This lightning-fast colt will headline on Challenge night.

By Richard Chamberlain

On Bank of America Challenge Championship night on November 8, great racing American Quarter Horses from all over the country will converge at Evangeline Downs in Louisiana to vie for top honors.

Sharing the race card on Challenge night will be the Louisiana Quarter Horse Breeders’ Association Futurity. The headliner is the lightning-fast colt Jet Black Patriot, who has won six of seven starts and earned $631,926. His only defeat came in the $2 million All American Futurity, where he battled Stolis Winner to the wire and lost by a half length.

The colt with the ink-black coat was brought to Ruidoso Downs on Labor Day by an unheralded horseman from the Cajun country to contest the final of the All American Futurity. Eric Curtis sent out Jose Vega on Richard and Janelle Simon’s undefeated homebred Jet Black Patriot to finish second in the 50th running of American Quarter Horse racing’s signature event. An accredited Louisiana-bred son of Game Patriot, Jet Black Patriot is a true Cajun racehorse – his dam, the First Down Jewel mare First Down Hemp, won at Delta Downs, the only track on which she ever raced, and was bred at Jude and Regina Robicheux’s Robicheaux Ranch near Lafayette, the self-proclaimed capital of the Cajun country.

Sound familiar? Memory jog: Thirty-five years ago, Lloyd Romero brought the undefeated Rocket’s Magic out of Louisiana to run third in Bugs Alive In 75’s All American Futurity, and three years later, Walter Matthau starred in Columbia Pictures’ “Casey’s Shadow” based largely on the story.

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Unlike Romero, Curtis, 32, didn’t grow up around horses. A native of Baton Rouge, he didn’t have a relative in the sport and other than watching the Kentucky Derby on TV, he never paid attention to racing. But he always was fascinated by horses. Ten years ago, Curtis bought a saddle horse that he boarded at a stable where some people happened to be in Quarter Horse racing. Hooked by the exposure, Curtis began educating himself by watching TVG and reading everything he could about racing in magazines and on the Internet.

“A lot of people think because you weren’t born in the business you can’t be successful,” says Curtis. “I felt like if you can be a doctor in eight years, why couldn’t I be a horse trainer in eight years? This isn’t rocket science.”

In 2002, Curtis and several buddies made their first trip to Ruidoso. While his buds went hiking and fishing, Curtis went to the Ruidoso Select Yearling Sale, where he trailed Jack Brooks – unbeknownst to Brooks – to see what yearlings interested the legendary trainer. That weekend, Curtis watched AB What A Runner win the All American Futurity.

Back home, Curtis received a hands-on education with racehorses while he was also “flipping” (buying, fixing up and reselling) houses. His training career officially began in 2004 with Village Katie Cash running allowances at Delta Downs. Four years later, he had a horse in the All American. He also trains Firecracker Futurity winner Swingin N Ease, who finished seventh in the Sam Houston Futurity four days after the All American. Both horses are based at Randy Stone’s Stone Farms near Baton Rouge, where Curtis leases stalls and ships his horses from.

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Then a friend introduced Curtis to the Simons, who live on a 41-acre farm near Zachary, Louisiana. Together since 1992, both Simons work for Georgia-Pacific, a paper, tissue and related-product manufacturing company – Richard for 31 years and Janelle for 21. Richard married into horses, and Janelle got her start in racing in 1990, when she bred a mare and raced the foal.

“It’s a miracle Jet Black Patriot is still alive,” Janelle says of the colt who at only a few months old contracted salmonella and was rushed to Louisiana State University. “They said his only chance at life was for us to pray on the Bible every day. We said, ‘No problem, we can take care of that.’ So that’s what we did. God healed him and made him into a magnificent animal. We’ve been blessed with more than I could’ve ever dreamed of.

“What’s happening to us, every working man thinks that maybe they can never make it there,” says Janelle, who was back at work the following Sunday. “But oh Lord, just don’t give up on your dreams. You can go a long way on your dreams and blessings.”

The colt continues to impress, winning his October 19 trial to the LQHBA Futurity by two easy lengths. He is expected to be a heavy favorite in the final.

“It’s hard for a young trainer to get started in the business,” Janelle says of her trainer. “The people who spend big money on big horses send them to big trainers. But now Curtis has crossed that bridge.”

Even on the other side of the bridge, however, Curtis plans to continue training only a small, select stable of runners while remaining in Baton Rouge.

“If I’m at the track, there are things I can’t do, like pick my kids up from school,” says Curtis, who has a 4-year-old daughter and a 19-month-old son with girlfriend April Vallet. “That’s why I want to keep this on the smaller side. I do it because I want to do it, not because I have to do it.”