“They say you will always have a once-in-a-lifetime horse and mine was Clover Bars Image,” says, Beth Ann Lee-Floersch, who had owned “Boo” nearly 30 years before his passing on March 2nd. “He took his last breath with the afternoon sun on him resting under a tree. Boo may have been my horse but he really belonged to everyone, I just had the good fortune of having my name on his registration papers.”
When you think of Amateur Equitation Over Fences, Clover Bars Image and Floersch immediately come to mind. The team amassed an astounding 988 points in the Amateur Equitation Over Fences class alone and won the first ever AQHA High Point award for this class in 1993. They went on to win the High Point award in this class a record nine times, including an amazing seven times in a row (93-99). This record will probably never be repeated. In 1999, Floersch and Boo broke Nancy Murfin-Moxley’s High Point streak record of six High Point awards in a row with her great pole bending mare, Randys Trouble.
In total, Boo won three AQHA World Championships, three AQHA Reserve World Championships, multiple Congress Championships as well as the AQHA World Show Amateur All Around in 1998. He amassed over 3,150 points in 11 different events from jumping to trail. Boo was Top-10 in the Amateur Trail at the AQHA World Show several times over the course of his long career. For anyone that remembers Boo, his strengths were his unmatched consistency, soundness, and heart.
The 33 year-old chestnut gelding was by Clover Bar Leo and out of Tommy Rondo. In 1985, Beth Ann had attended the Tattersalls Sale to look at another horse. But as luck would have it, she met the breeders of Clover Bars Image, Woodford and Verna Stewart of Owingville, Kentucky at the sale.
“They told me of a three year-old they had that kept jumping off the property into the neighbor’s backyard to eat grapefruit rinds out of the trash,” Floersch recalls. “They were planning to haul him to a local sale the following Monday. I had no idea who they were and knew nothing about the horse but asked them what they wanted for him. I think Woody thought I was crazier than the horse. I wrote a check for him sight unseen while also realizing I didn’t have a truck or trailer to get him back to the farm. Three weeks later, I borrowed a truck and trailer and picked him up. My first memory of him was a wooly, bright red chestnut that wanted no part of me or any other human. Getting Boo in the trailer was like chasing a pig on the interstate and that was how the first six months I owned him was going to be.”
“Boo’s career was a path marked by so many couldn’t, shouldn’t, and wouldn’t moments,” according to Floersch. In 1986, before the pair even started competing, he suffered a potential career ending injury. Beth Ann found him cast under the fence of his paddock. Luckily, with the help of several renown vets, he recovered after six weeks of stall rest.
“Everything with Boo was about ‘you don’t tell me what to do.’ I made that mistake once when I had started working him under saddle his four year-old year, and got launched only to have Boo paw me with his ears pinned while I lay on the ground. I learned that summer day in 1986 never to try to force Boo to do anything again and I never walked to his stall without a carrot.”
In 1986, Floersch recalls that she felt like a fish out of water at her first AQHA show in Delaware, Ohio. “I rode different, Boo moved different, and honestly neither of us fit in, but the goal of learning to ride western was something I could not do if I went back to where I had come from (USEF) in the equine industry.”
Today, when Beth Ann hears the phrase “America’s Horse”, she believes in some ways Boo epitomized it. “He was as good in trail as he was in over fences events. He was a great pattern horse, but could also chase a cow, do dressage up through the third level, carry a child with cerebral palsy, walk on a stage for a concert, be used for a movie, be a pony horse, and babysitter for a young rider.”
AQHA Amateur and World and Champion rider Sue Kaplow of Chappaqua, New York agrees, “He was a wonderful horse–everything a quarter horse represents.”
One of Beth Ann and Boo’s trainers, Anne Brzezicki shares some of her thoughts about this incredible team. “Clover Bars Image was incredibly tough both mentally and physically. Beth Ann took really good care of him and he remained sound through a long and successful life on the road, and tolerated and thrived on the work of a show horse,” Brzezicki remembers. “I believe he may have jumped more fences than any other horse, ever. Nothing scared him, but when things got a little tedious, he could play at shying and bucking around just for the fun of it. We would jump mirrors, Halloween decorations, paper streamers and everything else we could think of that would be unusual and he took it all literally in stride.”
“In addition to all the over fences classes, he enjoyed horsemanship, western riding and trail–seeming to like the variety they brought,” Brzezicki recalls. “He was a careful horse over obstacles of all kinds, and paid attention to his job when it counted. Boo still gave Beth Ann a hard time when she got a little too serious, especially at home at the farm. It was pretty funny to watch them push each others’ buttons like that!”
Floersch shared some telling stories about Boo during his show career. “There were some hilarious moments,” recalls, Beth Ann. “John Hoyt got me bucked off the day after I won the world in the Amateur Hunt Seat Equitation in 1989. He was playing ‘cow’ with a cutting horse and turned back on Boo and cut left, right, left. I left Boo at right and hit the ground much to John’s chagrin.”
Beth Ann continues, “There was also the time when show management brought lunch to the judge while we were lined up in the Amateur Hunter Hack class and Boo helped himself. I found out he liked goulash as much as his hot dogs. There was also the infamous ‘elephant incident’ in Florida where I exited the ring just after galloping past Carla Wennberg and the other judge before I even got to turn for my first fence.”
Boo was also infamous at the photography backdrops. “Rule number one–do not touch Boo,” Floersch stated. “When Harold Campton tried to take a picture of him at the World Show in 1990, Boo kicked the entire backdrop on top of Mike McMillan’s stalls. He wasn’t much better with tail testing or farriers either.”
In addition to the Congress and World Show wins, and the All-Around Amateur title at the World Show in 1998, Brzezicki remembers most the times when Boo mentored young horses and young riders. In 2002 at the Intercollegiate Horse Shows Association National Championship Show at Conyers, GA, Boo was part of the horse draw for the college riders.
“He was a great pattern horse. Some of the riders had heard of him and recognized the honor of getting to show on him. In his later years, he would carefully jump around a course of cross rails with a little kid who might weigh 60 lbs soaking wet, and get all his lead changes on his own for them,” Brzezicki states, who is the currently the equestrian coach at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU). “He was also a horsemanship horse at many of our IHSA shows at MTSU when Lydia Whitlow Darnell would bring him to help. Whether his job was showing at the World or teaching a little kid just learning to post, Boo had the job figured out, and did it well. I am proud to have been a part of his career.”
For the past ten years, Boo had lived with Amateur Lydia Whitlow Darnell of Christiana, Tennessee. “Since retirement from show pen, he spent time teaching some beginner lessons and as a handicapped riding program horse and then he was fully retired. The last few years, he has been loved on and enjoyed being out to pasture. He lived on 20 acres behind my house where I made sure he had lots of treats and he was a buddy to my young horses. I loved seeing him out there everyday; he will be missed!”
Beth Ann would like to thank everyone who was involved with Boo over the years including: Linda Connors, Anne Brzezecki, Sherrye Johnson-Trafton, Judy Roach, Judy Bonham, Foster Brooks, Dr. Randy Houston, Dr. Rantana, Dr. Dave McCarroll, Dr. Dee Gragg, Dr. Warren Nash, Mike Christian, Lydia Whitlow Darnell, and Michelle Whitlow among many others.
