Page 145 - Speedhorse October 2018

“My parents could never give me material things when I was growing up, but they gave me something better – strength.”
free of infection and keep them on the proper nutritional program, have them at the right weight. We feel that if we send them to a stallion farm in top condition, we can get them bred and in foal and back home sooner and stop our expenses away from home. We feel that breeding farms are entitled to the fees they charge, as it’s expensive to run a first-class operation. But we also feel that the quicker you get a mare bred and back home in her own environment, the better the mare and her foal will do.
“We give lots of attention to our mare’s
feet. To keep them in good condition, I have a trimming program for mares that might have split feet due to previous racing injuries or dry weather. We worm our horses every six weeks – mares, yearlings, everything, but don’t worm the mares within about sixty days of foaling time. Some people say it doesn’t hurt to worm them even later, but we don’t like to do it that close. We think it’s very important to have a strict worming program, and to change brands of medicine sometimes to reduce the possibility of immunity buildup.
“Another thing we like to do is drag out pastures, spreading the manure, and rotate paddocks to rest them, kill off any existing parasites. Rotating paddocks isn’t a have-to situation, but I think it helps.
“Something I’d like to mention is building as many safety factors into your facility as possible, whether it’s a stallion farm, broodmare operation, whatever. A lot of studies have been made that reveal that about 45% of the injuries that horses suffer come from the appointments on building on the farm, like latches on doors, and from faults in gates, fences and stalls. Now that is something for seasoned horsemen, as well as beginner, to look at.
“I feel like the industry has been built on quality, pedigree and performance, and that 100 years from now it will still be the same – quality, pedigree and performance. That’s the cream that rises to the top one way or the other, always, you can’t stop it, you can’t stop it in horses, or in people. “To me, the handwriting’s on the wall.
We have to keep on with infusions from the right Thoroughbred to maintain and increase the quality in our horses. I think people
who downplay those selective Thoroughbred infusions have got their heads in the sand.
“I’ll tell you one thing from my heart, and that’s the fact that there are so many things,
so many pitfalls, that can happen to you in
this business. It takes bighearted horses to win stakes races and bighearted owners to stay in
the business, because if your luck can be good,
it can also be bad. You have to take good times, weigh them against the bad, take both sides of the coin, because that’s life, that’s the way it comes.”
When high dollars roll, the uphill trail is easier to blaze. It is nice to stand on hilltops,
the view is clearer from there. But those who stand on hilltops are plainly viewed by everyone else. Controversy, misunderstanding and disagreements can occur. Melvin E. Hatley has had his share of all that. He will not talk about his personal finances, but sources confirm that he was a multi-millionaire at the age of 33 when he entered the running horse world in 1965, and he has cast an affluent shadow since then. Most people cannot picture any kind of shadow for him, and some people categorize him as a highroller who puts $$$$$ first and everything else second. That is because once he is involved with others in a business arrangement, by contract or by handshake, he keeps his word down to the nth and expects everyone else to do the same. If they do not, times are not pleasant. Something gives. It is usually the other party or parties.
The running horse world stresses the mettle and worth of the little guy that makes it the hard way, comes from behind with a patch on his empty hip pocket. It is difficult to imagine
Mel Hatley in that situation, but he came from farther behind than most.
Mel was born in a two-room shack with no window screens in Dyke, Texas. His parents, William Earl and Lucille Hatley, were tenant farmers; 19 and 15, respectively, when Mel was born.
The Hatleys picked cotton in East Texas and pulled it in West Texas, “and I can tell you there is a difference in pickin’ and pullin’.” One Christmas, they were living in another two- room shack owned by their boss. One of the rooms was a feed store.
“We had a dollar and thirty-five cents to our name. The boss got drunk, didn’t pay us, so my dad bought a few pieces of fruit and some candy and that was our Christmas. I heard my mother crying after everybody went to bed. I don’t mind having gone through that hard life. My parents could never give me material things when I was growing up, but they gave me something better – strength.”
In 1946, when Mel was thirteen, the Hatleys moved to Bethany, Oklahoma, near Oklahoma City. They were determined to put Mel through college and wanted to be settled near good schools when the time came. They arrived in Bethany in a pickup with all their possession in a homemade trailer hitched to the pickup.
“My dad had saved up $5,000 in cash. He took a job as garbage collector and had to furnish his own truck and gas. He had some
Mel Hatley with his great mare Barne’s Lady Bug.
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LOOKING BACK - AN EXCERPT FROM JUNE 1980 ISSUE
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