Docs Wild Twist, SDQHA Horse of the Year ridden by a boy

They say after several years, pet owners begin to look like their pets.

Dalton Grimes’ horse Hammer isn’t a pet, but the two have some conformation similarities.

Both are shorter and strong, “with a stout build,” Dalton said. Both are athletic, and not tall by any means, but thicker built.

Hammer is “short-backed, deep-cinched, with a big hip. He’s not strung out. I wouldn’t say he’s chunky, but he’s an athletic horse.”

The parallels end there.

“He’s quite a bit faster than me,” the Kadoka, S.D. cowboy joked. “I’m not as fast.”

And for his athleticism, smarts, and all-around skill, Docs Wild Twist, “Hammer,” is the AQHA Horse of the Year, ridden by a boy.

Hammer, who is 16 years old, was purchased by Dalton’s parents, Levi and Elissa Grimes, from Bobby Lewis in Oklahoma. His sire is Freckles Fancy Twist, a stud that Bobby stood and promoted and his dam, a daughter of Lil Tenino Fair, was from older cutting bloodlines.

A horse trainer, Levi brought Hammer home as a sixty-day two-year-old, then trained and showed him in his three, four and five-year-old years in the National Reined Cow Horse Association, winning close to $20,000 on the gelding.

Hammer excels in the reined cow horse, which is what Dalton rides him for in the S.D. High School Rodeo Association. The horse is also his backup horse for the cutting, and with Jackson, Dalton’s older brother, won the cutting once and was reserve champion in the reined cow horse twice at the S.D. State High School Finals.

“He’s extremely tough, and extremely gritty,” Levi said. “He’s got a lot of cow, enough cow he could have been a cutter instead, and we did show him in the cutting.”

Before Levi’s boys rode him, Levi showed him. “He’s placed in every local cow horse event in the five-state area, and even finished in the top fifteen in the year end standings of the NRCHA Open Bridle Class when he was six years old.” Levi has ridden and trained hundreds of horses, but Hammer is special. “He was one of my more successful ones.”

He’s also good at ranch work, and in Levi’s heart, that’s where Hammer’s true calling is.

“If you get down to it, his best event is packing my kids and my wife around, ranching. They become such great hands when they ride a great horse. They learn where to be on cattle, and when they ask him to do something, he’ll do it.”

“He’s the best ranch horse I’ve ever ridden,” Dalton said. “You can do whatever you want: rope calves, drag calves, sort cows, he’ll do anything for you.”

When Hammer was young, he wasn’t ready to be ridden by young people.

The sorrel “wasn’t a bronc,” Levi said, “but he was way too alive and electric for kids.” By age nine, he got gentler and quieter, and “now he’s really that way.”

Between his intelligence and his high energy, Hammer needs plenty of riding. When he was young, Levi rode him five or six days a week. “He wasn’t hard to train, but he had a big motor, and you had to ride him strong.

“He gets a little hot and a little high, and you have to school on him,” Levi said. “I think he’s forced my boys to become good horsemen in that regard. You can’t just get on him and push his buttons.”

He’s also very smart. “He always knows what’s going on,” Dalton said. “He can be one step ahead of you at times. He knows what he should be doing, and if he gets riled up, you just tell him once, then he’s back to being normal.”

The Grimes family nearly didn’t keep Hammer.

A couple approached Levi at a horse show, when the horse was six, asking what it would take to buy him.

“I told them, I’d sell him for $50,000 which is not a huge number now, but it was then,” he said.

The couple said they’d think about it, and walked away.

A few minutes later, as Levi saw them approaching, “I had a change of heart,” he said. “I told them, he’s not for sale.

“I stopped it right there, and what a blessing,” Levi said. “I think God told me not to sell. We had kids coming up, and when was I going to find time to make another one? I was not meant to sell him. He was meant for my family.”

The Grimes will never sell him now, Dalton said. Once his competition days are over, “he’ll get fat and hang out,” at the ranch.

Hammer has been a blessing to the Grimes’, including daughter Jordan and youngest son Dillon.

“He’s one of the family and we absolutely love him.”