Fancher’s Fox
May 9, 1983 – September 8, 2009 A gift from God from the start
Foxy was a product of an old grulla mare my husband's family called Mrs. Fox, she had packed my husband to many rodeos and ropings, and a big aggressive black stud of my dad’s, named Spotted Bid Lee, out of the great sire Juan Pocus.
After the my husband and his brother and sister had left the house, Mrs. Fox stood in a pen in Lovelock, Nevada, retired from raising the Echeverria kids, and it was well deserved.
One day on our trip home from a visit with my husbands folks, he said I sure wished we could have gotten a colt out of Mrs. Fox but she just never would catch, and I said, we still can, (the black stud was very aggressive and never missed an opportunity to perform) So my husband asked his folks and they agreed to letting us try and get a colt.
The next trip to Nevada we pulled a trailer and brought Mrs. Fox home to Idaho. She was a nice big mare and she caught right away. She carried good and had a good winter even though she had some age on her. She foaled on May 9th and passed away about 4 days later from complications caused from her age and foaling, she, in a word gave her life for this colt. The little black horse colt was in need of a momma and I was 5 months pregnant and had a two year old and no place to put a colt. My mom always had a small band of ewes and it past lambing time so the lambing shed was empty. My mom is known around our valley for being able to hatch, deliver and raise just about anything. We started the colt on mares supplement and a calf bottle, then my nanny goat freshened and he suckled her too. He seemed to have an appetite like none other. In the evenings we would let him out of the pen and he would follow us to the lawn and chase everyone looking for a nipple with his ears pinned back. Soon this little orphan ran the place and we were thankful to have him. Sami Jo, our oldest daughter, and the orphan became pretty close. (and as soon as we can get our pictures out of storage, I will post a lot more.)
Name the colt!
One of my favorite things, as a kid, was naming colts. My dad never had less than 20 foals a year, just ask my mom. Registered Quarter Horses have paper work for each colt,
forms filled out with markings, colors, date of birth, also, Stud reports for each Stud and the mares he has covered through the year. Lots of record keeping. Coming up with colt names was a favorite thing of mine, an owner could send in 3 or 4 preferred names, in order of preference and if that name had not been taken you would get it or the second and so on and so on, and if all your listed names have been previously used, the AQHA will name your horse for you, which can be good or not so good. Anyways, my husband’s grandpa’s name was Charlie Fancher and I love that name and the colts mom was Mrs. Fox, so what else could it be except for Fancher’s Fox? I only put one name on the form and sent it and of course we got it. "Foxy" was quite the character, thinking he was a person and wondering why he couldn't always have his way was a transition that was hard for him, I’m sure.
Then came the day that this stud colt was going to be gelded, and the repair of a little hernia, he had a high testicle, so they had to go through the top of his flank. He was sure we hated him. From then on he did alot of growing and filling out, but he still had that orphan belly, big and gangly, we didn’t care, we loved him no matter what. Todd started saddling him and driving him, he didn’t buck but he was spoiled!
Hard Times
Then times got real hard at our house and we had to sell Foxy to the neighbor, it was one of the hardest things we have ever had to do, and I swore I would get him back and our neighbor promised not to sell him to anyone but us. Then one Christmas eve I was looking out the window and I saw a certain horse trader's pickup and trailer pull in to the neighbors and then a little time later it pulled out and I called the horse trader's house and her husband answered I was so upset I could hardly talk. He said he was sorry about what had happened and would have his wife, who ran the place, call me. Well when she called back she wasn't too sympathetic, and I knew she wouldn’t be, but she wanted $1000.00 for him and I begged her not to sell him. So I started making payments to her as much as we could, I worked as a cook for the lambing crew for my cousin and every other job I could do to raise money to bring him home. My husband drove hard to make extra money and finally in about June of the next year we brought him home. I remember crying all the way home. It was hard but it was good for us to buckle down and the Lord provided the extra work for us to make it possible.
Back Home
My husband started driving and saddeling him again and messing with him and we hauled him as much as we could, our older horses were fading fast and we was needing another rope horse. We didn’t have any cattle to put him on, so we sent him to a good kid, Jade Stoddard, to ride and start on cattle, he put a lot miles on him and he came home working good. We went to any ropen we could afford and the girls started riding him. He broke real hard our of the box and you had to be awake, he ran to the cattle but he didn’t rate so well. So then we then took him to some good friends Jill and Terrell Lufkin for a month of cattle tracking and barrier work.
