Page 46 - Speedhorse May 2019

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2018 World Champion, Champion Aged Horse & Champion Aged Gelding Bodacious Eagle returning under Ricky Ramirez after qualifying to the All American Futurity-G1.
Racing World Champion Bodacious Eagle has met success on the first steps into
his next career. Or careers.
by Richard Chamberlain
It’s the difference of opinion, so goes the old saying, that makes horse racing. The same can be said for almost any other aspect of the horse
world, be it rodeo, showing, ranching, the best trail to take through the woods, whatever.
There’s one opinion on which virtually all horsemen agree: A great horse always – always – has a great mind.
Bodacious Eagle, the reigning World Champion racing American Quarter Horse, has all the makings of an even greater horse.
“He’s smart, he’s intelligent,” says owner Johnny Trotter, the former AQHA President who ranches in Texas and New Mexico, and owns Bar-G Feedyard at Hereford, Texas. Trotter is the AQHA Champion Owner for 2018, when he also raced One Sweet Racy ($388,523), a 4-year-old daughter of One Sweet Jess that ended the season as Champion Aged Mare. “Bodacious Eagle has a great mind and that’s one of the things that makes him a great horse.”
Bodacious Eagle was trained in 2018 by Mike Joiner and his son Justin to win the Champion of Champions-G1 and All American Gold Cup-G1 while compiling a record of 7-3(3)-2(2)-2(1) and earnings of $453,600. The sorrel gelding has a life- time record of 33-14(8)-7(4)-3(2) and $1,297,536.
“Bodacious Eagle earned his million the hard way,” Trotter says. “He didn’t win the All American (Futurity). The short story is, he’s been down that track 33 times against the toughest in the world every time he’s gone. He took it one step at a time.”
Most of those steps were taken in 22 stakes,
all but one of which was graded and 16 of those at the Grade 1 level. Broke to saddle and conditioned as a freshman on the track by the father-son team of Blane and Trey Wood, Bodacious Eagle in Grade 1 stakes ran third in the Ruidoso Futurity, finished fourth in the Rainbow Futurity, and
was fifth in JM Miracle’s All American Futurity, all that before shipping to California, where
44 SPEEDHORSE, May 2019