Page 60 - December 2017

“Back when I was starting out, you had to do everything,” James said. “We showed halter horses, and I had some really nice halter horses back in those days. You had to do that, and
you had to do the pleasure, and you had to help the kids to make a living. Now it’s gotten so specialized. It’s like a whole different world. “Ultimately, I had youth and amateur clients, and I had some really nice older pleasure, all-around type horses. I did that for a long time, with the kids and the amateurs,” James continued. “Then I ended up buying Barpasser for a client. I showed him for several years and then he ended up being a nice breeding horse. Along behind him came Barpassers Image. I showed him for a couple of years.”
Years later, an editor at Horse & Rider described Barpassers Image, writing: “His naturally level topline, especially at the lope,
set him apart and was ahead of its time. David James, his rider and trainer, appeared to be floating on air as he rode Barpassers Image down the rail on a fully loose rein.”
Barpassers Image, who James showed to
a Superior in Western Pleasure, ended up siring the horse that would change James’ life – Invitation Only. Bred by Gene and Frieda Maxwell, Invitation Only was purchased as a weanling by James.
“I got really lucky when Invitation came along. He’s what changed my whole deal,” James said. “I’d probably still be just training horses for clients, I suppose. That’s the horse that changed my life.”
James rode Invitation Only in the 1992 American Quarter Horse Association World Championship Show, finishing third in the 2-Year-Old Western Pleasure class. The same Horse & Rider editor who described his sire wrote of Invitation Only: “He stands out
in my memory as early proof of heritable
traits. Invitation Only, at 2, was the first of ‘Image’s’ get that I’d personally encountered in the show pen, and had my attention because of his breeding. Under saddle, he stood out for the same reasons his sire had: He was built in a way
that gave him true, balanced gaits, and he was really good-looking to boot. It’s like there was the rest of the class, laboring to do it right, and then him, just making it all look so effortless and easy.”
Interest in breeding to the stallion was high, but in the early 1990s, the breeding industry was still limited by geography. Cooled, shipped semen wasn’t approved for use by the American Quarter Horse Association until 1997. James knew if he wanted Invitation Only to have
the best chance of success as a sire, he needed to stand him in a central location, such as Oklahoma. So, he left California for Purcell, Oklahoma, and never looked back. It’s a choice he has never regretted.
From his first year at stud, Invitation Only proved he was something special.
“Invitation was obviously a good show horse,” James said. “When his first colts hit the ground, Jody Galyean was showing one for me and Gil Galyean was showing one that belonged to a client. Invitation was a first-year sire, and
Purchased by James as a weanling, Invitation Only and James finished third in the 1992 AQHA World Championship Show 2-Year-Old Western Pleasure class. James decided to hold a dispersal sale of his pleasure horses in 2005 where Invitation Only made headlines as the highest-selling Quarter Horse at public auction, selling for a cool $2.35 million to Ohio Pineview Farms.
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