Michael Boone, one of barrel racing’s all-time leading owners, passed away June 1 while working at his home in Tyrone, Pennsylvania. He was 59.
Barrel Horse News pays tribute to Boone’s life and legacy through a collection of past conversations and interviews over the years.
The president of family-owned Lytles Transfer & Storage was a businessman by day and one of the keenest trainers to ever pattern a barrel horse by evening.
“Aside from my family, most people from my business don’t even know that I have horses,” Boone said. “I’m not a cowboy type.”
He hated wearing boots and tried to wear them only to ride. He didn’t even own a cowboy hat until his fiancé Kassie Mowry had qualified for the National Finals Rodeo and it was required attire for him to be in the alleyway to help her.
“That’s one of the few times I’ve worn a cowboy hat,” he admitted. “I don’t even wear a baseball cap much. I wear a suit most of the time.”
Boone grew up with horses, but he wasn’t interested in horse shows.
“I hated going to horse shows, so as soon as I got old enough to get out of it, I would,” he said. “I tried other sports, and I was either too small or not athletic enough to do anything with it.”
His interests included playing recreational league hockey at the most mentally challenging position of goalie and amateur boxing. His training and management skills for boxers were good enough that he was asked to appear on the boxing reality show The Contender.
Boone’s greatest talent was in choosing, training and campaigning futurity horses.
“There’s a lot of stuff I like to do other than horses but there’s nothing that I can do well,” he said candidly. “It boils down to whether you want to be a rec league hockey goalie or just an average past your prime boxer or you can do something that you can compete against the best people in the world. That’s the challenge.
“I never thought about it for the money. I just did it because I wanted to do something else besides go to work and come home every day. I knew horses, and I knew with futurities, I didn’t have to go to a show every weekend, that’s how I got started.”
Ever a student of the game, Boone remembers seeing barrel racing’s first million dollar rider Talmadge Green at an event in Ohio. He was taken with Green’s success and tried to pattern his program accordingly.
Watching he said was how he found a way to make up for his lack of talent.
“When I’m watching a barrel race, I’m looking for the way a certain horse turns, what a rider does, a certain setup in the arena,” he said. “I’m not just passing my time.”
When success came quickly, Boone became even more serious about futurity horses.
His first futurity horse was SC Striking Effort, who with the late Add Waddell, was a BFA World Championship Futurity finalist. Two years later, he had his first futurity winner with Dangerous Streakin, who was ridden by Jamey Hunt, to the Steel City Classic Championship in Boone’s home state of Pennsylvania.
More watching led Boone to the bloodline that would take his program to the next level.
“I watched the person that I thought I could ride most like and that was Susan Clapp,” he said. “That’s what got me started on Marthas Six Moons horses. That worked out pretty quickly.”
In 1999, he had his first EquiStat Leading Futurity Horse with Marthas Smoothover. Ridden by Hunt, “Martha” won the Las Colinas Futurity before a record-setting victory at the Old Fort Days Futurity with the largest single check awarded in barrel racing history, $105,500.
In 2007, Boone had his second EquiStat Futurity Horse of the Year with yet another Marthas Six Moons mare, the great Mulberry Canyon Moon, winner of the LG Pro Classic Slot Race with Troy Crumrine at the reins.
“There were some days that I was ready to get rid of her,” Boone said of the mare that has since changed the industry as a National Finals Rodeo qualifier and blue hen producer, “and I don’t give up very easily. She bucked me off so many times I wouldn’t even want it printed! She would buck me off just for spite!”
By 2013, Boone was looking to get out of horses, and he thought they’d be easier to sell winning with a female jockey.
“Most people don’t realize when Kassie and I got together it was for me to get out of horses, not to get deeper into it,” he laughed. “I felt like I had done everything I wanted to do (with horses) and wanted to focus on other stuff.”
Boone said their program together changed after Mowry won the 2017 Diamonds & Dirt Slot race on Girls Dig Fame, his first Dash Ta Fame to win over six figures.
“We get along good, but we’re hard on each other too,” he said. “If she sees me doing something that she doesn’t like, she’ll tell me, and it’s the same for her. We don’t mind ruffling each other’s feathers.”
He said that Mowry commented early on in their partnership that his horses were “cookie cutter.” They looked the same and rode the same. Boone knew what worked for him and hadn’t deviated.
“Where I lucked out the most is I always picked out horses that I thought I could ride style wise, conformation wise and brain wise,” he said. “Riding all of Kassie’s horses—she has a variation of everything—and that’s helped me learn to set them up with different styles and adjust a little more than I have in the past.”
Boone said his biggest strength in patterning 2-year-olds is his consistency. It’s all he does. He doesn’t compete, and he said it had been so long since he had that he worried that doing so now would change his perspective on things.
“I try to stay behind the scenes,” he said. “I think the difference is there are those competitors that can’t ride as consistently as I can the 2 year olds. If I get a horse from Kassie’s place, say in April, from April to October, I can ride them every single day, sometimes not for long, but every day. I think that consistency is what gives me an advantage over the more talented riders. I can be more consistent and exact in what I’m doing.
“I understand styles from boxing and that kind of translates to horses. Probably what’s unusual for most is I train my horses in a super small pattern. It’s only about the size of the NFR, no fences and real shallow ground. I get a lot of reps that way. I can get the horses really consistent and doing a lot on their own.”
