Gonzales Joe Bailey moved to park

Gonzales Joe Bailey, the famed quarter horse named for the south Texas town, will finally move onto his eternal resting place today when he is moved from a ranch west of town to J.B. Wells Park.

Gonzales Joe Bailey died on May 3, 1947, two days short of his 28th birthday. He reportedly had just returned from stud service at a ranch located between Luling and Lockhart.

A life-size bronze statue of the horse has been commissioned, and it will be installed on a granite base atop the grave in the park. The statue will be the centerpiece in a Texas-shaped memorial courtyard designed by local architect Tim Gescheidle.

The horse's remains were set to be exhumed beginning at 8 a.m. this morning, placed in a concrete crypt and moved to the final gravesite at the park in Gonzales.

The project was unveiled earlier this year and is scheduled to be finished and dedicated on May 5, 2007, the anniversary of the horse's birth in 1919 on Dr. J.W. Nixon's ranch located west of Gonzales near Belmont. This was the same ranch where W.B. "Billy" Fleming had bred what were known as the "Billy horses" in the 1880s and 1890s.

When the American Quarter Horse Association was organized in 1941, Gonzales Joe Bailey was designated one of the 19 foundation sires of the quarter horse breed and assigned the number P-4 in the AQHA registry. Though many of his foals were born before the AQHA existed, Gonzales Joe Bailey is believed to have sired as many as 1,500 live foals during his long career at stud.

"Gonzales Joe Bailey was quarter horse royalty if there ever was, since he was blood kin to all the top quarter running horses in South Texas during the early 1900s," Phil Livingston writes in a chapter on Gonzales Joe Bailey in his book, "Legends 2: Outstanding Quarter Horse Stallions and Mares." The chapter also can be found on the Gonzales Joe Bailey Memorial Project's Web site, www.gonzalesjoebailey.com.

The horse was one of three named after Joe Bailey, a popular politician from Gainesville who represented a Texas district in the U.S. House of Representatives and later represented Texas in the U.S. Senate. The first of the three later came to be called Nixon's Joe Bailey; he was foaled around 1900 on Dr. Nixon's ranch. There also was the Weatherford Joe Bailey, or Old Joe Bailey, and the third horse which was commonly called Gonzales Joe Bailey.

"If you want a good colt, breed your mare to that old horse in Gonzales," Livingston quotes as a statement often heard among South Texas horsemen of the 1930s and 1940s. Before the horse gained his widespread reputation as a quality sire, Dr. Nixon raced him at some of the small-town tracks such as those in Cuero, Eagle Pass, Skidmore, Columbus and Kingsville.

Then in 1927, Dr. Nixon traded his Joe Bailey for a mule, a breeding jack, acquired from a man named Orange Thomas. Shortly thereafter, Thomas sold the horse to brothers-in-law J.B. Ellis and C.E. Dickinson of Gonzales for $225, a steep price for a horse in 1927.

Ellis and Dickinson bought Joe Bailey for stud service, and they soon recouped their investment by charging $10 per mare. At first, they led or rode Joe Bailey to neighboring towns and ranches. Later, they transported him in a homemade trailer pulled by a pickup truck.

"They used to pull that ol' stud around in a slat-sided, homemade trailer. That's the only way they could have bred all the mares they did," Livingston was told by longtime horseman L.T. "Buster" Burns Jr. of Yoakum. "You couldn't go to a ropin' or a race meet without seein' a whole herd of Joe Bailey colts … and they could all run a little."

One of Gonzales Joe Bailey's foals who "could run a little" was Little Joe Jr. bred by Preston Johnson of Rosanky. Johnson simply wanted a good roping horse, Livingston says, but Little Joe Jr. turned out to be so special that he was sold for $150 at only 10 months of age.

Little Joe Jr. went on to compile a string of victories at race tracks in Boerne and Eagle Pass before being taken to Hacienda Moltacqua race track near Tucson, Arizona. Subsequently, the AQHA awarded Little Joe Jr. one of its first Registers of Merit for his performance at race tracks.

Many, many other descendants of Gonzales Joe Bailey were impressive at the track, in rodeo arenas and on ranches throughout the West.

Donations are being sought for the Gonzales Joe Bailey Memorial. For more information, call 672-6504, write P.O. Box 273, Gonzales, or visit the Web site, www.gonzalesjoebailey.com.