Page 38 - Barrel Stallion Register 2024

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“Blue was really fast, and she turned barrels just like Slick. Erika rode her until she got hurt and I bred her to
Designer Red, and I got Slick.” - Allene Tatom
Along the way, they found an interest in barrel racing. “We got into barrel
racing as a hobby, and we got lucky from the beginning when we bought a pole bending horse that turned out to be a professional caliber barrel horse,” Jason said. “Charmayne James used this horse for one summer and won Cheyenne on him and then ran one round of the NFR on him in 2000.” His name is FQHA A Sharp Move, aka Boomer.
“We bought his full sister as a yearling, Rods Last Ladybug, and she was a World Champion and is a World Champion producer,” Jason continued. “She turned out to be a blue hen for our breeding program and the backbone of our breeding program. Her babies are still running now,
and she was also the dam of the World Record holder on the standard pattern. One of her futurity fillies has run out
over $100,000. We have some stud colts coming up out of her. She has been a huge part of our program and, again, it was
just luck that we bought the full sister to Boomer, and we call her Boomette.”
Slick By Design joined the Highpoint Performance Horses in 2012. They purchased him from his breeder Allene Tatom of Conroe, Texas. Allene told how she became the breeder of Slick By Design. It began when her granddaughter Erika Foster became interested in horses. “I rode horses and loved them all my life,” Allene said. “So, when Erika said she wanted to ride, I wanted her to ride. We lived in a
subdivision, and I worked in Houston. When Erika started doing the jumping thing, I started riding horses and I loved it. We sold our house and moved to Conroe on seven acres. I ended up buying horses.”
Allene is like all grandmothers, they want it done right for their grandchild. “When Erika started learning to run barrels, I wanted her to do it right,” she explained. “That is why we went to Martha Josey’s clinics, and she loved going there.
I wanted her to learn from somebody who would teach her right. She learned a lot.” She then added, “She became a really good rider. She has trained five or six of her own horses. And they all turn the barrels really good.” One of the horses was Dash Larue, a 1D barrel racing horse and pro rodeo money earner.
Allene began by buying two horses. “I bought a mare named Dreams Of Blue and another horse that she started out on, and she rode him in high school rodeos for one year. She started riding Blue after her horse got injured just before going to a Martha Josey clinic. So, she went with Blue, and she didn’t want to go back to a slow horse. She wanted the 1D horse.
“Blue was really fast, and she turned barrels just like Slick,” she added. “Erika rode her till she got hurt and I bred her to Designer Red, and I got Slick.”
When I asked why she bred to Designer Red, her reply was very interesting. “I don’t know, since all my friends who ran barrels told me I had lost my mind because she was real hot. She would lope around like she was a western pleasure horse, but the second she stepped in the alleyway, she was all business. You didn’t mess around and you couldn’t clown around on her. Erika loved her! But she said Blue would have been so much better if somebody older would have been riding her as she was in her early teens. She would have won a lot more.”
Dreams Of Blue,
dam of Slick By Design
© Courtesy Allene Tatom