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Spotlight
on Our Member!
April
2006
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J
John & Annika
Hayes
44105 C.R. DD – Akron, Co 80720
970-345-2543
hayesrch@kci.net
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A few months ago, when Connie
Durfee asked me to write the spotlight
article, I said sure.
I thought at the time that it would
be an easy task.
It’s not as easy as I thought.
The difficult part is to get
started.
Because of our long time
involvement in the horse business, some of
the people reading this already know us.
And, because of our involvement in
this organization, many of the readers
have become acquainted, at least to some
degree, with Annika and me.
Then I thought of the countless
phone conversations that I have had with
other horse owners and their questions
about who we were, what we owned, etc.
The solution was to treat this as a
question and answer column.
The same questions have been asked
many times.
The answers are always the same.
This gives me a chance to answer
those questions for anyone interested.
My wife Annika and I live on a
ranch in northeastern Colorado.
It is not near anything.
No, it is not in the mountains and
we don’t have snow all of the time.
In fact we have very little snow.
To be more exact, we are about 120
miles east of Denver.
We are closer to Nebraska than to
the mountains.
We are about 25 miles from the
Platte River.
The hay grown there is shipped all
over the U. S.
That combined with the climate and
grass makes it an ideal place to raise
horses and cattle.
Historically,
there have been a number of well known
horses and breeders from this area.
Breeders such as Peavys and
Casements came to this part of the state
to ranch because of the fairly ideal
conditions for raising livestock.
Typically, the next question would be how
long have we had these horses.
For me the answer is forever.
I grew up here and an uncle had
some “family mares” when I was quite a
young child.
His interest in the horse breeding
business gave way to a more concentrated
effort on the cattle business.
My dad thought horses were to use
to work cattle.
Trips to various cattle events such
as the National Western Stock Show in
Denver gave me exposure to the horse show
world.
I always tell people that I gave up
being a cowboy at the age of 8.
I found horse shows and sales far
more fascinating than herding cows around.
My wife Annika has a different background.
She is a native of Sweden.
Her family lives in Stockholm.
Her early activities with horses
were riding jumpers and dressage horses in
various parts of Europe.
It was after we were married that
she became exposed to and interested in
the Coke Roberds family of horses.
And, she became acquainted with
them with a bang.
The day after we were married we
watched Skip N Go win GCS at the Denver
Stock Show. That was one of those horses and events that stick with you.
And one more thing, Annika is a
teacher.
She teaches math, art and Spanish
at the high school in Akron.
Yes, a Swede teaching Spanish is
not the norm, but she does.
What horses do we have?
We have a son of Spanish Array that
we have used for several years.
We have truly enjoyed this
horse’s foals. We have shown some of them, primarily in Palomino shows, with
quite a bit of success.
Most of our mares are daughters of
this horse and out of mares that we
raised.
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We started with a son of Old Tom
Cat that was raised by Jack Casement.
That horse, Jackie’s Cat really
gave us a foundation in the Quarter Horse
business.
He had a disposition and
personality like no other.
All of his foals were good but he
was a little unpredictable as a breeding
horse.
Some of his best foals were out of
not very good mares.
One was never sure of the outcome
of those matings.
His highest priced daughter was out
of a mare that was given to us because she
was such a poor individual.
Go figure!
After Jackie’s Cat we used a son
of Skippa Cord out of a daughter of Old
Tom Cat.
He was a terrific breeding horse
but was at a time when the horse business
was really tough.
We wound up selling most of the
foals we raised by him but did keep the
best daughter.
It is through her that his
influence is still present in our horses.
Our next stallion was a horse that
Warren Shoemaker raised. Bar O Show Music sired a lot of horse colts for us but we did
keep a few daughters.
They have really produced.
Reed Edwards of South Carolina
owned this horse after we had him and was
fortunate enough to raise several really
nice mares by him.
More on that later.
A word about our mares.
How many do we have?
Eight. A lot of people will assume that we have many more than that.
