Nnot many men have had the variety of lifelong horse

B R E E D E R S P O T L I G H T Renaissance COWBOY Jeffrey Matthews wants to raise and make an Everyman s horse that could take you to the Futurity. Story and photos by Christine Hamilton Nnot many men have had the variety of lifelong horse world. I grew up in that business. experiences that Jeffrey Matthews has had. The son of Otto and Joyce Matthews, Jeffrey and his sister, Carroll, and brother, Jim, were raised on a small row-crop farm in North Carolina where his grandfather, O.S. Carroll, grew tobacco, corn and soybeans. My grandfather also had a tiny grist mill that produced ground corn and cornmeal and he had a truck route at night, Jeffrey recalls. (Carroll Foods) grew later on to be one of the larger poultry and swine producers in the country and the But I was enthralled with the horses. My father died when I was very young and (my grandfather) supported my sister and me, showing horses. Starting out with ponies, Jeffrey gravitated to American Quarter Horses, running barrels and poles and finally showing. He showed against and became friends with the likes of AQHA Senior Director of Shows Alex Ross and AQHA Professional Horseman Carla Wennberg. The only way (my family) could try to get me to study was to try to keep me away from the barn; that didn t work, Jeffrey adds. Eventually, Jeffrey showed at circuits up and down the Atlantic seaboard and at the All American Quarter Horse Congress. He won the 1974 youth western pleasure world championship on a mare he trained himself, Two Eyed Sox (Two Eyed Jack-Do Marie by Do Dash). At the Florida Gold Coast, he happened to be in the right place at the right time. Tommy Manion was there, and he was the guy then, with the big rigs and champions, and his assistant quit at the show, Jeffrey says. It was my last year in youth. Out of the blue, I still don t know why I asked him for a job, but I did, and he was in a bind. So I went on the road with Manion, and that was not very popular back home. Following his passion, Jeffrey learned a lot starting and riding mostly pleasure horses, western riders and some reiners. After a couple of years, Tommy s connection with Tony Amaral, a National Reined Cow Horse Association Hall of Fame horseman, took Jeffrey to California. I d work for my grandfather back home and go (to Tony s) for the summer, Jeffrey recalls. Finally, in the late 70s, I loaded up and I stayed for several years. My intention was to live in California and do the reined cow horse, and learn the bridle and the hackamore. Jeffrey learned from watching other NRCHA legends such as Jimmy Williams, Ronnie Richards, Les Vogt, Benny Guitron and Bobby Ingersoll, all through their association with Tony. It was the time of his life. It ended when Jeffrey s grandfather died in 1981 and Jeffrey went home to help his mother run the family business. Through the years, Jeffrey continued to show in cow horse, roping and cutting, making several AQHA World Championship Show appearances. He was the amateur cutting reserve world champion twice, with Shortys Girl in 1998 and Travs Secret in 2004. He owned Teques Jay, 1998 junior heading world champion, and Docs Arcy Sug, world champion in senior tie-down in 1996 and the senior heeling reserve in 1995 (with Robbie Schroeder). He also built a showcase breeding farm in Warsaw, North Carolina, designed by Stan Gralla. When the family finally sold the business, Jeffrey once again focused on horses, this time on cutters. Now an AQHA 20-year breeder, Jeffrey and his wife, Sheri, run the breeding operation in North Carolina and have a pri- 156 D ECEMBER 2013 THE AMERICAN QUARTER HORSE JOURNAL

Jeffrey started this 2011 blue roan filly (One Time Pepto-Frecklesareinstyle by Docs Stylish Oak) as he does all his young stock: with the skills he learned from West Coast cow horseman Tony Amaral. I can spend the time on them, I can get them stopping and turning and hooked on a cow and they are ready to go the trainer, says the hands-on non-pro. He adds with a smile, This one s named Sheries Secret; do you think she s for sale? THE AMERICAN QUARTER HORSE JOURNAL DECEMBER 2013 157

