Bobs Smokin Joe, 1993 NCHA Futurity champion, was euthanized on October 2, as a result of debilitating navicular disease. Non-pro rider Stan Hamilton, Maben, MS, had owned him since 1995.
“That morning, when I turned him out to get his last green grass, he turned around and looked at me and it ripped my heart out,” said Hamilton. “We led him out to the oak tree where we put him down and every horse on the place that was turned out in a trap started running. It was like they all knew. It beat anything I’d ever seen, fifteen-twenty horses all of a sudden start running, neighing and bucking.”
Bred by Dean Butler, Ruidoso, NM, Bobs Smokin Joe was sired by 1991 NCHA World Champion Bob Acre Doc and purchased privately by central Texas rancher Gary “Ping” Gough as a late two-year-old for $3,500. The big sorrel gelding had not even been started on cattle, but Gough put him in the hands of friend and neighbor John Tolbert, who had shown Mr Hickory Flo as reserve champion of the NCHA Futurity in 1991.
“He was a big colt for his age and we weren’t overly excited about him,” Tolbert remembered. “But we thought if he couldn’t cut, we’d make a roping horse out of him. Then, mid-summer of his three-year-old year, we began to realize that we could have a Futurity contender. From that point on, he just got better and better.”
It had taken Tolbert just 11 months to turn Bobs Smokin Joe into a champion. In addition to the Futurity, won with 221 points, Bobs Smokin Joe and Tolbert went on to claim three championships at four: the Abilene Spectacular; Gold Coast Winter Championship; and the NCHA Gelding Stakes. They also earned the reserve championship of the NCHA Derby.
Non-pro champion Lee Garner purchased the gelding from Gough at five, and later that year, consigned him to the NCHA Futurity Sales, where Hamilton bought him for $35,000.
“I’m a non-pro and I didn’t need a trainer on him,” said Hamilton. “He was awesome. The only thing I had to do as far as tuning on him was just stop and back him with that cow on the ends and go show.”
Hamilton showed 6-year-old Bobs Smokin Joe to earn three amateur and non-pro reserve championships in major limited age events, while his son, Josh Hamilton, won the 1996 NCHA Eastern National Championship riding the horse. In 1997, when Bobs Smokin Joe was seven, Stan placed eighth with him in the NCHA Non-Pro World Championship standings.
“I retired him in 1998 because he had navicular,” said Hamilton. “He had given me his heart every time I asked him for it and he never asked for anything in return, other than a pat. He taught me everything I know about cutting and I’m sure going to miss him.
“I buried him under some oaks here in Mississippi. He’s got his own cemetery, and I retired his stall. I’m not ever going to put another horse in his stall. He was an extraordinary animal that, I thought, understood me when I spoke to him. We just communicated and got along.”