Page 31 - New Mexico Winter 2021

“I have never known a man of such honor and integrity. He is 100 percent honest with everyone. He’ll do whatever is needed to help people get into the industry and, even more importantly, help them to stay in.” – Dee Mooring
W.L. didn’t take that lesson lightly. He hadn’t hit his teenage years yet when he paid $64 for a lawnmower. “That was my first business,” he said. “I also had a ’36 Chevy, twin exhaust coupe that I bought for $150. It had a tuck ‘n roll interior, which was pretty darned elegant.
“I drove it all over the place, sticking to the back roads. Daddy pulled a few strings, and I got my driver’s license when I was 14. After that, I could do some driving on the main roads, but I still got more than my share of tickets.”
The elder Mooring owned 100 teams of horses and mules in 1949, using them to
run his thriving thrashing business. His first combine didn’t come until 1950. “He was the youngest of 11 children,” W.L. said, “and he was running his own business by the time he was 13.
“He always liked horse racing, regardless of what he did to make a living. I grew up with livestock and watching him with his love of fast horses. We moved to Brady (Texas) in 1950, and that’s when he was really able to go to the track and bet.”
W.L.’s wife Dee
W.L. grew up around some of the early Texas racing icons. Names such as G. Rollie White (owner of G. Rollie White Downs) are treasured parts of his memories. “Mr. White owned a lot of racehorses and he always told me I’d go to Texas A&M, where he was president,” he said. “That didn’t happen,
but we sure spent a lot of time at his track. Daddy got to bet, and doors started opening for me to make horses my life.
“I remember one year at Brady during the ol’ July Jubilee. A friend had a horse named Stepson that needed walking after a race. I snuck off to do it. Daddy noticed I was gone, and the barns were the first place he came looking. That’s when he delivered one of those famous ass-whoopings. But, like I said, he was fair. He told me to finish cooling out that horse cause that’s what I told the man I’d do. Then, not too long after that, he bought me a horse and I rode my first match race when I was 12. He bought me some others after that, including Vandys Breeze, who was raised by Audie Murphy. Truth be told, we both loved those horses.”
A few parts of Mooring’s childhood weren’t exactly conventional. His mom and dad, for example, divorced and married several times
– to one another! The first time was when he was in the third grade. There was nothing, though, that could damage the closeness between the father and son – until Bill passed away from a heart attack at 68.
“I was in El Paso, training full time,” W.L. explained. “He came to visit me for two weeks and had a heart attack shortly after he returned home. He died soon after. Then I lost my mom in January 1990, and my brother one month later. My immediate family was gone. Daddy died never believing in television, and we never had one while growing up.”
Double LL was well on its way to becoming a force within the racing industry by the early 1990s. The farm, in a picturesque area of New Mexico close to the Texas Hill country, quickly built a legacy around high- powered stallions. The farm gradually eased into a full-faceted breeding operation, divided into the north and south locations. Stallions and mares made their home on acreage leased for the past several decades from long-time
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