Jeffrey teaches all his horses to hobble, using homemade hobbles made from burlap tobacco sheets. With hobbles, I believe you re teaching a horse how not to get hurt, he says. Jeffrey has taken what he has learned from horsemen in other industries and applied it to his cutting program: He has borrowed ideas from the Thoroughbred industry in how he has managed One Time Pepto as a stallion; and he starts his cutters like a reined cow horseman. To this day, I use in my training what I learned from Tony Amaral and those other reined cow horse guys in California taking a lot of time with horses, riding them outside, letting them be horses, he says. If you stop by Matthews Cutting Horses in Weatherford on a warm spring day, you ll probably find Jeffrey working with one of his 2s or 3s to ride. It ll be worth your while just to stand outside the round pen and listen to him tell stories and talk about horses, with a North Carolina lilt to his voice. With this little mare, the softer we are together, the easier she is going to be to train, Jeffrey says. I could jerk her around and make her look good on a cow, but then she d be nervous and stiff and lock-jawed, and I d have to lope her to get her to relax and think. I d rather have her soft and knowing I m not going to hurt her. It s all about giving a horse a signal with your hands; it s not about using brute force. vate training facility in Weatherford, Texas. They also own one of the industry s star sires, One Time Pepto, and stand him at Oswood Stallion Station in Weatherford. Jeffrey has been active with the National Cutting Horse Association, serving on the stallion owners committee. The Matthewses spend most of their time in Texas, and they often visit North Carolina, as well as Sheri s parents and her two sons in California. They raise 15-20 head a year. The crew in North Carolina foals out the mares, halter-break and wean the babies. In the fall of their yearling year, the youngsters head to Texas. It took me years to learn and build my horse program. It took me time to gain confidence that what Tony (Amaral) taught me all those years in California directly relates here. I truly believe, about a cutter or a cow horse or whatever, you ve got to go through the fundamentals. There is no substitute for the basic fundamentals of getting a horse to open a gate, stand still so you can get on and off, get good in the face, and so on. And you can t get it through intimidation because you ve fought them. You get it because you ve taken time with them and let them teach themselves. Tommy Manion told me when I was working for him, the mark of a good horseman is to be able to adapt to each horse. And that s true. It s not cookie cutter. And I do see that (mindset) in a lot of training operations, because they are going through so many numbers. To me, that means some may take 10 minutes, some an hour. If one s a little fidgety, stop, tie him to the fence and let him relax and think about it, and come back and ride him again. If you get in a tussle, leave the horse alone and come back. They settle and 158 D ECEMBER 2013 THE AMERICAN QUARTER HORSE JOURNAL

you settle. They are just like children, they really are: different personalities, different DNA. I spend a lot of time on the ground work. The first thing I want to teach them is to face you at that safe spot in the middle of the round pen. I used to turn them loose, but now I like to have control of them because when I stop them, I want them to face me. Before we saddle them, we get them where they will stop and come to you on their own because they know this safe spot. And if they get a little silly, they go back to work. I make my own hobbles. I use what we call tobacco sheets from North Carolina, big burlap sheets they wrap the tobacco in to get it to market. I don t want to hurt a colt, so if he pulls and struggles a little, this will stretch and won t skin him. I hobble them to saddle them, unsaddle them, or throw a blanket on them. It s a lot of trouble, but it teaches them to relax and be still. You ve got to do it day after day until they get comfortable, and then they ll just stand. And when you leave them tied, they re like an old horse. I m convinced that carries through when you ride them. I ll get on and off them with the hobbles, and swing a rope. When I step on and off, I want them to be relaxed and totally comfortable. I was interested in the racehorses, but I really wanted to learn how they picked horses. Through a business acquaintance in North Carolina, I got to know Jimmy Bell, president of Darley America s Jonabell Farm in Lexington, Kentucky. They took me under their wing. For several years, I would go to sales at Keeneland, Saratoga, Florida, and I d just go and pick their brains and watch how they watched them walk. The Thoroughbred trainers want the horses really stepping under. They want to see them set their front feet down straight. If they re stepping crooked, that s extra stress on the knees. If a horse steps short, they don t want him. I ve watched that in the cutting pen. If a horse steps short going to the herd, a lot of times it can t really stop. They wanted horses just like we wanted, but bigger: short backs, short cannons, strong behind, good