Remembering Quarter Horse Icon, Mary Anne Parris
Mary Anne Parris in her younger days. Photo courtesy of Roger Gollehon.
By: Brittany Bevis
We are saddened to relay the news of the loss of a true icon in the Quarter Horse industry. Mary Anne Parris passed away February 19, 2014 at the age of 80 at the Pine Meadows Nursing Home in Lexington, Kentucky.
Good friend Roger Gollehon remembers Parris as a pioneer in the halter horse industry who became one of the first women to successfully compete with top halter horses.
“She showed Skipity Miss at the Fort Worth Fat Stock Show in 1962 with a record 76 horses in the class and came out on top,” Gollehon says. “This horsewoman had an uncanny sixth sense to breed the type of horse that would become part of the future trends.”
“She showed AAA racehorse Diamond Sun Joe to his AQHA Championship title as well as top horses, Mr Cajun-Open High Point halter stallion, Hard To Beat, an Otoe stallion out of Lady Aledo Bar -AQHA Champion and High Point halter stallion, Lucky Stroke -1983 Open Champion and Open Performance ROM winner, and two more top Aledo Bar mares out of Miss Red Ant – AQHA Champions Aledolita Bar and Ima Star Too. She broke into the halter horse industry and showed the big boys how to show a halter horse.”
Parris is also credited with putting together a promotional and breeding program for MBJ Quarter Horses and top sire of the day Mr. Impressive. A trendsetter in her own right, Parris actually popularized the now common practice of applying hoof black to a horse’s hooves.
“She had a halter horse, that was a really nice horse, but it had a white marking on its leg,” he says. “Looking at it from the front, the white mark went down its fetlock and ankle. When it got to the hoof line and coronet band, it veered off to the right and made the foot look crooked. It made her mad that she got beat because of that illusion. She got some of that shoe polish in a bottle and painted her horse’s hooves black. Nobody objected to it, and so hoof black was invented. At the next horse show, everybody had painted their horses’ hooves black.”
For Gollehon, having the chance to meet and become good friends with a legend like Parris is an experience he treasures. Although she has no surviving family to speak of, Parris was blessed with many friends in the industry and frequented the Gollehon Farm quite often to visit their horses and reminisce about the good ‘ole days.
“When I was younger and wanted to be in the horse industry, I would read stories about her, see her, and admire her from afar,” he says. “When we moved to Kentucky, a new client of ours came out and said, ‘Do you know Mary Anne Parris? She is in the nursing home that my mother is at.’ We made a visit to the nursing home and talked for quite awhile.”
“We brought her out to our place and toured her around on the golf cart. She had macular degeneration, so she couldn’t see the horses well, but she could still smell them, hear them, and be around them. She pet the babies and the broodmares. She frequented our farm quite often.”
At 80 years of age, Parris was confined to a wheelchair after undergoing knee replacement surgery. Despite the eventualities of advancing age, Gollehon describes his friend as “fiery” and says “she had her wits about her until the very end.”
“She had no family at all, but she had a lot of friends at the nursing home and around the city,” he says. “She was a fun person to know. At every place you mentioned her name, you’d get a laugh and hear a funny story about her.”
In later years, Gollehon helped Parris reclaim nearly 50 of her Quarter Horse Grand Champion trophies from the 60s, 70s, and 80s that were thought to be lost. After uncovering the treasures in the storage shed of her old farm, that had long since been sold, Gollehon suggested they might make wonderful prizes for the winners of the halter classes at the Kentucky Breeders Futurity.
Mary Anne Parris presents a trophy to longtime friends, Dave and Renie Williamson at the Kentucky Breeders Futurity. Image courtesy of Roger Gollehon.
“I got her out of the nursing home and made a ribbon girl out of her,” he says. “For the last four years, we gave away six trophies each year. She got to meet a lot of people, and she was recognized by the judges who hadn’t seen her in years.”
Although this legend had passed, Gollehon and scores of people in the horse industry will fondly remember the mark that Mary Anne Parris left on their hearts and in the annals of history.
A big thank you goes to Roger Gollehon for sharing his memories of this very special lady and to Troy Oakely for helping to coordinate this piece. A memorial service for Parris will be held at Pine Meadows Nursing Home at 1608 Hill Rise Dr. Lexington, Kentucky 40504 on February 28th at 2:00 pm.
