Page 87 - June 2017

walk across the stage graduating from college with a Ph.D.! It was wonderful.”
Although people tend to associate the “Yin” in Eye Yin You’s name with the Chinese symbol denoting the dark and feminine, it is actually part of the name of an African tribe that Betty read about in National Geographic while she waited for Dee at the doctor’s office one day. “The Yin in this tribe’s name stood for love,” Betty explains, “and I thought that was kind of neat so I wrote
it down. Eye Love You. And he did. He gave us a lot of love and a lot of good times.
“We had to take him out of race training after his trial race in the All American Futurity,” she continued. “He’d been sick with a respiratory virus in his trials but was running a great race. We thought we were going to win the trial and then he swallowed his tongue and went down — he literally passed out. He was just laying on the track and by the time we got to the jockeys’ room and his jockey, Jacky Martin, was coming back, Jacky said, ‘He’s a dead horse.’ If you don’t think that doesn’t knock the air out of you! But anyway, we were on our way to the barn and looked up and this ‘dead’ horse was standing up in the horse ambulance! The veterinarian worked on him four solid hours getting him back to the point where he was breathing normally and his vitals were back to normal. About two weeks later, a trailer brought him home. He stood the following year at stud, and then we had some people from Brazil come through the farm. Eye Yin You was turned out in his pen and they asked us what we wanted for him. We told them we’d never thought about selling him, but the man said, ‘Well, you need to because I want to buy him.’ So since March 2011, he stands in Brazil.
“He was our first big horse — oh, Lord —
t r o p h i e s a n d g o o d m o n e y. W h a t w a s e v e n m o r e thrilling, though, was in the win circle for the futurity, there were so many people they couldn’t fit them all in the win picture! There were 101 that we could count and several said they wouldn’t let them in because there was nowhere to stand. And the derby the next year was the same deal. We had so many people there rooting for us
that he had no choice but to win!”
The Rapers bred and raised their first stakes winner
Eye Yin You, the only
horse to win the Remington Park Futurity and Remington Park Derby.
g there — well, we didn’t do anything; we gave them a place to sleep and food. Whatever we had was theirs. And 18 years later, they say that’s what was important: that they had friends they could turn to. And that’s what makes you proud.
“They called me [this year on that same day] and asked if I remembered what we were doing 18 years ago, and I said, ‘Yes, we were trying to find a place for everybody to sleep.’ They’d lost all of their clothes, everything. None of us were the same size but I told her, ‘Maybe you can fit into these boxers to sleep in,’ and Debbie laughed and said, ‘No, I believe I’ll run to WalMart and buy some underclothes.’ You laugh at stuff like that because you made it! And you did it all together and it didn’t cost anything. We made it work, and for them to still be our friends and be thankful for that little bit of nothing, and for us to have watched that baby grow from a 2 month old to 18 years of age — we’ll go to her graduation here at the end of the month — it’s just wonderful.”
Their First Stakes Winner
In 2001, the Rapers bred their Bully Bullion mare Take After Me to Mr Eye Opener. The resulting colt, Eye Yin You, became their first stakes winner.
“He is the only horse that ever won the Remington Futurity and then came back and won the Remington Derby,” says Betty. “We brought him into the world and raised him, and then for him to run like that was just amazing! It was like watching your son or your daughter
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E E y y e e Y Y i i n n Y Yo o u u w w i i n n s s t t h h e e 2 2 0 0 0 0 4 4 R R e e m m i i n n g g t t o o n n P P a a r r k k F F u u t t u u r r i i t t y y. .
E E y y e e Y Y i i n n Y Y o o u u w w i i n n s s t t h h e e 2 2 0 0 0 0 5 5 R R e e m m i i n n g g t t o o n n P P a a r r k k D D e e r r b b y y . .
SPEEDHORSE, June 2017 85
Dee and Betty have formed and maintained many friendships throughout the years, including with OQHRA Executive Director Debbie Schauf and her family with whom they have a special bond.