A FEW MORE DAYS IN THE LIFE OF BO DIAMOND DANDY

I bred her first to Lester Goodson’s son of Three Bars, Bar Depth. She had a colt I named The Corner Bar. I sold him and don’t know what happened to him. Her next foal was by a Triple Chick son, Oh My Bars. That colt was Oh My Beau, the first racehorse for Jack Cole and me. He won his first race at Weatherford. I thought we would both have heart attacks from the excitement. At three-years-old, we put Oh My Beau in cutting training and he was burning up with cow, as the saying goes. Bo’s next foal, also by Oh My Bars, was Oh Hy Oh. He was born with a blaze in the shape of a number 1 that ran right down his face—a gorgeous bay colt that won his first five races and ran AAA at four distances. Hy Oh’s story is a complete chapter in itself. Bo had other foals, but Oh Hy Oh was, far and away, her best foal. Every colt she had was a real bugger to break. They were really tough, but about the time I was ready to send them to the packers, I’d saddle up, thinking this was their last chance. It was like someone had put a different horse in their stall. Over night they would move to the next plateau of their training, never to return to all the bad habits and acts that had gone before. All of them could run and all of them were born knowing how to cut cattle from a herd. Bo lived to be 27 years old and just fell over with a heart attack down by the pond on our Madisonville farm one afternoon. Jack saw her fall, and when I got to her, she was still breathing, but died with her head in my lap. We buried her where she fell.

Indulge me just a little more as I rewind to 1964, when Bo was just a filly. My four-year-old daughter nicknamed her Bo Do (pronounced dough). And for all that filly’s waspy disposition, she seemed to love Kim and never displayed her sometimes ugly side when Kim was around. When we sent Bo Do to the track as a two year old, and we went over to Lafayette to watch her run her first race. While we were visiting with the trainer and his wife by the stalls on the day of the race, the trainer’s wife said she was going to have to send us a bill for all the shirts Bo had bitten off of her husband. We were standing in front of her stall, and Bo was in her usual spot, head in the corner, butt to the audience. Kim ducked under the mesh stall guard before we could stop her and ran up to Bo loudly calling her name. Everybody froze. The trainer and his wife blanched. I knew Bo had never made a move to hurt Kim, but couldn’t be sure how she would react now that she’d been away from home and learned to be a racehorse. My heart almost stopped, but wonder of wonders, she just swung her head around, dropped her nose down, and wiggled her lips on the top of that little girl’s head. We quietly retrieved Kim, who, after giving Bo Do a hug and a kiss, loudly told her friend goodbye.

BARN CATS

Bo had displayed this sort of favoritism before. When she was a yearling and still in her kicking mode, I walked into her stall one morning. I was trying to get her to

turn her head to me—moving slowly, talking softly, when I looked up and saw one of the big, white barn cats walking along a purling six feet above Bo’s head. The cat stopped directly over her and with a slow wave of his tail, he focused on Bo’s back. I was thinking, please, please don’t think about it. The door to the stall was too far for me to ease out of the way, and I didn’t want to make any sudden moves. Wouldn’t you know it? That cat dropped straight down and landed right in the middle of Bo Diamond Dandy’s back. I held my breath and silently said goodbye to my family and friends. Bo’s skin didn’t even ripple. She just stood stone-still and looked around at the cat until he hopped down to the ground. They must have practiced that maneuver. I eased out of the stall as quietly as I’d gone in and decided a cup of coff ee was in order.

GUARD HORSE

Bo didn’t like many people. Those she did, she seemed to really love. Any stranger who happened to just walk into her stall unannounced was fair game. They did that only once. She to stand with her head in a corner, one hip dropped as if she was asleep, but she would uncoil like a rattlesnake. With ears pinned and teeth bared, she would fl y across her stall at the unsuspecting trespasser. The Lightning M barn of Bo’s youth had 30 stalls, and a lot of people would just drop by to look at our horses. Most were informed horsemen who knew to wait for you to show them the horses, but a few people would charge ahead opening stall doors without invitation. Since there were several stallions in the barn—including a couple of really mean ones—I didn’t want any of them getting out or hurting anybody. I gave Bo Do the job of “Guard Horse.” I put her in the fi rst stall in the barn, and when one of those smart alecks started opening stall doors uninvited, she was fi rst in line and greeted them in her typical unladylike fashion. If I got to the barn to fi nd some stranger standing, white-faced in the middle of the alleyway, I knew they had already met Bo Diamond Dandy.

Above: Bo’s fi rst snow—1970. She was in foal in this picture and had a stud colt Pat named The Corner Bar. The snow was a little deep. Below: Bo as an old lady ca. 1989. Opposite page: Bo grazing near the spot where she is buried.