Jimmy Ham and Danny Fitzgerald arrived at the Bayer Select World Championship Show with visions of golden ponies dancing in their heads.On September 1, they picked up those world championship trophies to take home as the first Select winners of the new ranch sorting class.
“You can’t explain it,” Jimmy said. “It’s just beyond explanation. That’s what we were really wanting to do is be the first team to win, and it worked out. We just rode and kept our heads level.”
Jimmy and Danny have been sorting together about two years, and they worked hard to qualify for this Bayer Select World.
“It’s a long road to get here,” Jimmy said. “It takes a lot of hauling the whole year long just to get the points to get to these shows.”
Once inside the Amarillo National Center in Amarillo, the team made the most of its time in the arena.
“Well, we ran seven calves in 72 seconds in our first run and were pretty satisfied with that,” Danny said. “We both decided if we could just make a good solid run, it would put pressure on the rest of them, and I think that’s what it did. Everybody had to go for it.”
This year is the first year that preliminary and finals scores have been combined to determine the winners of speed events.
Danny, who traveled to the Bayer Select World from Eminence, Kentucky, was riding a 12-year-old gelding, Docs Sugar Scratch, that he has had since the horse was 4.
“His breeder is here, who raised him and she’s simply tickled to death,” Danny said. “The guy that rode him for her all the time (is here, too). I’ve got cattle – I farm – so if I’ve got to separate some cattle, I’ll use that horse.”
Jimmy, who hails from Athens, Alabama, was on a 1999 mare, Miss Tari Belle.
“The little mare I ride, she’s a double-bred Doc Bar mare,” he said. “I bought her off a boy out of Mississippi who trains and sells penning horses. That was his hauling horse, and I bought her a couple of years ago because I needed a horse to haul. She’s a really nice little mare – quiet, easy to haul, easy to handle.”
Both men consider sorting and penning their hobby.
“We love to do it,” Danny said. “I started 16 years ago and rode a Paint horse with my cousin and his 10-year-old boy and won the first show I ever went to, and the hook, if you’ll look closely, you can still see it there (in the corner of my mouth).
“It don’t get no better than this.”
Horse name: Docs Sugar Scratch
Pedigree: 1995 sorrel gelding by Docs Sugar Lynx x Yellow Rose General by Sock's Nino
Exhibitor: Danny Fitzgerald
Owner: Danny Fitzgerald, Eminence, Kentucky
Horse name: Miss Tari Belle
Pedigree: 1999 brown mare by Doc O'Bell x Silver Leo Doc by Doc Tari
Exhibitor: Jimmy L. Ham
Owner: Jimmy L. Ham, Athens, Alabama
Total class entries: 61 teams
Purse: $24,400
World Champion Prizes: Custom-designed gold-tone trophy, Montana Silversmiths buckle with 14K gold overlay, Tex Tan product, Cripple Creek Outerwear logoed jacket, neck wreath. |
