Arena Tracks: One Good Horse

Stories rarely have a specific starting point; a moment in time to which one can point and say, “That’s where it all began.”  There’s always a backstory and a build up to the moment that set events in motion.  This is that kind of tale; a narrative that doesn’t necessarily start at any one place, but one that ends with lives changed by the presence of a single horse.  

Jodie Jarvis Beckstrom’s name is today most recognized in conjunction with her family’s stallion, The Goodbye Lane or as “Gracie, Morgan and Caiden Beckstrom’s mom.”  When I chatted with her Sunday afternoon, she was fresh off a set of outstanding prospects and ready to chat about the horses that got her to this point in her life; most notably, a horse with strong South Dakota ties, Duster Jay Bar.

Duster Jay Bar came into this world with a little tug from Terry Moody who happened to be visiting his brother, Tim, near his Letcher, SD home.  Tim Moody had bought Jay’s dam, Sergeant Queen, in a bulk purchase of race horses from Zoder Goliher who was getting out of the race horse business.  The Moodys, who are still IN the race horse business, were thrilled that Sargeant Queen came carrying a foal by Range Duster, a regional rockstar imported from Arizona by Zoder himself.  

As fate would have it, Duster Jay Bar would worm a place into the lives of the Terry Moody family and he’d come home with them after brother Tim no-saled him for $500 on the Johnny Knippling sale.  Terry Moody was handy, hungry and had a couple kids and a wife that were all horse crazy. In his spare time, he started Jay and pretty quickly realized the talent he had.  That said, a family has to eat before they can compete so he tried to sell him as a three year old.  The folks passed on him, shocked at his $1000 price tag, so Terry just kept on a riding him.  At five years old, he started him on the barrels and, on a whim, entered the Fizz Bomb Futurity, winning the Amateur Championship saddle.  When he got home, his wife, Coly and daughter Tera grabbed the lead rope without even a passing glance over their shoulders. 

The mother/daughter duo were a force to be reckoned with in early 1990s South Dakota.  Coly started slowly, entering a WPRA jackpot in Crooks as a first outing.  Giddily, she won it and just couldn’t believe how LUCKY she was.  She went to the next one and won that one too.  Huh.  You can almost see the realization dawning on Coly that she wasn’t LUCKY, Jay was just that GOOD.  Coly rounded out her time with Jay with four Badlands Circuit Finals qualifications and was the Badland Circuit Champion in 1993, qualifying for the Dodge National Circuit Finals.  For her part, tiny Tera Moody (now Cuka) won the State 4H Rodeo All Around Championship, winning a 15″ saddle for her 12″ bottom.

At times, we aren’t completely aware of how good we have it and Coly echoed that sentiment, saying “Once you have a good horse, you spend the rest of your life trying to find the next one.”  However, Coly was soon a single mother with two kids and a life to get on with.  When it was time for Jay to find a new home, Coly contacted the legend, Martha Josey, to help her find him the perfect match.  Martha had just the person – Brooke Oden, a family friend of the Joseys.  Brooke took Jay and won a few rodeos before passing him along to his next and final home with Jodie Jarvis of Spanish Fork, Utah.  

The Jarvis girls were competitors from the get-go.  Their family raised sheep and they showed anything on four legs.  Jodie had gathered up her earnings from the sale of her show sheep and steers and approached her mother about buying herself a better barrel horse.  Oh, Jodie was already mounted on a nice palomino, but the little bug, try as she might, couldn’t keep up with the big dogs.  Mark Jarvis had always maintained that his daughters would be breakaway ropers and goat tyers, so wasn’t too keen on spending money on a barrel horse, but weakened when Jodie told him it would help her get a full ride scholarship to college and HE could pick the school.  That did it.  They’d go look at horses.  And she should plan to go to Utah Valley University, 10 miles down the road.