head and neck. They put so much emphasis on conformation. If a horse has a bad knee, he s going to be weak running, and they ll pass it on. Because of what I learned there, I ve turned down a lot of nice horses through the years that weren t structurally sound. Young horses will let you know when they re ready for cattle. At first, I just want them to follow the cow. When the cow slows down, they slow down. Just track. Follow the cow and relax. All the dancing back and forth in the middle (of the cutting pen) will come in time. You ve got to first get them wanting to rate the cow. I just want them to be curious and track the cow wherever it goes. I want them to like it. This is a huge tool in teaching one to stop, too. Bobby Ingersoll told me 30 years ago, I can t get a horse to stop until I get him on a cow. I love showing, but not as much as I love riding these babies. They are so trusting and so soft, when you start them and spend time on them, one-on-one. There s noth- That s what I m looking for, Jeffrey says as the filly tracks a cow for the first time. If she didn t have cow, when that cow slowed down, she d be looking off over the fence. You can tell where her interest is. I don t want to discourage that by pain or spurring, I want her to think this is fun. THE AMERICAN QUARTER HORSE JOURNAL DECEMBER 2013 159

ing like getting them from the beginning. If they ve been started wrong, abused and intimidated, you don t ever get that softness and trust back. Intimidated is hard to get over. Starting out on cattle, I want to get them to think about slowing down and stopping with the cow, comfortably, not because someone has caused them pain. They don t think about the cow if they are thinking about the rider, and they can read that cow so much quicker than we can. At the Cow Palace (in Daly City, California,) they used to have retirement parties for 20-year-old cow horses that were still winning, still showing and still sound. It was black tie with a red carpet to retire those great cow horses. Those old horsemen took care of those horses. If we have horses showing in the (NCHA) Futurity in December, we bring them home, pull their blankets and let them hair up, pull their shoes, get them vetted and they go out for at least a month. When we bring them back in the spring, they re strong and they re better. When you ski, you always fall or get hurt when you are fatigued; that s the way these horses are when they get tired. I wasn t looking for a stud when I found One Time Pepto. I was looking for fillies. I go around to all the fitters before the sale. I ve known Tom Ryan since I was younger, and Tom said, I want to get your opinion on this horse, and he got out One Time. He profiled him for me way at the end of the barn, and I said, Gosh, that s a nice horse. Can I see him move in the round pen? And he said, I ll go get a longe line. I said, No, I want to see him loose. Tom was fitting him for the sale, and he didn t want to risk getting him hurt, but he finally did it. I just watched (One Time). He was fresh, of course, trotting around. He was flat-kneed and so up under himself, and good with his head and neck. I let him go until he was relaxed and I stepped in front of him. Jeffrey and Sheri Matthews CAPPY JACKSON To this day, I ve never seen a horse get as low behind as he did in front and come back through. I let him go again until he was relaxed, and again, I stepped in front of him and it was the same thing. I decided I didn t want anyone else to see this so I said, Thank you. I knew in my heart right then I was going to try to buy this horse. (Jeffrey purchased One Time in 2002 for a then-record $380,000.) I believe the mare is 70 percent of the breeding game. It s all about the mare. There are a lot of great stallions, but it s the good mothers that really make a horse. In a broodmare, you want it all: The structure and conformation and the cow you want it all. I also look at balance and eye appeal, start at the head and go back. George Tyler once said, If you start at the head and don t like it, the odds are you won t like something else. You need to have the whole picture. I m real high on the Shorty Lenas because they re gritty. A lot of trainers don t like them because they take a lot of riding. But some of the great horses are tough. I was around when King Fritz was big on the West Coast, and they were broncy. It took a cowboy to get them, but once you got them, they were unbelievable. My first (NCHA) Futurity must have been 20 years ago. The second year I went, I bought a mare called Shortys Girl (Shorty Lena-Brettas Girl by Mr Sugar Boy), and she came on to be a really nice mare. We just lost her this past year, but