Texas for Oklahoma

As most know Oklahoma has suffered a series of tragic tornadoes that have caused a huge amount of destruction, death and devastation to many communities. On May 20th, an EF5 mile wide tornado with 200mph winds tore through the town of Moore, Oklahoma. I was shocked to turn on the news and watch the tornado live on TV from it's beginning to its dissipation. Immediately as I witnessed it's massive path I knew that the aftermath would be horrific. Given Moore is a somewhat rural town, it would be inevitable that many families would be losing their beloved pets and companions.

After the storm had cleared, news crews immediately started filming and learning about survival stories. One of those being from an exercise rider(a rider who works out race horses in the morning) who hunkered down in a stall, which collapsed on top of him and in the end actually saved his life. After he arose from what little rubble was left, he was left looking around at nothing but flat land blown away and scattered to who knows where. Barns gone, horses gone, everything gone! The 106 acre Orr Family Farm was lost into oblivion and the saddest part was that the horses where gone to. Scattered across the farm and else where these beautiful creatures where left to be found by their owners. My heart bled for the farms who lost so much and I immediately reached out to my "Jackies", Jackie Harris, Do3 Founder, and Jackie Clifton, Barrel Director of BAR Productions who has been my guiding light hosting the See No Evil Races. So within hours we had a plan to host a benefit barrel race to help Orr Family Farm. Little did we know this quick throw-together race would turn into such a huge inspirational endeavor!

Quickly the race gained steam with support and donations from sponsors and racers. Our little race was receiving a little bit of added money and awards and things where starting to look up. Then to my surprise, Bekki Cakerise, whom is a local racer who wanted to help, did us a little favor. After mentioning the race to the ranch she works at, Copperstone Farm stepped up to make a huge donation to our race to help give local jockeys more incentive to come run for a cause and wanted to help the those of Oklahoma as well. Thanks to their generous contribution we are now able have the Copperstone Farm $1500 Added Texas For Oklahoma 5D Benefit Barrel Race which will also include a $300 Youth Incentive, Cake Lope(think cake walk on horses), Silent Auction, Raffle Prize and breast collars to champion in Each D. Twisted Tack and The Western edge wanted to join in on our efforts and they donated one of their Angel Wings Breast Collars, Valued at $325 to our 1D winner. This fabulous race will be held at Dancing Oaks Ranch(Gibtown Arena) in Poolville, Texas on June 1st.

To make things even better, Cowgirl Tuff reached out to me to let me know that they decided to hold a live auction after their B.Tuff Foundation Race so they could combine 100% of their auction money to our money raised! I am absolutely on cloud 9 yet again to see how the western community can come together in such a huge effort. I am determined to make Dreaming of Three's Benefit's some of the best local benefit's in Texas and they are well on their way to that! To have Cowgirl Tuff and Copperstone Farm behind us in just almost unbelievable. Thank you so much to both of you for making such a big difference!

We are also going to be using the new ProLine SE System form Barrier Tec which combine's social media with the computer program to run the races. It sends a text to your phone when you are 20 runners out, sends a text to your phone with your run time, has immediate results and payouts and so much more. It truly is the future of speed events and we are one of the first to be able to demo it thanks to Danny Kraatz and Barrier Tec! 

The race will run exhibitions from 11-3 with the Cake Lope following Exhibitions and the Open to follow the Cake Lope. I cannot wait for this race to get here because I know it's going to be fantastic for everyone! We want to make it great for our jockey's as well as the Orr Family Farm. There will be a $40 Entry Fee with 80% Payback. Gibtown Arena is also going to set the official Arena Record at this race, therefor will be awarding our 1D winner an ADDITIONAL $100 to their earnings! It's going to be a great event for an even greater cause and I am thrilled to be hosting it along side Jackie Clifton. I could have never been able to do all of this without her! I'm excited to see what we can come up with for Orr.To even imagine being in their shoes and suffering what they have gone through in unbelievable, heart wrenching and I hope Dreaming of Three's efforts can help make a difference for them in every way possible.  For more information visit www.barproductions.com for arena info or visit the FB Event page https://www.facebook.com/events/604952009525736/https://www.facebook.com/events/604952009525736/

T Shirts sold from  Dreaming of Three to benefit Orr

 Angel Wings Breast Collar from Twisted Tack

 A Horse Box Sent down 5 Boxes for our Race!

 Gibtown Arena where the race will be held at.

 Race Horse Tote donated by In Classic Fashion for our Silent Auction

 Gift Bucket from Smith Brothers!

 Damage from the Tornado, not sure if this is Orr Family Farm

 Where barns, an indoor arena, horse walkers and more used to be.

 The exercise rider who survived the EF5 Tornado

 The mile wide Tornado

You can clearly see where the tornado traveled, directly trekking over Orr and taking out homes nearby as well.

Well Wishes

Today I headed back up to Cook's Children's Hospital to go see our Rodeo Kid Dominique. I had visited Dominique last week to see how he was doing with his stay in the hospital. After over a month he has finally received the ok to head back home to Abilene after getting over Pancreatitus. This time around I was especially excited for this visit as I had a big surprise for him and his Dad.

Upon my arrival and some brief chit-chatting I presented Billy, Dominique's Father with the envelope from Dreaming of Three. He pulled out the letter,a check for over one thousand dollars and began to read aloud my sentiments I had placed from pen to paper. It was so humbling to see a grown-man of such stature to get choked up and witness the truly emotional tole it has taken on this family. I cannot even imagine being in his shoes and seeing my child endure what Dominique has. Dreaming of Three is so honored to be able to give these families support in every way we can. Our financial help may be small now, but I think our physical support is making a bigger impact than any amount of money can assist.

