Page 40 - December 2016

Patience, Prudence, Perseverance And Perspiration by Diane Rice
These four qualities — and a healthy dose of luck — helped
Don & Kathy Meneely rise to the upper echelon of the Quarter Horse race industry
Like many young girls, Kathy Rees grew
up enamored with horses. Born and raised in Washington state’s Spokane Valley, she got her first horse, Gemini (aka Gem), when she was in fifth grade. “My family wasn’t into horses at all — just me,” she reveals. “I was lucky to get him, and he and I went through a lot.
“We tried everything!” she continues. “We did everything: barrels, poles... poor old Gem: If there was jumping on TV, we had to go try jumping. We finally hit our niche when it got down to gymkhanas. We won a couple of high- point saddles and qualified to go to State in several events. It was so fun!”
Kathy’s husband, Don Meneely, also an eastern Washington native, admits that Kathy is the “horseman brains” in the family. “I met her while we were students at Washington State University and when I spent time with her in
the summer, we were constantly going to horse things,” he says. “Eventually, she said, ‘If you’re marrying me, you’re marrying my horse!’ So I got one and was able to ride, but I was in no way a horseman.”
“We did that three, four, maybe five years — we traveled around the state and met a lot of really nice, good people in the gymkhanas,” he adds. But where Kathy’s inner voice spoke horses, Don’s spoke numbers. The now-retired math teacher and basketball coach couldn’t see any tax deductions in what they were doing, so he suggested they buy a racehorse.
Kathy said, “Okay! That sounds good!”
Setting Up Home Base
That was in the 1970s. By the early 1980s they’d lived in several small Washington towns,
starting their family while Don taught and coached and they campaigned the horses at
fair meets. Then they returned to Kennewick
in southeastern Washington — home of Sun Downs racetrack. “Back then, they ran twice
a year,” Don says, “ — spring and fall, and we lived three-quarters of a mile from the track.
We bought 14 acres and put half in alfalfa and used the other half for pasture and a barn. Kathy had her trainer’s license and we raised the hay,
so we didn’t have the expenses that most people would’ve had. We had one or two horses and basically campaigned in Waitsburg, Dayton, Walla Walla, and Kennewick. If we had a good horse, we’d go to Boise. And if we had a really good horse, we’d go to Portland Meadows. Finally, I asked Kathy, ‘Why don’t we get rid of all these horses and get one really good horse and go to Los Alamitos?’”
38 SPEEDHORSE, December 2016