The Jarvis family hopped a plane and headed to Texas where, with the help of Ed Wright, they had horses lined up for Jodie to try.  Jay was the first horse they tried and while Jodie liked him, they didn’t fly that far to just try one horse and go home.  Three days and seventeen head later, the Jarvis family was back on the plane to Utah, planning to buy Jay while Jodie shuffled down the aisle sore from riding that many horses.

Jodie gets emotional when telling of meeting the shipper to pick up Jay in North Platte, Nebraska.  She said she could still smell the sawdust from the trailer that day, so excited was she to get started on her new red rocket.  But little did the Jarvis family know, Jay had a personality and a bit of a mission.  He was going to test his newest, young jockey.

The pair’s practice runs at home were flawless and Jodie started getting antsy to put him on the clock in competition.  At the first barrel race, with the confidence born of promising practice runs and pure youthful naivety, Jodie sent Jay to that first barrel hard….and he ducked before getting there, lapping the arena with her tiny  14 year-old body doing its damndest to get the big sucker stopped.  “Pull on the inside rein, honey!!” was the plea from the announcer’s stand.  That might have been enough for a normal kid, but Jodie was resilient.  She saddled up at the next rodeo and sent him screaming to the first barrel…and he ducked it again.  Three or four runs and he ducked on her every single time.  They made some calls.  Got some opinions.  But never gave up hope.  

Jodie entered a local amateur rodeo, pretty excited about the cash payout.  It was held in Ogden and cold, cold, cold outside.  The warm up pen was connected to the tunnel leading to the arena and Jodie would ride Jay up there to keep him warm and settle him in.  Now this is a kid who has lapped the arena every time she’d run her new horse and yet, when they called her name, she sent him hard to the first barrel.  And he inhaled it.  They won the rodeo and a few months later at the amateur association finals in Salina, she set a new arena record.  They fueled up the pick up and just kept it shifted into drive.

Duster Jay Bar and Jodie Jarvis, at 16 years of age, took to the WPRA, winning the Days of ’47 Rodeo beating the legendary Bozo, also a horse with strong SD ties.  Chuck Peterson strolled over to Mark Jarvis and asked the eternal question, “So, uh, what’s that horse?”  The conversation sparked a friendship that the families maintain to this day.  

While Jodie and her sisters, Jamie, Josie and Marcie all continued to win at barrel racing, their dad made sure they could rope and tie goats as well.  The result, for Jodie, was full ride offers to 113 universities.  True to her word, she chose Utah Valley University, just like her dad had wanted.

Jodie was often asked to sell Jay and was just as likely to cut off her own thumb.  She was also approached to lease him for the NFR as the big sorrel horse excelled at tiny patterns.  The family had a yearly date at the BFA, held at the same approximate time as the NFR, so she always declined the requests.  Jay took her through college then, sadly, as all girls do, Jodie grew up and got married.  She recalls the first time she left him at home when heading to a barrel race; Jay running along the fence after the trailer.  Crying, she stopped and told him that even if his mind was still agile, his body wasn’t and he needed to rest so her children could meet him.  Jay seemed to understand and met Gracie and Morgan and then, a month and a half after the birth of her son, Caiden, Jay laid down and took his final breath.  

While Jay’s body is gone, his spirit still holds court over the Jarvis barn.  Jodie said the foundation of their breeding, training and feeding program was honed through their time with Jay.  They came to understand the need for therapies and a turnout and rest regime.  Mark Jarvis became an expert at feeding and conditioning horses, a routine they follow to this day.

Today, Jodie has stepped aside as her girls compete on horses from the family’s breeding program.  Though not related, Gracie’s mount, “Big Earl” (CM Waitin On Lane) reminds her so much of Jay.  He is big, with huge feet and his red coat harkens back to the old horse that carried her mother to so many titles and started the way of life they lead now.  Jodie wonders what would have happened had they NOT found Jay.  It’s a question that doesn’t require a response or even a thought because they did find him and the two of them left a mark on the barrel racing world.  Together.