Bally Hobo

The Story (article) of Bally Hobo:
On Christmas Day, 1969, Gail lost Lit' Bit, a favorite horse of hers. Lit' Bit's unusual wide blaze always made him stand out from other horses. The following spring, Gail and Mike often drove the road from Scio to Albany, Oregon. Someone had leased the big grass-seed field, where the road makes a corner, and had turned 50 broodmares out to pasture. They knew a church group owned the property, but who had leased it? Where had the mares come from? Who owned them? On May 1, 1970, one of the mares in the big field dropped a colt with a face marking similar to Lit' Bit. Mike and Gail stopped frequently, and each time the curious colt would come to meet them at the fence. Then, one day in fall, all the mares and foals were gone. The following spring, Gail decided to look for a stallion with some height to breed mares they owned that had been sired by Quincy Dan. The mares were certainly nice, but on the small side. Gail found an advertisement for a 16.1-hand stallion called Bally Beers, standing not far from them in Jefferson, Oregon. Gail made an appointment to look at the stallion. She liked him, but what did he produce? Gail asked the owner if he had any colts by Bally Beers that she could see. Yes, he had a coming yearling colt in the barn. A broodmare had kicked the colt, so he brought him to treat the injury. The man led out the colt with the unusual white blaze. "My gosh! Where did you get that colt?" cried Gail. "Well, he's my colt! The man replied. "Is he for sale?" The question flew out of Gail's mouth. She raced home to tell Mike. "You've got to come with me to see this horse we're going to breed the mares to, and you've got to see the colt." They returned to Jefferson to make arrangements to breed the Quincy Dan mares to Bally Beers and to buy Bally Hobo, the colt with the wide blaze. "He knew he had me, hook, line and sinker," says Gail. "It didn't matter if it (the price of the colt) was $100 or $100,000. "Bally Hobo gave us everything we have today. He was such a great sire. It was like he was destined to be in our barn." At barely age three Bally Hobo finished his AQHA Championship and went on to make history as a sire. Mike says they were fortunate in that Hobo crossed well on the Quincy Dan daughters and on so many other family lines, particularly Snipper Reed bred mares. Mike and Gail showed Bally Hobo; their son and daughter showed the stallion's offspring; and now grandsons Mack and Mark are showing Hobo's grandget . He was the best friend," says Gail. "The best horse we ever owned. We grew old together; we grayed together." Bally Hobo lived with the Manns for 29 years and is buried on the farm. "Where he can keep an eye on everybody," says Gail.