BARREL RACING

A LONE HERO GIVES SHELTON HEADLEY HIS FIRST YOUTH WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP.

BY CHRISTINE HAMILTON, FIELD EDITOR 

Shelton Headley won barrels on his mare A Lone Hero.

First in the go, 14-year-old Shelton Headley of Port Gibson, Mississippi, and his mare, A Lone Hero, set the standard for the barrel racing finals on August 7 with a speedy 16.384.

They had the fastest time in the August 6 prelims with a 16.368.

“She had an all right run yesterday,” Shelton said, “and came back today and had a real nice pattern. She had to run three times yesterday, which is real hard on a horse, to come back and run real hard in the barrels.”

The two also qualified for the stake race finals with the fourth fastest time.

Shelton didn’t have time to watch the other goes; he had another horse to get ready. He and Rockettes Rumors were 11th in the go but knocked down two barrels. Shelton loped her home.

“I didn’t want to knock down a third barrel,” he said. “It was no use making her run.”

But the world championship belonged to him and the mare he calls “Ed.” A 1997 brown mare by Village Hero and out of Alone Always by Master Hand (TB), Ed has proven her toughness in the past.

“About two or three years ago, she went blind in her right eye, she had moon blindness,” Shelton said. “And she was out for about five or six months, and we brought her back.”

On top of that, the mare was laid up with a hoof abscess just prior to this show season. With “some TLC” from Shelton, friends and family, they brought the mare back to running soundness.

“She’s had a really good year,” Shelton said. “She’s won between $3,000 to $4,000 this year.”

Shelton and Ed were the Region Nine Experience amateur pole bending champions in 2005. But this is his first Ford AQHYA World Championship Show. He came to Fort Worth, Texas, with his parents, David and Jazelle Headley.

“We have always seen it in the AQHA books, and we’ve always watched it on TV,” Shelton said. “We just finally wanted to come up here. We qualified in three events in the roping and three in the running events.”

And now they are youth world champions on their very first try.