November 14, 2011
By Christine HamiltonThe American Quarter Horse Journal
Keith and Rose Bode of Columbus, Indiana, lost their 2005 gelding JST Topsail Skip in a trailer accident November 10. (Photo courtesy of Bode family)
Keith and Rose Bode of Columbus, Indiana, lost their 2005 gelding JST Topsail Skip, aka “Shooter,” in a trailer accident November 10. The 2011 Select reserve world champion performance halter gelding was being hauled to Oklahoma City to compete in the open performance halter geldings. He was euthanized for a broken leg.
“We were coming down (to the World Show),” Keith says. “I had just pulled off to get gas in Springfield and my trainer called (to tell me about the accident). (Shooter) broke his leg (and was put down). It just went through me; I could hardly take it. He was just a great horse.”
A son of LS Topsail Dancer (by Topsail Tony) and out of Suns Last Skip by Sun Fiddle, Shooter earned performance points in trail and green western pleasure. He earned a performance Register of Merit in 2010.
“He was a ranch horse and so broke,” Keith says. “I have a photo of him standing on the back end of a flatbed truck, that’s how the kids who had him used to transport him.
“He was wonderful to show, you put in him in the pen and he might move a foot every once in a while. I’m 72 years old and I don’t need a bronc, not that I’m a wimp! But he was a pleasure to show. We just had a bond.”
A longtime halter exhibitor along with his wife, Rose, Keith has only had Shooter about a year. After winning the reserve with him at the 2011 Adequan Select World Championship Show, Keith was hoping to “move him up a spot” at the World Show, and then retire him from the halter pen and ride him.
The Bodes came on to the show to watch Rose’s horse, Happy Hour, show in 3-year-old geldings November 17.
“(The accident) is one of those things you hear about happening, and you don’t think it’ll happen to you,” Keith says. “I took the papers up to the AQHA office there at the show and had Shooter signed off as a deceased horse; it’s been a sad day. I loved him. I’m going to miss him. He was a horse to be remembered.”
The Journal caught up with the Bodes at the 2011 Adequan Select World Championship Show. Read the article, "Sharing the Love," at www.aqha.com/selectworld.