In 1992, I visited the late, great livestock auctioneer Ike Hamilton at his home in West Monroe, Louisiana and he told me about selling the legendary cutting mare Poco Lena, in the B.A. Skipper Jr. Dispersal on March 20, 1963. At the time of his death, B.A. “Barney” Skipper owned Poco Lena, who had become foundered. Eventually, Poco Lena was purchased by Dr. and Mrs. Stephen Jensen and produced two foals by Doc Bar – Doc O’Lena and Dry Doc. Following, in his own words, is Ike’s account of the B.A. Skipper Dispersal:

I call Doc O’Lena and Dry Doc miracles. I’ll tell you why. Barney (Skipper) fell in an airplane. It killed him, of course, and that necessitated selling his horses. So we had the sale and every horseman in the world was there. And old Poco Lena was out there crippled and stove up bad.

Four or five of them brought their vets. We got into the sale and had a vet read a story about the mare, and we started selling her. I can remember it just as well as daylight. E.C. Johnston from Longview used to have lots of good Quarter Horses – as good a man as ever lived. He was standing behind me at the auction and he was bidding on the mare. I’d got her up to $14,000 and E.C. said, “I’m going to bid one more time.” Grady Madden from Midland was there and he stepped up and give $14,200 and E.C. quit. And I sold her to Grady Madden.

Grady took her over there to Midland and for some reason or other he found something that wasn’t right. And he and Barney’s mother got into quite a hassle about it and were about to go to the court house. Well, Don Dodge had heard that the thing wasn’t settled and they were having problems, and he got the idea of maybe trying to breed her to Doc Bar. So he got with the Jensens and then got Bob Elliott, Wild Bill Elliott’s brother, to come down and negotiate with Mrs. Skipper and settle the deal. Then (the Jensens) took her out to Doc Bar and rested her up and got her bred.

You say, well, why is that a miracle? If she’d stayed in Louisiana and if she’d been bred, it wouldn’t have been anything like Doc Bar. And they probably never would have got her in foal, anyway. If that ain’t a pretty good miracle, I don’t know.