 SPEEDHORSE, January 2017
Hot Cash 123 and foal
©Dustin Orana Photo
AQHA World Champion Cold Cash 123
©Dustin Orana Photo
APHA World Champion I Do One Two Three