The American Quarter Horse Foundation announced during the 2010 Convention it had received an unprecedented gift of $3 million to the Foundation’s operating endowment from Hall of Fame member Anne Marion and The Burnett Foundation.
“It is an honor to receive such a gift,” AQHA Executive Vice President Don Treadway Jr. said of the donation. “It has made a huge impact on meeting the $10 million goal established for the Foundation operating endowment. We are so thankful for the gifts we receive from our members, and this one is incredibly special. Ms. Marion, her family and the Four Sixes Ranch have been extremely influential to our Association and the integrity of our horse. I cannot say enough to express how honored we are by their gift.”
Marion’s family established the Four Sixes Ranch in 1870 in Guthrie, Texas. It was, in part, due to the horses on this ranch that a group of people met with Anne’s mother Anne Burnett Hall and her husband James Goodwin Hall in 1940 to discuss the idea of forming an association to honor these great animals. The following day, the American Quarter Horse Association was formed.
When her mother died in 1980, Marion took the reins of the vast Burnett ranches and inherited the legacy linked to AQHA. In 1993, Marion expanded the ranch to include racing world champions Special Effort and Dash For Cash – both now Hall of Fame inductees – and built a facility to house 160 broodmares.
The Four Sixes/Burnett ranches were honored in 1994 with the AQHA Best Remuda award, and the operation received AQHA’s inaugural Legacy award in 1997 for 50 consecutive years of breeding American Quarter Horses.
Throughout the years, Marion has also been involved with a variety of activities outside the ranch. Serving on the Texas Tech board of regents, as a director of the Fort Worth Stock Show, as a trustee of the Modern Art Museum of New York City and as part of the Fort Worth Zoological Association are just a few of her achievements. She and her husband also founded the Georgia O’Keefe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The gift from Marion, who in 2007 joined her mother and father as a member of the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame, ensures the museum and the work of the American Quarter Horse Foundation will live on for years to come.
“The Burnett family and its horses have had a profound, long-lasting and comprehensive impact on the American Quarter Horse,” said Bill Brewer, retired Executive Vice President of AQHA. “The American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame & Museum bears witness to the American Quarter Horse Association’s highest and most distinguished honor and is filled with those associated with the Burnett family. The artifacts on exhibit – from family members, partners, friends, employees, trainers and jockeys – tell a story that leads to and from Four Sixes and wherever good horses have worked for a living.”
The Four Sixes’ horses represented in the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame – from Grey Badger II to Dash For Cash, Special Effort and beyond, as well as their sons and daughters – are innately talented. Their speed, soundness and disposition preserved in our good horses today spring from this legacy.
This permanent gift will create an outstanding memory of the Burnett family in the minds of all who have been, who are and who will be touched by the American Quarter Horse and by the Foundation’s work.
The American Quarter Horse Foundation’s programs support equine research, education, therapeutic riding and the Hall of Fame & Museum. To learn more about the Foundation and ways to support its programs, please visit www.aqha.com/foundation, or call (806) 378-5029.
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