Chad Masters’ Madison Oak aka “Clint” won AQHA/PRCA Horse of the Year, but that nice, big, sorrel gelding isn’t one that we’ve been seeing backing in the head box at the Thomas & Mack. Masters has been roping on a 11-year old palomino named Jimmy who he bought from Neil and Ashley Bourne in Tennessee.
“I think Clint would work here at the NFR,” Masters said. “He works at every setup but this horse is a little more free running. Anytime anything happens Clint gets on his butt—anytime you move a rein or you stand up he’s on his butt. This arena is so small it happens faster on him. It might be a good thing or he might get a little quick.”
Clint won third in the AQHA/PRCA Horse of the Year back in 2015 behind Clay Tryan’s Dew and JoJo Lemond’s Bull, but in 2017 he took the number-one spot.
“It’s been a lot of years of training on him that pays off,” Masters said. “Not only that, I’ve been rodeoing 15 or 16 years, and I think that Clint is the only one that has ever placed. He placed third once. He worked so good all year long and It’s really cool to me to have him win it.”
The AQHA/PRCA Head Horse of the Year hasn’t been one for easy keeping as Masters worked day-in and day-out to get him to where he’s at today.
“For him, especially since he’s kind of been a challenge, it took him a while to mature,” Masters said about the gelding. “If he would have been easy going the whole time it might not have turned out so good because I wouldn’t have rode him as much. I spent a lot of time with him and I’m super happy of him this year.”
Clint isn’t the only horse that Masters currently has or has owned by Son Of Oak and out of Freddies Baby Doll. He currently owns the full brother he calls Twinkie (9-year-old) and sold the middle brother a few years ago who is 10-years old now. Jimmy is also a half-brother to the three sorrel geldings who look as similar as a horse could get.
“There’s a good friend of ours named Clint Madison that lives in Kentucky now but he’s from Mississippi,” Masters said. “Him and his family raise them, and I bought mine when he was 4, and then I bought another one from him a couple years later that was a full brother to him when he was 4, and then I bought the last one, but he had already been a calf horse and was hauled a couple years after that. The horse I’m riding here I think is a half brother to them—the palomino.”
It seems that the horses by Son Of Oak out of Freddies Baby Doll tend to have a jumpy side to them. But besides them being watchy on the ground, they make up for it in the arena. They may have their little quirks but they get their game faces on when you get on them.
“They’re impossible to catch—any of them,” Masters laughed. “Once you get your hands on them they’re really gentle. People think that their broncs just trying to get around them but once you get on them they’re all dead heads—at least mine are anyhow. It’s funny how the way that they run they don’t feel like they’re running hard but they’re just catching up—I don’t know how to explain it.”
Not only did Masters ride Clint to get him to the finals this year, he took the youngest out of Son Of Oak by Freddie Baby Doll, Twinkie, to some rodeos until late June for his first time be a rodeo horse.
“He’s really solid but he’s not the horse that Clint is,” Masters said. “I really thought that he’d be better but he’s not as quick footed. I think he will do really good next year rodeoing but I think he was a little green this year and I just kind of threw him under the fire needing to use him at the big rodeos—it was hard.”
Although he owns horses that have the same breedings, he isn’t one for looking at a horses breedings but he just might start.
“I think that I should get into it more and learn more because it seems like I’ve spent a lot of time on some horses that are just cow bred or not bred to the part and it just don’t turn out as good—there must be something to it,” Masters said.
