Case Study: Billie Reeves - Old School Texas Barrel Racer
Billie Reeves has been running barrels for 45 years. Hailing from south Texas, she served as the County Treasurer, worked as a substitute teacher and now manages a ranch. All the while, she raised three kids (she is also raising her granddaughter) and still manages to compete in barrel racing at just 63 years young.
“I’ve currently got the best horse I’ve ever had,” Reeves says. “So, I just decided I’m not ready to quit and sit on a rocker on the polo porch. I’m going to go while I can.” 20 years ago, Reeves bought an off-the-track mare and trained her to be her daughter’s high school rodeo horse. In fact, she trained the horse so well that her daughter made it to Rodeo Finals all four years, which earned her enough money to go to college and compete on the mare’s foal—a gelding. That gelding was so good that he took Reeves’ daughter to National Finals three years in a row and earned enough money to pay for her college.
That’s a pretty solid training resume rehab.
However, in June of 2016, the Monday after Reeves retired, a new foal was born—Frenchman’s Valor (aka Rafe). “His mother had bad anxiety, so I had a heads-up on his psyche. He was a really honest young horse and wanted to try, but the anxiety he had was really holding him back,” she says. Rafe had a particularly bad habit of refusing to go down the alleyway at the rodeos. He would turn around, plow through anything behind him and even pin Reeves (accidentally) against the wall.
“I could find nothing that would help me get him down the alleyway, and I was willing to try anything that was not a flat-out drug,” Reeves says. “The very night I started Equilibrium, Rafe did his normal stop down the alleyway, but then I talked to him, smooched, and he just went right in and did a very nice run.” The Equilibrium (a dose of about 3 ML an hour before the stress-inducing event) was working.
“Rafe doesn’t lose his footing. He doesn’t get slower on the front or the back end. You’d never know he was on anything. The alley issue seems to be behind us, but I’m not going to stop using it thinking he’s total over his stress,” Reeves explains. “When I start trailering the young horses, they will also be on Equilibrium just to relieve that anxious factor of hauling.”
It just takes the edge off, and that’s what I need. I’m sold,” Reeves says.
Interested in seeing Equilibrium can be a healthy part of your horse’s management program? Order your first dose risk free today and see how we can help you.
