 My
Dad had grown up with horses as his family
had a livery stable until automobiles became
common in the northern part of Nebraska. He
and his sister both kept favorite lines of
those horses into the forties. When I was
seven years old in 1941, my Dad gave me a
two year old mare for my birthday. Her name
was Kit and she was a wonderful mare (of
course). I kept her and some of her produce
until 1966 when I decided I wanted to have
better quality, registered horses.
The Bar M Quarter Horse program was
initiated as a systematic family venture in
Bozeman, Montana. We purchased four mares
from HS Stevenson that were truly FOUNDATION
stock bred by Hugh Peltz, one of the early
Presidents of AQHA, These mares were
granddaughters of King on the maternal side
and daughters of Billy McCoy by Harmon Baker
Jr., by Harmon Baker, by Peter McCue on top.
Later that year we bought a mare, Sissy
Jones, by Sobre that was bred to Willy Bueno,
by Poco Willy an AQHA champion son of Poco
Bueno. We liked the cross on our mares so
well we bought Willy Bueno for our own. At
that time there was a lot more consistency
in what people wanted in a “good” horse and
we thought we could raise the ideal mares
that could produce speed event, cowhorses,
reiners and still look good enough to win at
halter. That may seem naïve today but at the
time it was a realistic goal.
We bought Willy because his colts were so
easy to get along with, as they would really
try to please. As we continued our efforts
to breed “versatility”, we started searching
for a stallion to breed our mares out of
Willy. We looked at a lot of really good
horses and bloodlines and finally decided on
Mr. Showdown Sugar, a two year old son of
Sugar Bars, out of a daughter of Showdown,
by Wimpy. His second dam was Brenda Lee by
General lee by King and his third dam was
Penney Waggoner by Blackburn. This
combination of the King Ranch, King 234 and
other Foundation breeding made him the ideal
choice to cross on our mares. The result has
been everything we had in mind. However, the
industry made some changes and many of the
buying public wanted bigger and bigger
horses. We thought long and hard about
changing our program but in the end we
decided to stick with our original goals and
continue breeding for versatility.
 As
we accumulated more super nice daughters of
Sugar, it became obvious that we needed a
stallion that could continue our goal of the
all around mare. We looked all over the
country and finally went to look at Scotch
Bar Time. Scotch was the only sire to ever
be on all 12 of the AQHA Leading Sire lists
at the same time. He managed to do that in
1986 and stayed on all 12 lists through
1999. I don’t believe there will ever be a
sire that will come close to matching that
performance. Anyway, we started hauling
mares to his court and have ended up with
ten mares by him out of our Sugar Bars bred
mares to complete our mare band.
Always in our collective thoughts, we agreed
that we all thought the ideal horse needs to
have a lot of cow in them. As a consequence,
we made arrangements to stand an outstanding
horse named Montana Lynx. Montana is by Docs
Lynx out of an outstanding daughter of Sugar
Bars. He has won over $21,000 in NCHA and
reining, earned a Superior in cutting with
71 AQHA points, and was Reserve Cutting
horse at the World in 1987. His colts are
the fulfillment of our 37 year old dreams.
They are so trainable, and best of all, they
are beautiful. There is no question in my
mind that they will impact the industry as
future broodmares in a number of events,
proving that you can breed for versatility,
disposition, trainability, cowiness and
still be beautiful. We invite you to visit
the ranch and see our program and we invite
you to our annual SUGAR BARS LEGACY SALE
held in Sheridan, Wyoming to purchase your
own Sugar Bars piece of history.
This description of the Bar M Quarterhorse
operation was prepared in response to
inquiries resulting from being selected to
participate as an initial member of the AQHA
Breeder Referral Program. We are proud of
our operation and we take the Code of Ethics
we signed very seriously. That means that
you can do business with us with full
confidence. We thank you for your interest
and hope to share a cup of coffee with you
at the ranch or at the sale so we can talk
Sugar Bars.
IN ADDITION: Our operation is owned
and operated by Art and Rita McDonald, who
have been in the horse business for several
decades. Their honesty and integrity in
their business dealings has lead to an
outstanding reputation as breeders of
quality Quarter Horses. They have always
stayed true to their dreams, and to the
breed. Over the years, our horse program has
developed quite an impressive Show record,
including some outstanding Rodeo horses.
However, people who aren't into showing also
enjoy the looks, brains, trainability and
bloodlines of our horses.
 Karla
is our daughter. Karla has done the training
and showing of our horses from the beginning
of time, with much help and direction from
many of the top trainers, judges and
exhibitors across the United States. Karla
took three different horses to the Youth
World Finals as a Youth. Then has continued
to train and show horses to numerous State
and Circuit Championships as well as
futurity wins since then.
Karla has two daughters, Aleena and
MartyAnna, our granddaughters. Tragically,
we lost MartyAnna in an accident several
years ago, however she, like Aleena was a
very special and active part of our lives as
well as our horse program. Aleena helps with
the horses, claims them all, and loves them
all dearly, even at 6 years old.
The Bar M Crew, Art, Rita, Karla and Aleena |
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