He admitted that the only bit he had in his barn was different variations of an O-ring snaffle. He didn’t need anything more than that for what he was doing.
Boone said having worked with many of the top riders in the business was also advantageous to his training process.
“I’ve taken a lot of bits and pieces from everyone and pieced it together,” he said. “I’ve been fortunate to learn from a lot of good people.”
He also used his experience from other sports to make the best horses and help his jockeys do their best too.
“I don’t put a lot of emotion into anything,” Boone said. “That’s one thing you learn from boxing. You control your motions. I don’t get too wrapped up in a bad run or a good run. I’ve had some horses that I’ve liked more than others, but I’ve never really got attached. I run it like a business. I don’t try to get emotional about anything in business. I just try to be consistent about what I do and have some kind of a plan. You’ve got to have the right material, and I’ve learned what to look for. You’ve got to have the right training, and I’ve learned from a lot of good people. I’m still learning. I still watch. There’s a difference between watching a barrel race and seeing a barrel race.”
Mowry often thanked Boone for keeping her collected at the bigger events they attended together.
“He’s so good at keeping me lined out and feeling confident,” she said after a Royal Crown Championship on Famous Ladies Man. She echoed that sentiment in many other win interviews.
Boone also enjoyed helping others, whether it was in hockey, boxing or horses, and was always looking for a competitive edge.
“I like competition,” he said. “It wouldn’t matter if it was horses or throwing darts.”
Ironically, if it wasn’t for Mowry’s training business, he wouldn’t be involved with horses at all.
“I like riding horses, but I do it because it’s a job,” he said. “The thing that’s different about me from most people that are good at this is I wouldn’t just ride a horse for fun. If this wasn’t a money-making venture or something (Kassie) wanted to do I wouldn’t dream of having a horse!”
In the hands of professional riders Waddell, Hunt, Crumrine, Kebo Almond and Mowry, Boone’s horses won more than $2.5 million in the arena. His greatest two Force The Goodbye (“Jarvis”) and Famous Ladies Man (“Emmitt”) are both multiple aged event champions, EquiStat Leading Derby Horses and National Finals Rodeo qualifiers. Jarvis recently crossed the million dollar mark and Emmitt isn’t far behind.
Jamey Hunt, who won the 1999 Old Fort Days Futurity for Boone, called him an asset to the barrel racing community.
“He was like an architect of building barrel horses,” Hunt said. “He was so good at picking the next big thing, whether it was Marthas Six Moons, Dash Ta Fame or The Goodbye Lane. He always had one coming when they became the next big thing.
“I don’t think people realize how handy he was. When I got 3-year-olds from him, they were loping on through the barrels. He’s very patient and really thinks before he speaks and he’s the same way riding horses. He does a little bit every single day and is persistent as hell. He would do it day after day, month after month until five months went by, and he’d made a really solid colt. They were ready for someone to step on and go on with. He did that with every one of them.
“I’m grateful for everything he did for me and for being able to win that first futurity for him on Dangerous Streakin.”
At this year’s event, Boone told Hunt that it had been 25 years since they had won the Old Fort Days Futurity and that he wanted to win it one more time …
Mowry and Jarvis granted his wish, giving Boone his second Old Fort Days title with a derby championship.
“He wasn’t afraid to rattle my cage because it brought out the best competitor in me,” Mowry said. “It was so important to us that we did the absolute best that we could by the horses. Every horse I get on now I think about what his thoughts would be and try to gauge my rides off that. Mike was the love of my life, my safe place in the world and the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Like Father, Like Son
Much like his father Michael Boone, Evan Boone is a behind-the-scenes guy. The 21-year-old learned early on that following his dad in patterning colts was best left to the master of that game. Yet the elder Boone did help his son find his place in the horse world, as a tractor driver at premier events across the country.
Sometime before his son’s 10th birthday, Boone asked ground expert John Laws if Evan could ride along while he worked.
“He said, ‘My son really likes tractors. Could he ride with you?’” recalled Evan. “John said ‘Sure.’ I started riding with him, and then I got put to work. It just slowly kept growing.”
At most of the larger races, like the BFA World Championship or Buckle events, where Boone was helping his fiancé Kassie Mowry with the horses, Evan was working the ground. And if Boone wasn’t there in person, he was watching from home via webcast.
“I’d be working at a barrel race, and he’d call, ‘Do you see that horse slip? Or ‘That ground is —!’ He spoke his mind, that’s for sure,” Evan chuckled.
With Evan, Boone had lots of opportunities to speak his mind. He started taking Evan with him to work when he was just 6 and later coached him through nine years of football.
“He was a great coach,” Evan said. “He always strove for me to be the best. He had other priorities, but he always made me feel like I was the only thing that mattered.”
Evan said his father was always willing to help anyone and offered the best wisdom.
“His No. 1 quote was ‘If you try to be everything to everybody then it’s just complicated.’ That’s what I heard every single day of my life. I’m really bad about trying to please everybody and you really can’t. He’d tell me to take the emotion out of it, and that while you want to do the best you can for everyone, it’s likely to never happen. Business is just business.
“He was my voice of reason. If I got rattled about anything, he was my first phone call. He was my rock.”
Editor's note: This article was originally published in the October 2024 issue of Barrel Horse News.
