I’d like to nominate Bev Skrowronski and her ex-stallion Black Beauty’s Beau Dee #202 as Century Partners.
At the time of Bev’s passing in February 2011, she was just a few days short of her 71st birthday. She still owned Beau.
Bev bought Beau as a two-year-old in 1980. He is now 33 years old.
She was an avid trail rider who owned and rode her horses, including Beau, right to the end.
Fran Kerik
Right is Bev on TC Pride, Beau’s granddaughter.
Black Beauty’s Beau Dee at a show as a young horse
Wow! How the years fly by. It seems such a short time ago that we bought Beau as a 2-year-old. Len and I bought Beau from Norman and Donna Henry of Turner Valley in 1980. Beau was raised by Harry and Gladys Hall at Cascade, Montana and was born on March 16, 1978. He is now 30 years old.
We had a lot of work to do with Beau when he arrived at our place. We wanted to show him in 3 months at the Lloydminster horse show – and he wasn’t even halter broke! We entered him in a 2-year-old halter class. There was only one horse in that class so Beau was moved to the aged stallion class. He was in a class with Laddie’s Monte Ray, Go Shadow Go, Lucky’s Koko Prince and Ebony’s Jack Daniels. Laddie’s Monte Ray was Grand Champion and Beau was Reserve Grand Champion. We were very pleased with our young fellow.
Beau was shown in 1982 in a very large stallion halter class in Camrose. He placed second. He placed second again in 1983 at Calgary with Judge Bob Womack. We were pretty proud of him. He had a very bad trip to Calgary with Ebony’s Jack Daniels in a small 2-horse trailer. Jack was convinced that he really should kill this intruder in his domain. We quit showing after that as Len suffered a very severe heart attack in 1984 and passed away in 1986.
Beau sired quite a few nice foals before being gelded at the age of 12. He then became a great trail horse and participated in a lot of different things. We did a few demonstrations, mountain trail rides and he was my grandson’s 4-H horse.
Beau is still rideable and he doesn’t have a stiff bone in his old body. However he doesn’t have many teeth left – so he is given Golden Years feed every day and it’s keeping him in great shape. He can still run walk with the best of them. I was riding him down the road last year and a neighbor stopped and said she liked my NEW horse. She couldn’t believe that he was 29. He is still a very high-energy horse and enjoys a bit of bucking on the trails so he tires out quite quickly.
I still own his daughter Beau’s Red Queen, his granddaughter TC Pride, and 2 of his great grand children, Generators Carbon Pride and Silver Dollars Fantasy. I feel very blessed to have had this wonderful horse in my life all these years.
The above picture of Len on Beau was taken at the Lloyd horse show in 1981 by Jo-Anne McDonald.