Page 55 - Speedhorse November, 2018

“It’s my passion; it’s what I love.”
CULTIVATING THE CROP
Now that they’re establishing Dunn Ranch in Oklahoma, Matt is in Wynnewood pretty much every week. “When breeding season starts, I plan to be there more than I’m here (in Missouri), but we’re probably about half and half right now,” he says. “We have a lot of clients who are bringing their mares and I gave them my word that I’d be hands-on. I want to make sure things go right.
I feel like the clients are going to be looking at our operation with a microscope and want to see results, and I want to see that we deliver.
“One of the most important things I’ve dis- cussed with my team — ranch manager Shawn Lindsey and our veterinarian, Dr. Michael Rogers — is customer service,” he adds.
“I want to do it right,” he continues. “I want to be fair to our clients. My goal is not to get them to spend as much as I can; it’s to get them to spend as little as they can — to get their mares in, get them bred, be successful and then come back next year and realize that, ‘Hey, I can save money and have fun and not go broke!’ That’s my goal and I will push, push, push and expect results from the team. And the clients who have commit- ted have expressed their confidence in us.”
One of those clients, Bill Price of Thackerville, Oklahoma, says he’ll be breeding a bunch of mares at Dunn Ranch this year. “Matt does everything the right way as far as I’m concerned,” says Bill. “He wants the best stock he can get and he takes good care of the horses. They’re just good people in general.”
REAPING THE HARVEST
The Dunns plan is to grow their
ranch and help the horse industry. “It sounds cliché, but we did this because
we’ve been in the business and we’ve raised a lot of babies and dealt with a lot of farms,” Matt says. “We’re trying to take the
best experiences we’ve had and put
them into practice at our ranch and also take the worst experiences we’ve had
and make sure that we don’t follow in
those footsteps.
“When it’s going good and you’re getting results, there’s nothing more fun,” Matt adds. “That’s the rush of success and results. That’s what we’re trying to incorporate through attention to detail.”
While establishing their Oklahoma ranch, they’ve remodeled the office, barns and house and expect the improvements to be completed by the end of November 2018. “They’ve really fixed it up,” says Bill.
In the meantime, they plan to spend lots of time going to watch their kids play ball while they’re still in school. “We work a lot,” Matt says. “Along with the ranch, I have CMI to run and fortunately, we have a lot of great people there who allow me to get away when I need to. The best thing is to be with the kids and spend time as a family. Everybody asks, ‘How do you guys do it all?’ but it’s just another day to us.”
Some of Dunn Ranch’s current runners include
Americas Dynasty qualifying to the 2018 Speedhorse Futurity-G3.
Apollitical Pence qualifying to the 2018 Ed Burke Million Futurity-G1.
Dynasty First Class qualifying to the 2018 Speedhorse Futurity-G3.
My Southern Dynasty qualifying to the 2017 Remington Park Oklahoma-Bred Futurity.
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