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Emerson tours quarter horse breeding farm

Congresswoman completes farm tour today

By PAULA BARR
Daily Journal Staff Writer

Friday, September 05, 2008

U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson smiled as four foals nuzzled her curiously Thursday at a quarter horse breeding farm in Farmington.

“Aren’t they beautiful?” she said, patting the skittish youngsters until they turned around, kicked up their heels and charged briefly around the paddock.

The foals — two fillies and two colts — are among 20 horses owned by Danny and Sandra Miller. The couple breeds, races and sells top quarter horses at West Crest Farms. The equine business was one of Emerson’s stops on this week’s Annual Farm Tour. The tour helps her stay in touch with agribusiness in her district. The tour ends today with tours in Cape and Perry counties as well as an afternoon visit to Vance Vineyards & Winery in Fredericktown.

State Rep. Steve Tilley, R-Perryville, staff, and others joined Emerson on the tour of West Crest Farms. Neither legislator had known about the 33-acre horse operation until recently. The group gathered in the barn office and nibbled on appetizers at a table in front of a wall of saddles.

Racing photos of several of the Miller’s horses hung on the wall above a cedar post daybed that Danny Miller made by hand. An electrician and businessman who has raised horses for about 30 years, Miller said his horses run in the top quarter horse races in the country. Several have been among the fastest in the world. One mare became a champion jumper.

“When she was a baby, she would jump over the bottom half of the Dutch doors and go out to play,” Miller recalled. “It drove her mother crazy until she jumped back in again.”

The Millers use embryo transfers and surrogate mares in their breeding operation. They work closely with the foals to get the young horses used to being handled and provide them with exercise to condition them for training. Most are sold as yearlings — but not all.

“Danny is a horse whisperer,” Sandra Miller said. “Every once in a while, he just knows he has a winner, so we keep it and we race it.”

Prospective winners are sent out for training and begin racing at two years old.

Danny Miller keeps a close eye on the youngsters to determine their personalities and potential as racehorses.

“It’s like raising children all over again,” he said. “Each year, it’s a new bunch of kids. You can identify the overachievers, the underachievers, the whiner, the class clown.”

Although top racing quarter horses can win up to $1.5 million in their careers, only 10 percent make $25,000 or more. Thoroughbred operations typically make more than those that race quarter horses.

“Add a zero to the price of a racing quarter horse, and you’ll have the price a Thoroughbred,” he said. “Thoroughbred racing is more focused on making money. Quarter horse racing includes more fun.”

Even so, only about seven percent of racing operations make money, Miller estimated. He told Emerson that legislators need to consider equine operations when they work on programs.

“If I have one cow and there’s a drought, I can get all kinds of help,” he complained. “If I have 100 horses and there’s a drought, there’s nothing.”

Other problems Missouri horse breeders have include a shortage of veterinary care for horses, especially in cases that require advanced medical care, and a negative image in other states, the Millers told Emerson and Tilley.

“We sell our horses in Oklahoma every September,” Sandra Miller said. “We learned real early not to sell horses under our name or say we were from Missouri. They think, ‘how can anyone in Missouri know anything about horses?’”

Danny Miller also told the legislators that there is interest in building a race track in southwestern Missouri. Currently, the couple has to travel to California and other states in order to race their horses. With the closing of the Woodlands race track near Kansas City, Kan., the state could use a track of its own, he suggested.

 

Paula Barr is a reporter for the Daily Journal and can be reached at 573-431-2010, ext. 172 or at pbarr@dailyjournalonline.com .