Dominique was in much better spirits this visit. His release I'm sure was due in part to his more lively nature. He was sweet as always and we had a good talk. He promised to tell me all about his trip to Disney World when they get back in June! What a perfect vacation for such a deserving family.

So now they should be making there trip back home to Abilene where they can finally start getting back to a normal life. Dominique will continue to get his treatments there and will only have to come down to Fort Worth occasionally. It could not make me happier to see him feeling better and be able to get back to being a kid again. Good Luck Dominique, I hate to see you go but I wish you well! 

Fighting the Good Fight

In the midst of all the chaos preceeding and following the 1st See No Evil Race to help Dominique's Family I wasn't able to stay in touch with his father, Billy, as much as I would have liked. I was finally able to go visit them at Cooks Childrens Hospital in Fort Worth on May 22. This is has been Dominique home since April 18th, after he was addmitted with a fever of 101 and diagnosed with Pancreatitus.

I called Billy when I got there, and was able to sneek into Dominique's room while he was out. With my arms full of the delectible Edible Arrangement bouquet that Dreaming Of Three had made up, I shouted "Hey!" as walked through the door to suprise him! He had no idea I was coming and I think it was an uplifting suprise.

We chit-chatted about his stay at Cooks, and how much better Dominique is doing. It's looking like he will finally be released very soon. He's finally off of the feeding tube and back to eating solid foods(He was munching on some pizza while we visited). Dominique is very laid back and reserved, but he really warmed up to my 3 year old son Carson and it was very sweet to see how giving and caring Dominique is. He offered him all of his snacks and was very sweet.

I was thrilled to hear that their whole family is making a trip to Walk Disney Wold in Florida this June thanks to Make A Wish Foundation! What an amazing experience for them all, and I'm sure after this long and tedious stay at the hospital it will be just what they need to wind down and let loose.

We ended with a hug and a smile as Dominique's teacher was scheduled to be arriving. I was so happy to see him doing better and hope that his health will continue to improve. Do3 continues to inspire me and so many others. We may be a small organization, but I do think we do big things for the people and animals we help. It can only go up from here!

See No Evil Race 1

What an exciting time we all had this past weekend. The day had finally arrived for our 1st ever See No Evil Benefit Race. We had a few hiccups but I was blessed to have such great friends and family be able to come together to make this race a success for both Stacey & Dominique. Dreaming of Three, Jackie Clifton with BAR Productions and Tammy Kidd-Coward with Wild West Promotions collaborated along with the new Pro-Line Speed Event System created by Danny Kraatz. The Pro-Line System had it's first official test run at our race. This new system enables a text to be sent to your phone when you are 20 runners away, texts you your time and so much more. It truly is the future of speed events and we where lucky enough to use it FIRST!

The arena and facility was decked out in See No Evil banners thanks to Arlington Quick Sign! They also designed our barrel covers. If you need something done for an event, Arlington Quick Sign can get it done for you. Everything looked fantastic.

Exhibitions filled up fast, riders from all over Texas an Oklahoma hauled in and we had 90 horse/rider combinations compete. We had a few problems with the tractor but we had an understanding crowd who was patient for us to work through it.

Our Silent Auction turned out great and pulled in a lot of money. Deni Oster was our lucky raffle winner of the Hidez Equine Travel & Recover Compression Body Suit valued at $600.

We had a lot of fabulous runs from some amazing jockeys and horses at our race. However none could out run Patti Wellmon and her mare LuLu who out ran them all to be our 1st Divisional Champions with a 14.725. Shannon Black was a mere half second behind as our 2nd Divisional Champion on her horse Roanie with a 15.308. Celsey Rater jockeyed her sorrel horse Jets Flit Folly Bar to be our 3rd Division Champion with a time of 15.728. Terry Vestor rode her gray horse Brody for a time of 16.271 to be our 4th Divisional Champions. Each of our Champions went home with $198.75 each and awards from our sponsors including ribbons from Ribbons n Beyond, 10lb pails of Forco Digestive Fortifier, Intensify Challenge from Bluebonnet Feeds, Trophy Cuff Bracelets from Craft & Crown and Patti also went home with 1 Natural Alternative Grazers "N.A.G. Bags", 1 Quart of LubriSyn Equine, and one certificate for a HIDEZ Equine Travel & Recovery Compression Body Suit valued at $600.

After it was all said and done we where able to raise over $1000 each for both Dominique and Stacey. It could not have came at a better time as Dominique has been in the hospital for going on 1 month with Pancreatitus and a fever and Stacey is in the works of acquiring her Seeing Eye Dog and is needing to make arrangements with her eye doctor. Thanks to Jackie Harris, founder of Dreaming of Three, the barrel racing world is coming together to help these families!

None of this could have happened with out all of wonderful volunteers. They Bryant family helped out tremendously by setting barrels, digging stakes, and tractor driving, fellow Do3 Member Erica Cole worked hard learning the new Pro-Line System and doing the books, her father Billy also was a big help by doing a lot of the tractor driving as well. Paige Autenreib kept things flowing by handling the entry table, Bobbye Hayes, Randy Miller and Jackie served up the food in the concession, and Marvin Hayes helped set up the banners in the Arena. Jon Baker Photography did a fantastic job taking out runners photos and our win pictures at the end of the race. I am pleased to say that he will be our Official Photographer of the See No Evil Series and will be at all of our races. 

Below our are winners for our race. Not pictured is Shannon Black, our 2D Champion, who donated $100 of her winnings back to Dominique and Stacey.