Page 39 - Barrel Stallion Register 2024

SPEEDLINES
Dreams Of Blue was the 2004 NSBA State Barrel Finals Open 1D Reserve Champion and the Barrel Blast May Open 1D Champion that same year. She earned an AQHA Youth ROM with 18 performance points.
“But I had already made up my mind on who I was going to breed her to. I don’t know why I picked him, I just did, and he had won a lot. So, I bred her to him, and
I got Slick, and he was always so easy to handle. He was so smart,” Allene said.
The plan was to make Slick By Design a futurity horse. “A lady from Canada started him and said she would keep him as long as she could, but then said he didn’t need her anymore. I brought him home and Erika started riding him. She patterned him a little bit and then we turned him out. When he was three, we took him
to a trainer in Magnolia that rode him through the summer, and we picked
him up in August. Erika rode him until December when my niece Kim Ulbricht rode him. Erika didn’t want to commit to the futurities as she was a senior in high school, so Kim rode him in the futurities.
“The lady who broke him said he could do anything you wanted him to do,” Allene added. “If you wanted to be a reiner you could rein with him. If you wanted to rope, he could rope, you could do anything you wanted on him. She had great faith in him.”
Allene found that her critics were wrong. “When we took him to the futurities, I would stand in line with him to check him in and they never knew he was a stallion. At the barrel races, I handled him most of the time. Never once did he give me trouble.
I never had a moment that I didn’t enjoy being around him.
“When we hauled him to futurities, I stayed at his stall,” she added. “I brushed him and watered him. Did everything for him when Kim was running him. When he
was growing up, I spent a lot of time with him. When he was a baby by his mama, I kept telling him he was special.”
Slick By Design entered the futurity arena in 2011 with multiple placings, including a win in the BFA Spring Classic Slot Race, and he was named the 2011 Barrel Racing Report “Barrel Horse of
the Year 4-Year-Old Stallion.” He earned these accolades with Kim Ulbricht riding. He was shown in 2012 by Jennifer Sharp, winning the go-round and the finals to
be named the AQHA World Champion Junior Barrel Racing Horse. He earned $60,000 in 2011 and 2012. It was at the 2012 AQHA World Show that Cole and Martin entered the picture.
Jason filled us in. “We had just sold Rockette Ta Fame, a daughter of Boomette and she was sired by Dash Ta Fame, and she was a World Champion. So, we had a little bit of cash in our pocket. We were at the world show and Charlie was watching the barrel racing and he came back to the hotel he said that this black stud came in and won the go round and he had never seen him before. We pay attention and we knew a lot of barrel horses. The next day, he called me and said, ‘That black stud just won the world,’ and so I said, ‘Why don’t you see if they will sell him.’ And that
was how that process got started and we bought him.”
So why did Allene sell him? “My family! I didn’t want to sell him. They said he could die tomorrow, and if you can get that much money for him, I needed to sell. So, they talked me into it. I loved that little horse.”
It was at this point that winning a World Championship would be enough to retire Slick By Design, but that wasn’t the case. Jason reported what followed next. “In February, we started Michelle McLeod riding him to see if they were a good fit.
Literally from the beginning, they started winning. We always dreamed of having an NFR horse and Michelle was a neighbor that had ridden horses for us. Kind of jump rode them, and Charlie knew her, and we wanted to keep it local and not send him off, as we were standing him as well.
“Ron Ralls rode him during the breeding season when Michelle would be off running some of our other horses,” he added. “He would keep Slick fit. I would go pick him up and collect him and take him back. So, when Michelle needed him, she could run in and pick him up. Ron went to a couple NFR’s and John Suiter, who drove with her and was a mentor to Michelle, I give him a lot of credit for making some good decisions helping her navigate the rodeo trail.”
Equi-Stat records show that Slick By Design and Michelle hit the rodeo trail in 2013, winning $158,123.33, and earning $41,766.83 at the Wrangler NFR. They finished fifth in the PRCA Barrel Racing standings. The NFR run gave Cole and Martin their first go-round winner in the second round. His earnings put Cole and Martin second on the owners list for the year with $303,491.
They came back in 2014, working
their way to the NFR, but hit a snag that took Slick By Design off the road. Jason explained. “He won two rounds at Calgary, and then the night before the finals, he
got sick with pneumonia, and we almost lost him. He ended up staying in Calgary for a month or two to get him healthy enough to bring him home and we missed the NFR that year.” They still earned $78,805.08.
In 2015, they earned $153,160.24 with NFR earnings of $138,346.16. They won the sixth round. They came back in 2016 and earned $101,798.07 with NFR earnings of $46,961.14. A highlight of the
“The lady who broke him said he could do anything you wanted him to do. If you wanted to be a reiner you could rein with him. If you
wanted to rope, he could rope, you could do anything you wanted on him. She had great faith in him.” - Allene Tatom
SPEEDHORS
M
a
rc
h
2
0
2
03
S
E
PE
E
D
H
O
R
S
E
3
7
7