Page 59 - May 2021

While the gelding was on break between races, Slayton showed Born To B Bad at the Fort Worth Stock Show, where he won his AQHA amateur performance geldings’ class.
“I always thought he’d make a great barrel horse, because he won the 110-yard Blink Of An Eye Dash twice at Remington Park,” Slayton said. “In my book, he has the track record at 110 yards. He actually ran the second-fastest time, but the horse that ran the fastest time had a bad test.”
Born To B Bad clocked :6.808 for a 112 speed index winning the 2019 Blink Of An Eye Dash – in a straight line. His trainer from the track has no doubt that B Bad will be good in his new career around the barrels. “Oh, he’s such a natural,” said Johnson. “He has a great mind and great ability, and he’ll do anything you ask him to do. He tries so hard and was so willing to please and so professional when he ran. He wants to please all the time and he’s a good- minded horse. Anybody could ride him. You could put a kid on him – in a round pen, not loose in the pasture because he’s so fast – but in there he’d just do whatever that kid would ask. He’ll make a good barrel horse.”
Born To B Bad has another thing going, too.
“His owner is great,” Johnson said. “Melissa loves animals, she loves horses and she’ll do anything she can to take care of them. B Bad’s right where he belongs.”
In addition to racehorses, Slayton raises bucking horses and has a rodeo company that hauls horses, and as a hospital ICU nurse in nearby Cleburne, is an owner who knows what to do in all sorts of critical situations. Slayton recognizes, for example, when brain surgery is required.
“Even when he was a baby, B Bad was really cocky and bossy,” she said. “We always planned on keeping him a stallion. But I mean, he was cocky. I went out to feed him one time, and when I turned around to put the feed in the bucket, he put his right foot on my right shoulder and his left foot on my left shoulder, put me right down in the dirt, and then turned around to try to kick me.
“He was a gelding the next day.”
Connecting attitude with ability put
B Bad where he belongs. And the hits just
kept coming. In January 2019, while the gelding was on break between running in
the Lovington Stakes-G2 at Zia Park and an allowance trip at Remington, Slayton showed Born To B Bad at the Fort Worth Stock Show, where he won his AQHA amateur performance geldings’ class.
“B Bad has always been one of those horses that you just have a feeling about,” Slayton said. “A lot of people say they’ve had a once-in-a- lifetime horse, and I guess B Bad’s been a once- in-a-lifetime horse for us.
“And that’s the way I feel about Stevi Hillman.”
The Champion barrel racer was happy to get the call.
“My first experience with training a horse off the track was in 2011,” Hillman said. “That was with a horse named ‘Hammer’
– which wasn’t his registered name – and
he helped me make Reserve Rookie of the Year. Hammer made a great rodeo horse.
“A lot of people say they’ve had a once-in-a-lifetime horse, and I guess B Bad’s been a once-in-a-lifetime horse for us.”
Melissa Slayton raced Born To B Bad in partnership with Cody Bowling.
Born To B Bad has just been a blessing to us.” – Melissa Slayton
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