Dual Patron, the 5-year-old buckskin stallion owned by Bobby Lewis and shown by Joseph Harrison, stood out heads and tails above the field at the 2018 American Rope Horse Futurity Association’s $110,000-added World Championship Oct. 19, winning the $20,000 title with a score of 941.29 on four steers.
Harrison’s rodeo partner, two-time PRCA World Champion header Chad Masters, was on the head side as they roped their high-call steer in 7.32 seconds, in the event which the time counts as a third of the points. Judges Tee Woolman and Nick Sarchett each scored the horse an 83, the highest scores given in the short round.
“He’s just solid,” Harrison said. “I hate to call a 5-year-old solid, but he feels like I could throw him in the fire. He’s just fancy—he’s a classy little horse, and the way he stays framed up all the way through the corner, and the way he gets on his butt. And then he’s double good looking, a little buckskin with black mane and tail and black points. He’s a really pretty little horse besides how good he does his job. Everything mashed together at a judged event—he’s going to be hard to get around in his career.”
Harrison finished in the top eight on “Patron” last year at the inaugural event after roping a leg on his third steer, while owner Bobby Lewis won the 4-year-old incentive heading title on him in 2017. Harrison looks forward to riding him at the futurity again as a 6-year-old in 2019. Patron is also the reigning Junior Heeling World Champion in the AQHA and will compete there again in November 2018.
“Jay Wadhams asked me if I thought I could ride him at the NFR,” Harrison, who will rope in Vegas with Masters this December and will ride Patron’s half sister, Lula Dual, said. “I don’t think I would have any trouble riding him at the NFR. I really don’t.”
Patron was started as a cow horse and ridden by Austin Johnson for Lewis for three or four months, Harrison said. Then Lewis wouldn’t let anyone else ride the horse, because he knew he’d be special. Lewis was preparing him to compete in the NRCHA’s Snaffle Bit Futurity, but they didn’t think he had enough speed in his turn around, so as a long 3-year-old, he went to the heel side with Harrison.
“He just started to get good, and then he got even better,” Harrison said. “Everywhere I took him, the first part of his 4-year-old year, I won everything on him. He was qualified in February, which worked out so I could go rodeo. The last two years in a row I’ve got my horses done early to where I didn’t leave my guys with their pants down after I was gone. That’s worked out really good. Everything is doing really good. I’m looking forward to the World Show next month.”
Harrison guesses they’ll show the horse the next few years, and then hopes Lewis will let him rodeo on the horse because of how well they fit.
“I can get in a bad spot and heel in a bad spot, and the way his stride is and how he gets on his butt, everything involved fits me so good. He’s just a winner, it’s what he does—win.”
Patron’s future also involves breeding plenty of mares, and his first crop is ready to be weaned this fall. Patron should pass on his good mind and his willingness, Harrison said, and when crossed with the right mares, his possibilities as a producer are endless.
“I’m in love with anything Peptoboonsmal, Smart Lil Lena, something with Zan Par Barr, those kind of mares. I’m going to let him attract the mares that he attracts through what he and his foundation’s won. I don’t just have a rope horse stud, that the genetics of him goes back to great cowhorse studs and mares and reiners and cutters and everything behind that horse’s pedigree. Every horse in it was great. They weren’t just good horses, they were great horses. And he’s turning into a pretty good little horse himself.”