We have had but that leads to a lot
of work and mares pastured all over and we
find we can do a better job raising a few
foals rather than a big bunch of them. At the moment, all but a couple are mares that we have
raised.
Most are descendants of Jackie’s
Cat and the previously mentioned stallions
and the first good mare that I owned.
Her name was Miss Star Zepher.
She was the last daughter of Golden
Zepher, a Wiescamp bred horse that was in
this area for many years.
He was by Barney Owens and out of
Robin F.
She was by Plaudit out of Mexicali
Rose.
Miss Star Zepher mare produced 18
foals of which there were race winners,
halter winners, performance futurity
winners, and producing sons and daughters.
Jackie’s Cat deserves a lot of credit
for what we have but Miss Star Zepher
deserves equally as much.
The palomino colt that was
previously mentioned is a descendent of
both of these horses.
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And no discussion about our
horses would be complete without
mentioning Annika’s gelding.
He is by Spanish Array and
out of a daughter of Skip N Honor.
“Missle” as he
affectionately known was purchased
From Bev McCormick of Carthage,
Mo.
Annika shows him at lots of
open shows, ranch horse
competitions, etc.
She has logged nearly 1000
hours in the AQHA’s horseback riding program.
He is a perfect example of
horses of this breeding and how
much fun they can be. |
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What do
we do with our horses now?
We show them a little.
For the past several years
I have acted as an agent or
representative for various horse
owners who send their horses to me
to sell.
I usually have them here
for a while to condition them and
take them to a sale. I have done a lot of this for Mike Gerbaz, a breeder from
Snowmass, Co. but various other
horse owners from around the
nation have sent me horses.
Occasionally, we sell horses
privately at home but usually we
take them to sales.
You see, I like horse
sales.
A lot of people seem to
regard taking a horse to a sale as
a sign of failure.
I see it as a challenge.
I like all aspects of the
horse sale business.
A lot of people don’t
realize that the first thing they
need to know when going to a sale
is what they WON’T take.
I always try to impress
upon an owner that they will never
bring too much but that they need
to worry about a minimum price.
It’s no different than
negotiating a price privately, it
just happens much faster and on a
predetermined day.
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What about the
future?
We are filling the
barn now with horses going
to sales.
I have three sales
scheduled by the end of
April.
There may be
another spring sale or two
but after May, we are
going to turn our
attention to horse shows.
We have a coming
three year old stallion
that we bought from Reed
Edwards.
He bought this
horse’s sire from us as
a baby and is using him on
his Bar O Show Music
daughters. This colt,
Shoemakers Encore is a
result of that cross.
He was shown a few
times
at open
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shows and the
Skipper W. show as a two
year old.
A friend of ours,
Tim Hastings started
riding him and showed him
in one WP futurity and
placed a very
well deserved second.
Tim is enthused
about riding him in more
pleasure classes and
training him for a couple
of three year old reining
futurities.
I’m excited about
breeding him to some of
our mares before the
riding really starts in
the spring.
This colt is the
sixth generation of our
breeding and I can’t
wait to see the seventh.
Finally,
something worth mentioning
about our horse activities
is this.
Annika and I will
buy a few horses every
year to resell.
It is kind of a
challenge to find a pretty
good individual that has
“slipped through the
cracks”.
Sometimes you can
find some really good
yearlings or weanlings or
possibly a mare at
Saturday night sales, in
someone’s backyard, or
in the classified ads in
the local newspapers.
If one is careful
when purchasing a horse
this can be
profitable.
We have found that
if you really dig around
and look, you can find
some surprises as far as
quality and breeding, and
some pretty good horses.
Sometimes these
horses are not in the best
of shape or just not
wanted by people who have
no interest in marketing
them to their fullest
potential.
We do try to look
for “family” horses as
we understand this market
the best.
That’s
a brief look at who we
are, what we have, what we
like and what we do.
If you are ever in
the area, stop and see our
horses and tell us about
yours.
John
Hayes
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