Six-time Wrangler National Finals Rodeo qualifier Brent Lockett has two heel horses of the year plus the one that kickstarted his career buried in his backyard. Paint wasn’t eligible for an American Quarter Horse Association-sponsored award, because he was registered with the American Paint Horse Association instead. But if you take away that one horse, Brent’s NFR back-number collection would surely shrink. Paint’s the one who got the rodeo ball rolling for the middle Lockett boy, who’s bookended by big brother Blaine and little brother Kyle.
(Before we get back to Paint, a well-earned honorable mention of the two great ones buried beside him. Wills Budha took 1995 Heel Horse of the Year honors back when Cody Cowden owned him. Brent bought “Blue” toward the end of the horse’s career. Also buried out back at Brent’s is 2000 Heel Horse of the Year Nifty Jacks Back. Nine-time NFR heeler Kyle Lockett bought Dinero from Tanner Bryson.)
But it all started for Brent with Paint, whose APHA-registered name was Behind Bars.
“Paint came in on a cattle truck with a load of cattle and a gray horse when he was coming 3,” remembers Brent, who’s 51 now and lives in Ivanhoe, California. “We were doctoring a lot of cattle for Jim Chance, and he bought those two horses with the cattle. My brother Blaine mostly rode Paint at first, and I rode the gray.
“From day one when you pulled on Paint’s reins, his ass would go down. I was heading for Blaine back then, but Dad would let me heel one at the end of our practice sessions. I started riding Paint when he was 3 and I was 13. I entered my first jackpot on him at the Turlock Horsemen’s Club, and won a roping on him.”
Later that same year, in the fall of 1987, Brent forged a fateful friendship with the late Mike Boothe. Dad Jim Lockett had lined up a couple partners for Brent at the Oakdale 10-Steer in California’s original Cowboy Capital of the World, and one of them was Mike.
“I met Mike that morning, and he asked me if I wanted to head or heel,” Brent remembers. “I told him I usually heeled, so that was that. Mike and I won the Oakdale 10-Steer that year. He was riding his great old bay horse, Stoney, and I was riding Paint. I’d turned 14 by then, but Paint was still only 3.”
That rancher they day-worked for, Jim Chance, still owned Paint at the time.
“If I remember right, I may have made the Finals on him one time before we bought him,” Brent grins. “My dad bought Paint and the buckskin Kyle won the (Oakdale) 10-Steer on and basically grew up on, Carl, in a package deal.
“I rode Paint at four of the five NFRs I got to rope at. All but 1994, when I rode a bay horse I got from Dennis Gatz that we called Ears. So I rode Paint at my first NFR in 1993 (when he heeled for Boothe; Brent also roped with Mike at the Finals in 1994); at my third NFR in 1996 when I roped with Liddon (Cowden); and at my fourth and fifth NFRs in 1998 and ’99 with Chance (Kelton).”
Boothe died at 25 from rare complications after badly breaking his leg in a wreck on the Pendleton grass in 1995. Liddon died at 54 on January 1 this year after suffering a stroke and other health issues. Brent also qualified for the 2000 NFR, but a badly broken leg at the last rodeo of the regular season at San Francisco’s Cow Palace forced him to the sidelines for that year’s Super Bowl of Rodeo (Kelton roped with Monty Joe Petska in Vegas that year).
“What made Paint great for me was just that he always used his ass and raised that saddle horn when he stopped,” Brent said. “He wasn’t broke that good. He didn’t have any bend in his neck at all. But he would drag his left leg, slide around that corner and let me rope ’em fast. And he didn’t have any give on the end of it.
“One of the best compliments about Paint was when Kory Koontz flew in for Oakdale one year, and asked if he could ride him in the pro-am roping at the roping they always had after slack. He said he was one of the best horses he ever rode. That meant a lot.”
Lockett remembers late NFR tie-down roper Shawn McMullan heeling one for Fred Whitfield on Paint at the rodeo in Canby, Oregon, the night Shawn died in a tragic 1996 road accident.
“Shawn was one of my good buddies,” Brent said. “Paint was the last horse he ever backed in the box. We had a beer at the beer stand, then they took off. Their driver and Stran (Smith) survived the wreck. Shawn didn’t.”
Brent has won the Pendleton Round-Up three times—twice on his sure-footed faithful, Paint. Winning it in 1996 was key to making the NFR cut with Liddon that year. Having spoken at Boothe’s funeral after his fall there the year before, that was an extra special win for both Brent and Big Lid. Brent and Paint struck again on the grass in 1998 to win the Round-Up behind Kelton, and took a third Pendleton victory lap riding Blue in 2002, when Brent was roping with Liddon again.
“One year in the late ’90s, Paint came off that hill at Pendleton 16 times,” Brent remembers. “Seven of us rode him, and two of us made the short round. Zanc (Matt Zancanella), BJ and Bucky (the Campbell brothers), Dugan (Kelly), Shot Branham, Nick Sarchett and me all rode Paint at Pendleton that year, and two of us made the short round. There was no better horse on that grass than Paint.”
Brent and Paint’s run was long and fruitful.
“I rode Paint from 1987 through the 10th round of the 1999 NFR,” Lockett said. “I bought Blue right after that, when Cody decided to start heading. I rode Blue in 2000 (when he qualified for his sixth NFR). Blue was already 16 when I bought him, but he was a great one.”
What made Blue one of the best?
“Al Bach had Blue, then Monty Joe, then Cody, then me,” Lockett said. “Cody Cowden made Blue great. That horse could get around that corner and square up. Cody’s horses have always had a way of working great, and that’s no coincidence.
“Unfortunately, I only got to ride Blue two or three years. He got sick, and his lungs started filling up with fluid. He had a lump on his side—some sort of tumor—all along. I sure wish I could have ridden Blue longer, because he was amazing. As long as I rode Paint, and as much as I won on him, Blue’s the best horse I ever rode. I roped sharper on him than anything.
“But I can’t take anything away from Paint. He was everything to me, basically. I rode Paint at the junior rodeo finals, the high school finals and the National Finals. The only reason I skipped the college finals was because David Motes asked me to rope.”
Paint was tough, and even survived a couple of scary road mishaps—once when the trailer flipped in Sonora, Texas, and another time when then-rookie Brent fell asleep at the wheel on the drive from Tucson to Houston, and he woke up with the rig pointing the wrong direction on the highway.
“The difference between a good heel horse and a bad one is night and day,” Lockett said. “If you have a good one, you don’t have to think about your horse at all. Paint was no racehorse. But my dad always said you need a horse that lets you win when you draw a good one, because you don’t win much on the runners anyway.”
—TRJ—
