Royal Blue Boon, cutting’s all-time leading dam of the earners of $2.6 million, was laid to rest Thursday, October 13, at Hall Cutting Horses, Weatherford, Texas, her home for all but the first of her 31 years.

Before she gained fame as a broodmare, Royal Blue Boon was a top performer under trainer Larry Reeder and the late Larry Hall. The Boon Bar daughter, bred by Curt Donley and foaled in 1980, earned an NCHA career total of $224,685.

Royal Blue Boon’s richest legacy, however, was through her sons and daughters, who in turn became leading producers – Peptoboonsmal, Autumn Boon, Mecom Blue, Duals Blue Boon, and Bet Yer Blue Boons, who top the list. In addition, her gelded son, Red White And Boon, is one of cutting’s all-time leading money earners with official NCHA earnings of $882,498.

In the early days of embryo transfer, foals like Royal Blue Boon’s champion daughter Peppys From Heaven helped pave the way for other ET performers, and dispelled doubts about foals produced in a lab and raised by surrogate mothers.

At 26, with her reproductive days behind her (her last foal was produced via embryo transfer in 1996), Royal Blue Boon made media headlines, when Royal Blue Boon Too became the world’s first commercially cloned filly, on February 19, 2006.