we have several of her daughters. I knew I wanted to manage One Time the best way I could. I went back to the Thoroughbreds and followed their model. A mare had to meet our requirements to breed to him. That was something this industry did not understand because normally with a popular stallion, they ll let the public decide (to breed to him or not). There are good arguments both ways (for and against doing that). A lot of good mares have never shown, and I knew that we were going to miss some good mares. But we didn t want to breed 300 mares a year. Quality is better than quantity. I was told once that turning sombody s mare down is like telling somebody their child is ugly and dumb, and I understand that. But I was determined to do right by the horse. And the right mares came. And it worked. Again, I called Jimmy Bell at Darley, and he said it was time to open the book (in 2013). I had proven the horse and now it was time to let the public decide (what to breed to him). We put our horses in country most people wouldn t even think of. This was the second year we ve leased a place in Montana, and we go up there for three months in the summer. It was tremendous for these young horses. They learn where to put their feet, and it helps them mentally. Most show horse people, if they knew the rocks, the rivers, the places where we put them, they would say, You re going to ruin that horse. When we came back, our vet, Dr. Chris Ray, said he d never seen these horses this sound. It was a lot of walk and trot, up and down hills, it wasn t getting them tired loping in a circle. It goes back to my roots in California. Tony would send us out in the hills on a colt. We d come back and he d work cattle, and you better have the fresh off of the colt or he d send 160 D ECEMBER 2013 THE AMERICAN QUARTER HORSE JOURNAL

The crew at Matthews Cutting Horses LLC, Weatherford, Texas FORREST a 4-year-old or he won t at all. Having a great 3-year-old is not everything. But we take a different approach. We are going to take care of our horses. One Time Pepto (Peptoboonsmal-One Time Soon by Smart Little Lena) and Matt Gaines. you back to the hills. It was the same with Don Dodge and Matlock Rose they rode them out in the hills; they d rope one day, or take them to a branding and work cattle. When it came time to show, they were ready. And they were sound. In theory, we want our horses to be able to do anything. If they don t make cutters or reined cow horses, maybe they ll make a ranch horse, or trail ride them. I see some cutting horses so intimidated. You don t make a horse through intimidation. You can t make any kind of a real horse that way. They ve got to like their job to do it good, plain and simple, I don t care if they are jumping, racing, cutting, whatever. The horse business is a lifestyle. If I couldn t be hands-on, I wouldn t be as enthused about it. Because I m hands-on, we manage our horses. I learned that from the Thoroughbreds: Those great horses have a manager to track medications, workouts, leg issues, everything. I believe that our job is to manage our horses; the trainer s job is to train the horse and show it. If a horse doesn t make a 3-year-old, that s OK, he ll make I ve never been married til now. I took a little more training than others. Tony (Amaral) sent me to a show in 1979 in Reno to show a cow horse. I saw Sheri there: She was showing youth. I m pretty shy, but I asked her out and we went to a dinner show, and we had a picture made. I remember driving down the mountain thinking about her, going home. Right after that, my grandfather died in North Carolina. I didn t want to leave: I wanted to live in California and do the reined cow horse. I loved it. But I knew I needed to go home. We had a small family farm; my mother worked in the business, and I was the oldest. I went back home. Seven years ago, my advertising person in California, Cam Essick, contacted Sheri because she s a writer. She said, I want you to contact this guy, we re going to do a brochure on his stallion and his farm. It was (NCHA) Futurity time, so we met in Fort Worth. A group of us were going to dinner, so I invited her and happened to sit beside her. I just couldn t quit thinking about her. We started seeing each other. We were in Colorado at a friend s, Tom Bailey of Iron Rose Ranch, and over two bottles of wine we realized we d had one date 27 years earlier! We had not put it together. What are the odds of that, North Carolina to California, 27 years later? It s been the best thing of my life. Christine Hamilton is an editor of The American Quarter Horse Journal. To comment, write to chamilton@aqha.org. THE AMERICAN QUARTER HORSE JOURNAL DECEMBER 2013 161