An all-time leading futurity competitor and barrel racing trainer LaTricia Duke has seen her trainees go on to very successful rodeo careers, and she’s had a handful go to the National Finals Rodeo.
Her most famous, of course, is Brittany Pozzi Tonozzi’s Yeah Hes Firen (“Duke”), who carried her to the 2009 World Championship and multiple NFR qualifications. She also trained Heza Bug Leo (“Bugs”), who carried two different riders to the NFR, as well as NFR qualifiers Sign Of Passion (“Marie Laveau”) and Dial It Fast.
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Although Tonozzi trained the mare, Duke had a hand in the successful futurity campaign of NFR mount LK Watch Me Rock (“Pistoletta”).
“People ask me what it takes to train a rodeo horse. You don’t train that. You don’t teach that. It’s an amount of heart that none of us could begin to wrap our heads around.”
LaTricia Duke
Now, she’s headed to her first NFR on her homebred stallion DM High Roller (“Vanilla Wafer”).
“All of them except Duke and Pistoletta had a tie to a horse sale,” Duke said.
At the time the most reasonable place to buy futurity prospects was racehorse sales, like Heritage Place in El Reno, Oklahoma, where Bugs, Marie Laveau and Dail It were found.
“I’d go page by page through the catalog,” Duke explained. “I wouldn’t put them on the list if they had a pedigree that I absolutely wouldn’t ride. Any pedigree that I would ride, if they were the right age, I’d put them on the list.”
Dial It was the most expensive purchase at $10,000. Marie Laveau was $1,600. Bugs was the bargain buy at a mere $800.
Since Duke was buying several horses at mostly bargain prices, they were never vetted.
“That’s when we were buying five or six, and you were hoping that two of them made,” she said.
Duke—the horse—was a private treaty purchase from his breeders Tommy and Phyllis Wells, who owned and raised his sire Alive N Firen.
“Arbie Miller and I went to Tommy and Phyllis Wells’ and bought Duke and another colt that day,” she recalled. “The one colt ended up tearing a suspensory and never came back and the other colt was Duke.”
Mare power: Lady Rompin
Vanilla Wafer, too, has ties to a horse sale. Duke said the best money she ever spent was buying his granddam, Lady Rompin.
She was about to leave the local Saturday night horse auction when she heard them announce a mare’s pedigree. She was a daughter of the Tiny’s Gay son Tiny Tornado Too. Having watched Tara Schroeder win a lot on her Tiny Tornado Too, Hesa Tornado, Duke thought she should take a chance.
Lady Rompin originally sold for $175 in the ring and Duke haggled with the buyer to get the mare bought for $400.
The “bag of bones” that Duke purchased that day became a multiple champion producer. Her daughter Happy To Run Em (“Kylie”), by Firewaterontherocks, won LG Pro Classic BFA Futurity and an AQHA World Championship in Junior Barrel Racing before producing Vanilla Wafer when crossed on BFA Derby World Champion French StreakToVegas.
The Horse List
DM High Roller, “Vanilla Wafer”
“It was pretty cool at Reno and Cheyenne there were two Lady Rompin grandbabies in the Finals,” Duke noted. “Vanilla Wafer and Tiffany Lujan’s Chase My Ace. Her momma is Aced My Bully, who Jud Little raised out of Lady Rompin.”
Aced My Bully, by Bully Bowlan Bug, was the 2010 Barrel Futurities of America World Champion with Jolene Montgomery.
Although she could have taken Vanilla Wafer, the 2021 Ruby Buckle West Futurity Champion, to more incredibly lucrative incentive aged events, Duke opted to rodeo.
“I believe the days of an unproven stallion are over,” she said. “His futurity year, I hauled him to a handful of rodeos. I could win the Ruby Buckle and $40,000, and everyone’s like, ‘Oh that’s awesome!’ I could go win third at the pro rodeo in Mercedes (Texas), and everyone thought that was the coolest thing ever! Ten times more people would message me, ‘When are you going to stand him?’ The world wants a rodeo horse.”
