While today’s typical world-ranked breakaway horses are cow-bred and stand closer to 14 hands than 16, Macy (Fuller) Young’s 8-year-old bay is the opposite.
Young, from Wittmann, Arizona, raised the gelding and named him Mister Judge Boomer for a reason. The Fullers had a barrel racing mare—a daughter of Judge Cash—that got hurt early but that they really liked. They still lived in Washington, so they bred her to the Dual Pep son The Dualler, a stallion that only stood 14.1. The stud’s owner told Young the first foal out of a mare is usually a throw-away; a bum. He began calling the foal-to-be a “bummer.” But Young had high hopes for him and changed that to “Boomer.”
While Young was an all-around powerhouse in high school thanks to roping and tying goats, she also had nice barrel horses. That was the design for Boomer. After all, the late Judge Cash had a speed index of 110 and produced racehorses earning more than $1 million. Clearly, Boomer got his size and his speed from his mama.
He went to the top of his class on the cloverleaf. She took him to 2019 barrel futurities and placed deep at tough races in Waco, Texas, and Queen Creek, Arizona. But then ulcers put the nervous gelding on the sidelines. As Boomer began to heal up in 2020, the world ground to a halt because of the pandemic. That was about the same time Young heard there would be a National Finals for PRCA breakaway ropers. She decided she needed a practice horse, and Boomer got the call.
“He just turned out good,” said Young, the 2014 CNFR breakaway champ for Central Arizona College. “He was always real cowy. And he’s insanely fast.”
That next spring, the Charlie 1 Horse All-Girl Breakaway moved with the Bob Feist Invitational to Guthrie, Oklahoma’s Lazy E Arena. The 440-foot-long indoor pen perfectly showcases horsemanship—which is the purpose behind the BFI’s traditional long score and hard-running cattle. There, she smoked a 3.5 in the short round and beat the field of 150 on three head to earn $12,000 on Boomer.
Macy Fuller Young wins $12K, Charlie 1 Horse All-Girl Breakaway
Young is used to big horses, having headed steers for years. She doesn’t mind that Boomer stands at least 15.2.
“He stays out of the way pretty good,” she said. “Normally he’s got his head down pointed toward the calf.”
But his power is another thing. When the big bay does leave the box, “he’s all there,” said Young, who needs to see more than most other girls at the start. He’s so explosive that “once you drop your hand, you can’t do anything but get to the front and rope.”
She said she tries to squeeze with her legs and leave with him on that first stride, as she gets her rope pointed in the correct direction. It’s what she would do on any horse—it’s just a bit more challenging on him. Still, Boomer got so good that she sold the horse she’d ridden at the 2020 NFBR in Arlington.
“Boomer can run, but I can also be real fast on him because he doesn’t slide,” she said. “When he stops, it’s done.”
Last year, she was intent on returning to the Finals, but spent the summer pregnant with little Hadley, her daughter with husband Chris. Boomer was the only horse she had.
“I wasn’t that big, but I couldn’t ride my horse,” she recalled of her pregnancy. “My family kept telling me to cowgirl up. One day I handed the reins to Chris and said, ‘You run one on him.’ He got thrown to the back of the saddle and said he threw his rope just so Boomer would stop! So they let me turn out everywhere.”
Macy and Chris work full time for her parents’ Downtown Arena in Wickenburg, Arizona, where they produce team ropings from October through April. This summer, she was eager to make up for lost time.
“I hauled over the Fourth and got my butt kicked,” she said. “But then Chris entered Cheyenne so I thought I would, too.”
In the perfect setup for her mortally fast barrel horse, she split the win in Cheyenne Frontier Days’ sudden-death finals with a sharp 4.0, worth $10,700.
Veteran Macy Fuller Young and Rookie Tiffany Schieck Share Cheyenne Breakaway Championship
“He’s probably the fastest horse I’ve ever been on in my entire life,” she said. “I hope age helps him simmer down, though. In Cheyenne, those wagons really screwed us up. He did not like that. And in Coeur d’Alene, they were loading a wagon on a flatbed trailer, which was terrifying.”
But winning Cheyenne meant she’d better “go give it another little whirl,” so the little family hit the road in August (though Chris didn’t enter the team roping because spouses still can’t buddy together). Young said she broke three barriers for “a lot, lot of money.”
She’s threatened Boomer with going back to the barrels if they break any more barriers. In the meantime, the silver lining from that industry is that he enjoys magnetic blankets, his own Bemer, and a custom-fitted Coats saddle. The Youngs are also excited about his look-alike 3-year-old brother out of the same mare by Streakin Boon Dox, an AQHA World Champion heel horse by A Streak Of Fling.
On the road as the season winds down, Young is also hauling a nice 5-year-old and another horse that’s green, but fast. One of those two might get the nod at Pendleton, where she’s afraid she might not be able to idle Boomer coming down off the hill.
Regardless, she’s looking forward one day to taking her barrel horse to Vegas for the National Finals of Breakaway Roping.
