By: Brittany Bevis
For the second time here at the Quarter Horse Congress, Bruce Vickery found himself atop the leaderboard in a high stakes Trail class. Last week, he won the Junior Trail on Signature Absolute with the highest Trail score awarded thus far at the Congress, a 239. Vickery’s mount for today’s class was Beau Baird’s Suddenly I’m Cool, a four-year-old black gelding by RL Best of Sudden and out of Ima Cool Robin. “Cowboy” just happens to be a half sister to his cousin’s mare Cool Movin Lady.
“I bought Cowboy as a yearling in the Reichert sale,” Baird says. “He has that look in his eye. I definitely like pretty horses; that was definitely a selling point. Then, they put him in the round pen, and I saw him move… I decided I had to have him.”
“I had him with Brian and Dawn Baker, and we did Western Pleasure with him. They did a great job. Then, I saw the all-around potential with him, and we sent him to Bruce to work on Western Riding and Trail.”
Baird hasn’t yet had the opportunity to show Cowboy in Trail, but he’s looking forward to adding that event next year. Vickery and Cowboy also placed third in Junior Trail here at the Congress and will be showing at the AQHA World Show as well.
“I really liked my go today,” Vickery says. “I thought my horse felt really ready. I walked in, and he was a little edgier than normal, but I think it gave him that much more pop and more expression. I felt like he was moving really good and being really careful. He tried really hard today.”
“He is a great lope-over horse,” he says. “He’s got a lot of presence at the lope, and he’s got a lot of lift. He’s a really good mover, and he’s a very attractive horse, so usually I can score really high over my lope-overs. Also, he’s an extremely careful walk-over horse, and he has a lot of style, I feel like. He does all the maneuvers pretty well, but I feel the walk and lope are his strong suits.”
Coming up tomorrow, Vickery will show three horses in Senior Trail.
Three and Four-Year-Old Trail Futurity-
1-Suddenly Im Cool/Bruce Vickery- 234.5- $4,523.10
2-Don’t I Look Good/Tommy Sheets- 234- $3,256.63
3-Lover Treat Me Good/Nick Mayabb- 233.5- $2,352.01
4-Blazing Hot N Gold/Kellie Hinely- 232.5- $1,809.24
5-Only Temptation/Jet Thompson- 228.5- $1,537.85