Getting to Work
He came home a new horse and the girls were pretty much set in the team roping horse and breakaway horse department. He ran real hard and loved to pull cattle. My husband could head a steer and then jump in the healing box and heal one. He was a little hard mouthed but we found a bit that he liked and got him to stopping better. Through the years we have so many memories of him and the girls, like run-aways, yeah you never could ride him in a halter 
toward the barn, we have the movie to prove it, and so many wrecks he kept the girls out of, play dresses, and kittens in back packs and hunting and packing in camp and out elk. He had been to High School Rodeo National finals and stalled next to fifty thousand dollars horses and never felt out of place. When Jodi qualified for Nationals we were told he would die on the way there, he just was too old, but you see some people just know our God and he had bigger plans. We started him on electrolytes the same day we got home from State and was covered in prayer all the way to Springfield Illinois. I ask our Church family to pray that he would not stop drinking or eating on the trip and while at the finals, some horses go off feed and water and soon their systems shut down and they die. On the way there, we hauled with our friends Jill and Terrell Lufkin, and their mare Six Pack, quit eating at about Ohio, we decided to get the horses out for another rest and we put Six Pack and Foxy in the same stall and fed them hay pellets that we had bought for the trip and then she started eating again. While we were back east 2 horses died right down the row from Foxy. As soon as we got our stall assignment Jodi and I went to Wall Greens and got two box fans, another water tub and a radio. He had never had it so good, constant water, cool air and praise and worship music 24-7. We got a few funny looks but this Race Horse Trainers daughter had a few tricks and in a couple of days other people were purchasing fans as well. Foxy was eating so well we had to clean his pen three times a day, we were getting worn out and so I paid a kid to clean it once a day, to give us a break.
I called home to tell my mom that she could have everyone ease off the prayers for Foxy cause we was running out of money to pay for stall shavings. God took care of us just like he always does. We may have looked like we were straight from the sticks and our horse may have not been the best looking, but we will never forget how he walked like he was sure he was the best rope horse around and to us he was. 
Big Heart
Foxy had the biggest heart, he would give you 100% and if you asked him he would reach down and give you more. He was a great hunting horse and many times he hauled camp in and elk out. But after Nationals and another big hard elk hunting season Foxy’s wind wasn’t like it used to be, and so he became the new official Goat Tying Horse and he stepped into it like he had done it for years. Foxy was strong enough for the girls to hang on and run fast and steady to get them there and delivered. He really like running back home after dropping off his precious cargo. You could just see he loved his girls and his job. We knew the girls we always safe with Foxy.
Foxy & His Lady
Our replacement rope horse was a little black mare I bought from a girl in Arco. Cider was small, hungry and scared when we brought her home and because I knew the people who had her we knew why. Cider and Foxy became inseparable, he calmed her and she gave him a reason to keep going. Foxy worked steady for our youngest daughter Casi for her entire High School Rodeo years., qualifying all four years in the breakaway and goat tying. Foxy went to the finals 14 years in a row. The girls learned to be hands on him, you could do just about anything on him but if you ran a calf or a steer past him, you couldn’t be sleeping. You could call him from across the yard and he knew you was talking to him, he would always look at you like, “yeah? What are we going to do?” and if you was to pull up in the trailer he would drag you from the pen into the trailer.
Difficult Task
When the girls would come home with the babies, you could put them on him and he knew it was precious cargo and would he was a gentleman.
Foxy was a big part of all our lives, he made a difference in each of our daughter’s lives, my husband’s and my own.
The day I drove down the lane coming home from Boise and could see that in the past 5 days he had dropped off fast and when I went out to him I could see in his eyes that he was asking for help to stop the pain that had taken hold of his body so fast, and that this was not the time to feel bad for ourselves. In the end, we knew we owed him to not let him suffer. It was hard, sure it was, but it was our love for him that made it doable for my husband to take him up on Grandpa’s hill and ease his suffering and lay his body to rest.
From an Orphan to a Prince
Foxy will never be forgotten. Not in this house anyways. We praise our Lord for the years, the memories and the dedication that this big black horse gave us so unconditionally.
The way that God brought him into our lives and took him back was so perfect that it was unmistakably one big part of God’s plan for our family to grow and be blessed.
We have two more rooms to tile and I told Todd I would try and get them done this weekend. I am sure I have bit off more than this old lady can chew, but I will give it all I got.