Now, Vanilla Wafer is taking her where only her horses have been, down the alley at the Thomas & Mack.
“I went to his stall in the barn today and just started crying,” she said in the days following her qualification. “It finally hit me what he’d done.”
Sign Of Passion
(“Marie Laveau”) had four starts at the track as a 2-year-old and lit the board once before Duke purchased her at the Heritage Place Sale for $1,600. The 2002 daughter of Vital Sign out of Passion Statement, by Reckless Dash, earned $25,000 her first run through the gate as a 3-year-old as the reserve champion of the Pro Tour Futurity—the precursor to the BFA Super Stakes. Duke won checks at two more futurities before selling the mare to Donnie and Diane Reece. When purchased later by Jud Little, Sign Of Passion took Tiffany (Fox) Case to the 2009 NFR.
Yeah Hes Firen
“Duke,” was purchased for $3,000 from his breeder Phyllis Wells, a former WPRA Vice President. The gangly gelding was by Alive N Firen out of the Shoot Yeah mare Splendid Discovery. Known as Arty at the time due to his Aardvark-like head, the palomino started his career as a BFA Juvenile Finalist in 2006. He won the San Antonio Futurity, was third at the LG Pro Classic and placed at the Silver Cup Futurity before Brittany Pozzi Tonozzi bought him in April. Ridden for Tonozzi, Duke placed fourth at the Old Fort Days Futurity and was a finalist at the Gold Cup before Tonozzi took the reins and renamed him after his trainer. Although Tonozzi won her first world title the year that she purchased Duke, she and the larger-than-life gelding cemented a lengthy winning legacy with multiple NFR qualifications and the 2009 World Championship.
Heza Bug Leo
(“Bugs”) was a great return on investment when Duke paid $800 for gelding on behalf of her longtime clients, the late Arbie and Betty Miller. The gelding, who put his sire Shawne Bug Leo on the map, is out of County Line Liz by Mister Te Jay, earned $74,001 at the futurities. He earned $6,500 on his first career run as a 3-year-old in the BFA Super Stakes. He won two futurities—the Good Times Futurity and JB Quarter Horses Futurity. Bugsy was also a finalist at the Old Fort Days Futurity, BFA World Championships and LG Pro Classic.
Duke sold Bugs to Trip duPerier, father of 2015 WPRA World Champion Callie duPerier Apffel. He first helped Angie Meadors qualify for the NFR in 2011. In 2014, Bugs took Jana Bean to her first NFR qualification. In 2016, duPerier sold Bugs to Jodi Goodrich, who rode him to the 2020 Columbia River Circuit Finals Championship.
Dial It Fast
Dial It Fast was the second barrel horse Duke had trained by Dashin Is Easy. She had picked up the gelding, out of the Easy Jet mare Dial It In, at the Heritage Place Sale. Like many Marie Laveux and Bugs, Dial It earned his first barrel racing money as a 3-year-old in the BFA Super Stakes. He was also a finalist in the BFA Juvenile, LG Pro Classic Futurity, Old Fort Days Futurity, JB Quarter Horses Futurity and BFA World Championship. Like Bugs, he sold to Trip duPerier. Duke was still riding the gelding when she loaned him to Tonozzi for the Texas Circuit Finals Rodeo. Dial It caught the eye of PRCA World Champion Trevor Brazile. The gelding, who is still running today, took Brazile’s wife Shada to the 2013 NFR.
LK Watch Me Rock
(“Pistoletta”) was trained and ridden by Tonozzi for LeAnn Kay Rafferty, who raised the daughter of Firewaterontherocks out of Watch Me Runnin, by Lucks Runnin Bug. Pistoletta was already futurity winner when Duke took over the reins when Tonozzi went rodeoing for the summer. Duke added an Ardmore Futurity Championship and reserve titles from the JB Quarter Horses Futurity and WPRA World Finals to the mare’s resume. Pistoletta would later take Samantha (Lyne) Mauney to the 2014 NFR.
