Parker’s Trouble put Patagonia, Arizona, on the map. The stallion made his owner’s ranch a destination for horsemen looking for superior horses.
He first made a name for himself through his exploits on the track, then through his work on the ranch and ultimately through offspring that demonstrated their superiority.
A chestnut stallion by Ed Echols and out of Little Nellie Bars by Three Bars (TB), Parker’s Trouble was foaled in 1949 on the ranch of his breeder, W.D. “Dink” Parker, of Fort Huachucha, Arizona.
Broke to saddle by Blain Lewis, Parker’s Trouble was sent to the track as a 2-year-old. Parker’s Trouble won a futurity at Tucson and lost another by a nose at Ruidoso. In his 19 other starts, he added five more wins, two more seconds and a couple of thirds, for lifetime earnings of $4,609. He graded AAA before an injury at 3 ended his race career.
After the colt left the track, Blain leased Parker’s Trouble for a year. When the year was up, Parker came to retrieve the stallion and take him to Tucson. By then, a future AQHA president had gotten involved. Blain recalled the story 30 years later in The Quarter Horse Journal.
“A few days later, I asked him why he wanted to take him to Tucson, and Dink told me that B.F. Phillips was coming through and wanted to look at him since he was buying him. I asked him, ‘Dink, how much will you take for him right now today?’ Dink says, ‘For you, $3,000.’ So I wrote him out a check, hooked on my trailer and went and got him. A few months later, I was offered $20,000 for him, and Dink was sitting right there, made him sick.”
Breeders liked the stallion’s conformation and athleticism and also appreciated the quiet mind he threw.
“I can overlook small things, if a horse has got action, speed and disposition,” Blain said. “Parker’s Trouble had a disposition that was very good.”
That action, speed and disposition was dispersed all across the Quarter Horse world. The breed is much better for it.
Parker's Trouble was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2016.
Biography updated as of March 2016.