Page 142 - March 2020

LOOKING BACK
A Passion
FOR PAINTS
AN EXCERPT FROM APRIL 2, 1998 ISSUE
By Julie Weathers
Most children have a grandfather or favorite uncle with a greatly adored pet horse. Visits to the family farm
become cherished memories as the years
pass and, more often than not, the obsession with horses fades with the passage of time. Occasionally, however, the love of horses remains strong as childish dreams turn into grown up reality. So it is with Herbert Graham of Gardendale, Texas.
“I’ve always loved horses,” said Graham. “My uncle had a Paint when I was a kid, so it sparked my interest in them early. The first horse I bought was a broodmare named Thanksgiving. I began accumulating race horses, including
a mare called St Easter we picked up at the Roswell sale. She was our first winner. We ran her for a couple of years before retiring her to the broodmare band. Then, I started Graham Farms and it’s grown into what you see today.”
What we see today is pages of horse racing history written in the West Texas sandhills. Herbert and wife Ginger launched their vision of racing Paints with a 120-acre horse farm in Gardendale in 1980. The three stallions featured in the early facility were Rocket Wrangler, Mr Dark Jet and Scotts Poppy. Graham acquired a good Quarter Horse mare named Kallista and crossed her to Easy Jet Too, resulting in a Paint colt called Raise A Jet. From the very beginning, Paint babies decorated the green paddocks like brightly colored Easter eggs.
The Grahams owned nearly 100 brood- mares at the close of the decade. Graham Farms changed its name to West Texas Stud and made a few other changes along the way. The farm boasted a state of the art embryo transfer laboratory, a complete vet facility, spa- cious light barns with over 200 runs, moni- tored foaling stalls, an on-site training track, numerous yearling and mare pastures, and its own hay fields guaranteeing an abundance of quality feed for the equine residents. The list of amenities grew at an astounding rate.
The crown jewel of the operation, how- ever, was an adobe brick building with arched breezeways down each of its sides. The red tiled roof reflected the spicy southwestern flavor of the area. Under the roof of the elegant struc- ture, however, was where the real spice was hidden. Some of the hottest racing blood in
the Quarter Horse industry, including Rocket Wrangler, Moon Lark, Six Fols, Marthas Six Moons, Raise Your Glass TB, Mr Dark Jet,
Jet OJ, Raise A Jet APHA, Rougemont TB, High Rollin Texas, Bedouin Prince, Bet I Can, Streak Laico Bird, Raise A Gamble and Ulan TB called West Texas Stud home.
It was a time of unlimited prosperity.
The oilfields were booming. Shops with one-of-a-kind dresses sprang up overnight in prestigious Midland shopping centers. People bought homes six months before the contractor could even estimate the start of construction.
Everyone who had ever owned a pair of boots wanted a racehorse. For a while, it seemed that a tiny village called Gardendale on a little- known highway might become the hub for racing Quarter Horses. It was said that a person could stand in Gardendale and not throw a rock without hitting some big horse farm. It wasn’t very much of an exaggeration. West Texas Stud, John Rylee’s Speed Valley Farms and WinnerMaker lined Highway 191. That list didn’t even include the smaller operations tucked behind the big boys.
West Texas Stud and the other farms weren’t the only things growing. Graham’s interest in horse racing expanded from own- ing, breeding and racing both Quarter Horses and Paints, to sponsoring races. The first such involvement was at Trinity Meadows in 1987. He then joined forces with neighbor Bobby Cox of WinnerMaker to co-sponsor the West Texas WinnerMaker Breeders’ Futurity in
’94, ’95 and ’96. The 330-yard feature event boasted purses in excess of $100,000 each year, with the high spot coming in 1995 when the entrants divided $181,384 in prize money.
The race is now known as the WinnerMaker Breeders’ Challenge Futurity since Bobby Cox assumed full sponsorship, but that doesn’t mean Graham has lost inter- est in sponsoring horse racing. As a matter of fact, Miller Lite Beer will sponsor the $50,000 Graham Paint Futurity at Lone Star Park. The
140 SPEEDHORSE March 2020
Ginger and Herb Graham in 1984