Dogie Jones

Thought I´d continue the stroll we took awhile back down memory lane.

Dogies first winter

This guy was pretty special also. He was a standardbred trotter as most horses I fooled around with back then. I thought I could both race `em and cowboy on `em. Worked so-so. They are pretty allround though not as athletic or well balanced as a Quarterhorse for instance. Trotters are also dime on a dussin, so with a pretty thin wallet they are a decent alternative.


We bred his dam to Pasqual, a decent stud who´d made a couple of million swedish crowns ($300.000) on the track. My thinking was to line breed on his granddam, an elite mare who was a really great broodmare. She was also 2nd dam on Dogies mamas papers. The plan was to have a filly to carry on the bloodline. Ofcourse a bay little colt arrived that cold, miserable night of March 27, 2001.
Dogie, a day old

I named him Dogie Jones after a rancher friend in New Mexico (I thought they had the same ears...) This was before the kids started naming anything and everything...
GM "Dogie"Jones

Dogie grew up a pretty decent looking colt. He was imprinted at birth and you could wrap him in a canvas tarp as a yearling. I don´t know why you´d want to wrap a horse in a tarp unless they´re dead, but still...


He was broken to a harness as a long yearling and one of the most easygoing horses I´ve trained. He was in a joggcart after a week or two and then jogged for most of the following winter.


During the spring of his twoyearold year we upped his training some and introduced intervals. After a warmup jog, we had him going multiple heats at a faster pace on the sandy speedtrack. This built not only speed but stamina and endurance aswell. Later that fall it was time for a babyrace, where you have a set time interval the horses have to reach. Not to fast and not to slow, but show they are behaving and can deal with race like situations on the track.

Up to that point he´d been the quietest colt imaginable! Not a peep, no vices, nothing.
When the catchdriver came and climbed aboard the sulky before the race, he commented on how quiet he was and mature for a twoyearold. Made daddy really proud!!
Dogies day at the races

It was the first time he had blinders on, to have him focus, and run straight. Well the horses jogged up to the start, circled and there was one of them that, from our limited view, looked like he was drunk! Wobbled all over the place, screeming at the others, almost rearing at one point. Believe me, You do not want to be in a sulky behind a rearing horse!!

The marshall started the race and again, one of them was all over the track, his nose pointing skywards to be able to see under the blinders, screeming his lungs out. Guess who´s horse that was??? Finally the driver pulled up and had him run 50 yards behind the field to keep him straight and running forward. He somehow managed to qualify anyway. When we loaded him in the trailer afterwards he was just about the wildest, studdiest, 8yearold, never been touched by humanhand, mustang imaginable!!! Daddy was not so proud anymore...Needles to say an appointment with a knife at the clinic was booked then and there!!!

Dogie and friend Noah
After that incident he was back to his possitive, quiet self. He never got to race again though as his front pasterns and knees couldn´t handle the speed. He got reactions as soon as we got close to training times good enough to race. I broke him to ride early at 3. He made an excellent ranch horse! The only negative was that he was built really thin and narrow in front, good if you´re a trotter not so good for balance as a saddlehorse, doing lots of latteral movement.

He was one of thoose you cold do anything on, when I showed him the waterline in our bay, he just walked right out and if I hadn´t stopped him we would still be heading out to sea.




I kept him for a couple of years and then gave him away to a great, great family as their riding horse when we had to many horses and I couldn´t find the time for him.