“Bruno had a special look from the beginning,”
says Sharnai Thompson about her stallion, Hot Ones Only, that she owns with her
mother, Tammy Dyer.
Today, the “gentle giant” is AQHA’s winningest
performance stallion of all-time with nine AQHA World Championships and 13
Congress Championships. He went undefeated at the AQHA World Show, a perfect
nine for nine, and had lifetime earnings of over $100,000.
The 2006 bay stallion by Invitation Only and out of Hot Shot
Hit (TB) was bred by David James who owned Invitation Only at the time. During
James’ dispersal sale on November 12, 2005, a pregnant Hot Shot Hit was bought
by Dyer and Thompson for $12,500. Little did they know that the baby she was
carrying would go on to be AQHA’s winningest performance stallion of all-time,
as well as an AQHA World and Congress Champion sire.
But what was Bruno like before he was famous?
“When Bruno was born, he was special from the start
because he was so pretty and so big,” Dyer remembers. “From the
moment he was born he had that special something that we always knew he would
accomplish great things. He was, and still is, so regal looking. Bruno has
always been a gentle soul, great minded, quiet, lazy, and very trainable. He
has passed these wonderful traits on to his babies.”
“He was striking as a baby (pictured left) all the way through his
yearling year,” Sharnai recalls. “Consequently, when we started riding him, we
always knew he was a nice horse, but we really didn’t realize how spectacular
he was until he stepped foot in the Congress Masters Two Year-Old Hunter Under
Class for the first time. He truly is the epitome of a show horse.”
The first indication of how truly special Bruno is came at
the 2008 All-American Quarter Horse Congress. Showing as a two-year-old, he set
records that may never be broken.
“At that time, the Masters Class was held on Friday
night,” Jason Martin, one of Bruno’s trainers, remembers. “He won the
Masters Friday night and the Junior Hunter Under Saddle with Beth Case the next
morning. That afternoon he won the Amateur Hunter Under Saddle with Sharnai.
So, he won three Congress Championships within a 24-hour period as a two year
old. That has never been done before or since.”
“At
the Congress of his two year-old year, he was so lazy that we had to drag him
to the arena,” Dyer says laughing. “Between splits, we did not want
to take him all the way to stalls to potty cause we didn’t want to use up his
energy.”
Beth Case remembers a young Bruno the same as Dyer. “Bruno was extremely easy to break
out, and he was so quiet and so much fun to show right from the start.”
Beth says that her favorite wins with Bruno include the
Congress Masters Two Year-Old Hunter Under Saddle Class as well as the Junior
Hunter Under Saddle. “I just went in the Junior for the fun of it and we
ended up winning which was amazing for a two year-old at his first show, and to
top that, his first show was the Congress.”
Case continues,“A funny memory I remember was when I was walking him back
to his stalls at the NSBA World Show and there was a pile of buckets in the
middle of the aisle way. He proceeded to walk right through them instead of
going around them. Nothing ever seemed to phase him.”
Case’s other favorite win on Bruno came at the 2013
Congress, when on a whim, Beth decided to show him in the Senior Hunter Under
Saddle and Martin in the Senior Pleasure Driving. Case hadn’t schooled or shown
Bruno in four years but he didn’t miss a beat. Martin and Case had no
intentions of showing him at the Congress. They had brought him to practice the
pleasure driving before Martin showed him at the AQHA World Show. However, the
last minute decision paid off when the bay stallion ended up winning both
classes.
[NPI
Float=”left”]/Media/4/jpg/2013/10/c111a658-155d-40cf-9cd2366d4258c06c.jpg[/NPI]Dyer
adds, “You never know how a horse is going to show, no matter how special
you think they are. Well, Bruno loves to show and he demands your attention and
loves his job. He shines like a Million Dollars when he hits the arena.”
Any plans to show Bruno again in the future? “He is
completely retired,” Dyer states. “He has nothing else to
prove.”
Not surprisingly, Hot Ones Only has already made his mark as
a sire with his oldest foal crop being four years-old. Bruno has sired multiple
Congress and World Champions including 2014 AQHA World Champion in the Amateur
Hunter Under Saddle, Only Blue Couture, as well as Congress Champion Not Just
Anyhoo and Only Smokin Hot, to name a few.
“We love how he will cool off a hot mare and give them
a good brain,” Martin states. “We have probably started about 15 of
his two year-olds and not one of them has ever bucked.”
If you would like more information about breeding to Hot
Ones Only, please contact Christi Christensen at 903-816-1428 or visit his
website at hotonesonly.com.
Stay tuned for more stories about famous horses in our,
“Before They Were Legends” series.
Photo © Shane Rux and Jeff Kirkbride
