Page 47 - May 2021

Norma’s first big runner was 2013 All American Futurity winner & 2-time Champion Handsome Jack Flash, who she co-owned with her sister-in-law Brenda Alvarez and Debra Laney.
They married in 1992 and Norma’s innate passion for horses moved front and center. She told Dosi about her aspirations and he was intrigued. “I wanted Norma to be happy,” Dosi says. “Happy wife, happy life. So, I told her, you be the brains behind it, and I’ll provide the luck; I’m a pretty lucky fella.”
Norma had a horse she had bred so she took it to the sale. “And that’s how we got started,” she says.
TURNING A PROFIT
At the outset, Norma and Dosi set standards and goals for their horse operation. “I think I suggested some ground rules for mare selection: minimum 90 Speed Index and earnings of $20,000 or more, back in the ’90s,” he says.
“I told her that I was going to be like the IRS,” Dosi says. “I said, ‘I’ll give you seven years to turn a profit. Otherwise, we’ll go back to pleasure riding and forget about the sales. But she showed a profit, so we are in the business.”
But that profit didn’t come quickly or easily. Norma’s mentor, breeder and seller W. L. Mooring of Double LL Farms in Bosque, New Mexico, recalls the days when he sold the horses the Lazy A produced.
“We were selling horses for $1,250, $1,500, and one day Norma was just crying up a storm, swinging her legs from the tailgate like a little kid and said, ‘What am I going to do?’
“I said, ‘You know what, you’ve just got to stay hooked, that’s all I can tell you.’”
“She said, ‘Well, is it going to get any better?’ and I said, ‘Hell Yes, you’ve just got to stay hooked.’ And then they came up with that big winner.”
That big winner was 2013 All American Futurity winner Handsome Jack Flash, whom Norma owned in partnership with her sister-in- law Brenda Alvarez, and the gelding’s breeder, Debra Laney.
But the serendipitous partnership almost didn’t happen.
“Norma was a reluctant partner,” Debra relates. “I said when he was a wee baby that he was going to win the All American. When he was, I guess, a short yearling
or maybe even before that, I was out at Norma’s one day watching him run. I said, ‘Norma, you want to be partners?’ Her first answer to me is always, ‘No! I have too many of my own!’
“I said, ‘Okay.’ A few days later, she put him in the arena while Dosi was there and Dosi saw him run — because this horse could really run! Dosi said, ‘Norma, we have a piece of that, don’t we?’
“She said, ‘Not yet! Wait a minute!’ and started dialing her phone.”
Handsome Jack Flash earned the partnership $1,517,491, finishing 2013 First by Earnings. In addition to the All American, he won the Zia Futurity-RG1 plus multiple trials for graded stakes. He was the 2013 Champion 2 Year Old and Champion Two- Year-Old Gelding.
“Happy wife, happy life. So, I told her, you be the brains behind it, and I’ll provide the luck; I’m a pretty lucky fella.” – Dosi
Dosi with Vancouver Moon.
SPEEDHORSE May 2021 45
Linda Earley, Speedhorse