For some saddling up and riding on a trail best expresses their love for horses. For others gentling and training them is best. Still others prefer owning and managing a career for a racing. This is the case with Jackie Earl Brown from Greenwood, Ark., who raises, races and occasionally sells registered Quarter horses in Oklahoma.
Jackie Earl has been racing horses since 1978. He married Diana several years earlier while he was rodeoing.
“My dad, Billy, was a rodeo judge and I really loved rodeoing,” explained Jackie Earl. “But I needed something safer, especially after we started having children.”
Jackie Earl immediately ran into problems. The first horse he bought, a 2-year-old filly, had a knee problem and therefore became his first broodmare, though she never threw a horse that would race. After several years, Jackie Earl decided to start over and sold all his horses. He and a partner bought both Quarter horses and Thoroughbreds at the Heritage Sale in Oklahoma, then trained and raced them. Thoroughbreds are more expensive to keep and Jackie Earl eventually branched out on his own with just Quarter horses.
Jackie Earl’s horses are in Arkansas for only a short period of time. A broodmare follows a specific cycle. She is taken to a veterinary ranch Sunlight Farms in Sallisaw, Okla., where she undergoes AI with semen from the Lazy E Ranch in Guthrie. Currently Jackie Earl likes semen from the sons of First Down Dash, who died years ago and whose semen is still preserved and sells for $35,000 a straw.
One of the secrets to a successful AI process is semen that is as fresh as possible. Jackie Earl drives to the ranch and picks up the straws in a one-day turnaround so the vet has the freshest semen possible. Having the straws delivered not only costs more but takes longer so Jackie Earl believes the long, hard day is worth the effort. Fifteen days after being bred, the vet checks for a heartbeat and then sends the pregnant mare back to Jackie Earl’s Oklahoma land. When the mare is ready to deliver, she is returned to the breeding farm. After giving birth, she is bred back within two weeks. Later, the growing youngster is sent to his place in Greenwood until it reaches training age. The Arkansas ranch is also used for horses that are injured or laid off until returning to racing.
“I have always loved foals and yearlings so I keep them here and then ship them out when it’s time to train and race them,” Jackie Earl said.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Jackie Earle tried to train horses himself but found there were not enough hours in the day for him to do that and run his construction business. Jackie Earl has had only four trainers in the 40-plus years he’s been racing, and his current trainer is 78-year-old J.D. Anderson
In 2008, 2-year-old Fly on Lake out of Granite Lake won the Black Gold Championship, which earned an immediate $140,00 and a total of $200,00. Though Fly on Lake is a gelding, his mother, Pig on Fly, is still part of Jackie Earl’s stable and has given birth to full siblings, now residing on the Arkansas farm before undergoing training and racing.
“You can tell a lot about horses when they run when young,” he said. “The longer they leap starting out and the further the reach and stride the better they are, and these two look just fine.”
The racehorses are fed twice a day with sweet feed, although significantly less in summer and with Bermuda and alfalfa hay. Alfalfa is particularly good for horses but they have to be trained to eat it so they don’t eat too much and founder.
As far as training goes, the young horses are usually halter broke before they come to Arkansas, where they are gentle but not tamed.
“The problem with racehorses is you don’t want to tame them; just gentle them enough to be safe because it’s the fire that makes them racehorses and winners rather than trail horses,” Jackie Earl said.
Jackie Earl admitted to slowing down some. “At this point, I’m much more involved with my three grandchildren and watching my grandson Jase play football,” he said.
