Page 76 - March 2016

His Work Is His Play
Marty
Powers
has
followed
his
passion
to create
a life
he loves
by Diane Rice
Chances are, if you’ve been to a Quarter Horse sale, you’ve met Marty Powers. For 22 years, he’s operated MP Horses in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, along with his wife Shalia, since they blended their families five years later. Although the couple concentrates on sale prepping race stock, they also offer performance and ranch horses and Shalia’s love: barrel horses. In addition to horses, they also run a couple hundred head of cattle in Wynnewood and at the Sutherland family ranch in Oklahoma’s panhandle.
Marty’s not a guy who sits and watches. “He’s one of those guys who’s getting after it,” says his longtime friend and fellow sale-prep expert Royce Rogers of Weatherford, Texas, who has known Marty since Marty’s days with Bugs Alive In 75 at Shebester Stallion Station. “He has a big part in running the TQHA Sale at San Antonio. He goes early and makes sure things are ready, and that the horses are ready when they’re supposed to be. He’s a good overseer. And, he goes once or twice a year to the Louisiana sale and helps put that on.”
“He’s just a good guy,” affirms longtime friend and associate Roger Daly of Aubrey,
Texas. “He’s honest, he works hard to take care of his clients and his buyers, and he keeps showing up.”
Marty finds both joy and challenge in overseeing his operation for his clients’ benefit. “That’s the ultimate high,” he says, “ - getting yearlings straight from the pasture, having them 75 days, getting them to the sale and presenting them, and having them bring more than their owners expected.”
Starting a Business
Born in Enid in north-central Oklahoma, Marty grew up “farm and ranch raised,” as
he calls it, influenced by his grandfather, who bought and sold horses and cattle. Marty’s family roots branched into the life he’s crafted from the ground up.
He broke horses from high school into his 30s, and while doing that, began working for Roger Daly at the sales. Larry Graham, who at that time managed Shebester Stallion Station in Wynnewood where Bugs Alive In 75 stood, asked
Marty if he’d be interested in working for the ranch. “He encouraged me to come down, and he introduced me around,” Marty says. “They hired me as a hand and after a couple years they asked me if I could take care of the studs.” He did that for a number of years until Mr. Shebester asked Marty if he could manage the facility.
When Shebester closed the facility after Bugs Alive In 75 and his promising son, Go For Bugs - who ran second to Special Effort
in the 1981 All American Futurity - both died unexpectedly, Jerry Bailey, DVM, asked Marty to work at the Lazy E in Guthrie, Oklahoma. He started out in the yearling and training center, then assumed management duties when Dr. Bailey left for Florida. While Marty was there, the Lazy E obtained Pie In The Sky
and Special Effort, and also around that time, Strawfly Special and Special Show. Marty conditioned both of them, and Strawfly Special was his first to bring $100,000. “Another horse I had the privilege of working with at the Lazy E was Easy Jet,” Marty says.
Marty later worked off and on for Roger Daly and as a consultant for LJ Farms in Louisiana.
74 SPEEDHORSE, March 2016