Page 163 - January 2019

Lew retorted, “You’ve got to Doe, ‘cause I’ve already put up $500 on you, and if you don’t run, I’ll lose every penny of my money.”
Doe agreed to give it a try, so to the circus they went.
The starting line was to be the tent door. They were to run through the tent door to the open door on the other end, which was about 50 feet. The start was to be at the crack of a whip.
As Doe nestled himself down on Little Peggy B, from out of nowhere the man on the circus work elephant came up to watch the race just as the whip cracked.
Doe recalls, “My God, the race was on!! Little Peggy B was out like a cannon. She had never seen an elephant before and when the whipped cracked, for sure she thought the elephant had got her.
“It scared her so bad that when we crossed the finish line she was 15 feet on top and she went plum through the tent out into Main Street and sailed clear to Second Street with me holding on to her neck for dear life. I knew I was heading for a wreck as she ducked in and out of the cars that were whizzing by. I finally got her checked by jumping off right in the middle of the street and holding on to her reins.
“I got my money alright for winning the race, but I never was able to get that mare back around a tent of any kind again,” Doe concluded.
THE STEALING OF PALOMINO JOE
For many ears, Doe Bowman had a sign dis- played in Artesia which read, “If you can’t get
a horse race matched in Artesia, Doe Bowman will give you $500.”
Obviously, it got results.
Doe recalls being outrun by some boys from Amarillo with a little yellow mare. A few days afterwards, Doe was visiting with some of the boys at one of the local bars. They were hurrah- ing him for letting a ‘yeller horse’ get the best of him. One fellow popped off that there was sure no ‘yeller horse’ in the world that could outrun his horse. Doe called his hand right there on the spot, and bet him $1,000 that there was. They put their money up and the race was set for the following Sunday morning.
Doe ducked out to the nearest telephone and called the Amarillo boys to bring the yel- low mare, that he had a match for them. Doe nearly dropped the phone when they told him that their mare had been shipped to Kansas for some races and wouldn’t be back for ‘no telling
how long.’ “Mercy,” muttered Doe. He knew he had just blown a thousand bucks.
The quick-witted match racer wasn’t to be out-done though, for he remembered that he’d seen a two-year-old Palomino colt outrun some pretty good horses at Big Spring, Texas, just three weeks earlier. He didn’t know the colt, who owned it or nothing. This was Saturday and he had to have a ‘yeller horse’ by Sunday or lose his $1,000. He put in a frantic call to Pinky Rhoden, a bar owner in Texas, figuring that if anyone knew the horse, Pinky would. Sure enough, Doe was right. Pinky told him who owned the colt and where he lived, so Doe wasted not a second hooking onto his horse trailer and heading for Texas.
It was just before sundown when Doe and
a traveling companion found the man who owned the Palomino colt. The colt was running in a trap below the house and had come up to water with an old mare and colt while Doe was talking to the old man who owned him.
“Don’t want to loan my colt,” said the man. “Don’t want to lease him, neither,” he told Doe. He stubbornly shook his head as desperate Doe offered him $500 . . . cash . . . for the use of him, just for one day. “Nope,” was the man’s answer, explaining that he wanted to make a rope horse out of the colt . . . and that he didn’t want no ‘damn fool’ race horse.
Doe saw he was facing a losing battle, so being the old chuck line rider that he was, he conceded there was nothing he could do about the horse, but he could stay and have supper with the old man. After supper, some more friends of the old man came by and while they were deep-seated in visiting, Doe excused him- self and he and his friend left.
The darkness of the night and the cool evening air awakened Doe to the stark realism that he was facing the loss of $1,000 tomorrow morning if he didn’t come up with a speedy Palomino of some sort, fast. Like right now. He spotted the yellow colt, dimly, in the trap, so without giving it a second thought, he told his friend to take the car and trailer down below the house and wait for him by the draw. Doe slipped into the horse trap, caught the yellow colt which already had a halter on, led him to the fence, kicked a wire down, hurriedly loaded him into the trailer and down the road they headed for Artesia and tomorrow’s destiny.
Explained Doe several years later, “I figured the old man would be sleeping late the next
Doe won match races with Little Bonnie Bird in Mexico City, but lost to the legendary Pan Zareta (pictured) in Juarez for $5,000 at a half mile.
morning, what with all that company . . . and I’d bring him back Sunday night.”
Sunday afternoon found the match racers put- ting their horses in the gate. It was 1:00 p.m., and Doe was betting like mad with any and everyone who would give him a bet. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the sheriff’s car approaching . .
. and with him the man who owned the yellow colt. The sheriff had his deputy take the Texan over to inspect some more horses, then he came up to Doe and hissed, “Doe, get this damn race over with. Where can I make a bet?!”
Seconds later the gates sprang open, and the yellow colt outran the other horse by ten lengths.
As Doe returned with the Palomino, its owner came up and gave Doe the cussin’ of his life. He loaded the colt and headed back to Texas. Doe spent the night in jail, unable to justify what he had done. However, it did con- sole him some as he counted the $2,400 that he had won on the ‘yeller colt.’
The yellow horse’s name, if you are inter- ested, was Palomino Joe, one of the greats of Quarter Horse racing.
Dow Bowman, to be sure, could be
called one of the fathers of Quarter Horse racing. He is one of the existing bridges between the past and the present. As one friend put it recently, “Doe Bowman is kind of a pet around the race tracks everywhere. Anything happen to Doe, everyone gets concerned. He is a fixture, I guess. He is a typical match race man. He’s mild man- nered, humble and dedicated. He’s a dangerous old feller if you get him mad. But let me tell
you one thing, he treats everybody good. Doe Bowman has helped build a great industry.”
This was Doe’s first glimpse of jockey silks . . . and he declares they were the ‘purtiest’ things he’d ever seen a man or woman wear, but he resolutely declared that he’d have no part of dressing like that.
SPEEDHORSE, January 2019 159
LOOKING BACK - AN EXCERPT FROM SEPTEMBER 1969 ISSUE
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