Long before Hello Stella smashed futurity record books, before French Goodbye won the 2018 Pink Buckle Futurity or High Cotton Lane carried a teenager to the 2018 Barrel Futurities of America World Championship, The Goodbye Lane was making waves.

The 2001 son of Lanes Leinster out of the stakes-winning Dash Ta Fame mare Swift Goodbye stepped from obscurity when the Jarvis family of Spanish Fork, Utah, purchased the stallion in late 2012.

“We first looked at him for a barrel prospect,” said family patriarch Mark Jarvis, who along with his wife, Linda, own the stallion in a partnership with their daughters Marcie Wilson and Josie Hales and their spouses. “This was when the Dash Ta Fames were first starting to get popular. Sue Smith had seen him and told me about him. She said there’s a horse running at Evanston Downs I think you would like. We went and looked at him and really liked him. He was priced as a stud prospect, and I just couldn’t see letting go of that much money if we were just going to cut him.”

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While Dash Ta Fame on Lanes Leinster daughters was one of the first magic crosses for the all-time leading stallion, only three horses were the product of the reverse coupling. Very few Dash Ta Fame daughters were of breeding age when the son of Leinster House (TB) died. One was McKale Hadley’s pro rodeo winner and high school champion Legacy Lane, another was the YR Sadie daughter Bear River Comet, now a barrel horse producer, and the third was The Goodbye Lane.

About five years after Jarvis had gone to the track to look at The Goodbye Lane, some of his fillies showed up in the arena.

“Those fillies did really well, so I decided I was going to breed to him,” Jarvis said. “In the process of trying to get mares bred to him, I ended up buying him.”

Fatefully, the stallion came to the family at the right time. They sold their gas station due to freeway expansion, so their twilight career was devoted to promoting The Goodbye Lane.

“As soon as we got him home, we had a lot of support,” Jarvis said. “People knew we had him and that we really liked him. Some really good trainers got ahold of his babies, and that helped him get off to a great start. People really like them and stick with them. Usually if people have one, they’ll end up with three or four because they keep coming back to him.”

The Goodbye Lane profile
Photo courtesy The Goodbye Lane, LLC

The Goodbye Lane’s first barrel horses won about $100,000 in the Intermountain West, but The Goodbye Lane had been practically idle in the breeding shed until the Jarvis family took over his ownership and promotion.

As part of their promotional efforts, they produced the first two Parker-Wood Memorial Futurities and awarded breedings to The Goodbye Lane and other stallions as a means of getting the stud’s name out there and potential offspring in winning hands. They also enrolled the stallion in breeding programs such as the Valley Girls Barrel Racing Association Stallion Auction, Future Fortunes and the juggernaut Pink Buckle.

Barrel Horse News December 2018 issue

When Vauna Walker won the Pink Buckle Futurity in October 2018, The Goodbye Lane booked full a week later.

“He had five [offspring] that ran in 2018, and everywhere they went— California, Arizona, wherever—20 to 30 people would call about breeding to him,” Jarvis said. “He had a lot on the books already, but Pink Buckle sent him over the top.”

The national attention has brought top producers in the country as well as National Finals Rodeo mares to his court.

“He’s a great stud,” Jarvis said. “Look at all the different trainers and all the different mares…the [babies] are so trainable and good to be around. We believed in him from Day One.”

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