23/06/2025
PEPTOBOONSMAL - 1992/2024 (Peppy San Badger x Royal Blue Boon)
(Part One) - 2002 by Sally Harrison
Not since the 1950s, when Go Man Go blazed down the racetrack, has a roan horse captured the attention of the Quarter Horse world like Peptoboonsmal. Yet, when it comes to colorful off-spring, the "Roan Rocket" pales in comparison to Elaine Hall's popular cutting stallion, Peptoboonsmal.
Peptoboonsmal skyrocketed to fame in 1995, with his courageous NCHA Futurity win for owners Larry and Elaine Hall. Working dead last, he held a renegade cow for a full 40 seconds. "I had no idea how long he could last on a cow like that," said rider Gary Bellenfant. "I really admire what he did there."
At the Champion's Party, following the Futurity, master of ceremonies Chubby Turner quipped, "Tell me the truth, Gary. How did you slip that ten-year-old in there?"
While Peptoboonsmal's unique combination of athletic ability, grit and color can be attributed to his breeding--his dam is all-time leading producer Royal Blue Boon and his sire is Peppy San Badger--his successful stallion career owes much to Elaine Hall. From her choice of his catchy name to the PeptoBismol pink ads, Hall has orchestrated Peptoboonsmal's career from the start, and with her stylish pink and royal blue wardrobe, has demonstrated a flair for marketing that would put Versace to shame.
In just a few years, Peptoboonsmal and his siblings have changed the complexion of cutting. Last December, Peptoboonsmal's off-spring dominated the NCHA Futurity in number of entries (66) and number of finalists (6); a single 2002 breeding to the red roan stallion sold at the Charles Goodnight Gala auction for $33,000, and another one donated to the Colorado State University research department, brought $35,500. Elaine has even shipped Peptoboonsmal foals to new owners in Australia and Switzerland.
Peptoboonsmal's rise to fame, however, paralleled a trying time for the Larry Hall family. Only recently has Elaine been able to revisit the dark and painful years surrounding Larry's death, in 1996. Today, she is committed not only to Peptoboonsmal and Larry Hall Quarter Horses, but to educating people about manic-depression, also known as bipolar disease, the disease that killed her husband and wreaked havoc on his family and friends during the last six years of his life.
From dairy to Dallas
Elaine Hall was born and raised on a small dairy farm in central Wisconsin where she and her brother and sisters helped their parents feed and milk the cows by hand, and w**d and tend the garden. At the tender age of 10, Elaine remembers driving a tractor to mow hay. Her legs were so short, her foot wouldn't reach the clutch, so she had to turn the tractor off whenever she wanted to stop it. A born animal lover, Elaine insisted that she be on hand for the birthing of calves, and was upset if her parents failed to wake her in the middle of the night for the special events.
"We were poor but happy," said Elaine. "Whenever I send a greeting card to my parents now, I never fail to thank them for my childhood because it was so simple, yet so happy."
As a teenager, Elaine loved country music. When she moved away from home to work for a broadcasting company in Madison, she often made the 24-hour round-trip drive to Nashville on weekends to attend the Grand Ole Opry. At the same time, she began to dread Midwestern winters. One trying morning, when her normal 10-minute commute to work took two hours because of snow-clogged roads, she vowed to move to a warmer climate. As soon as she got to work, she called a friend in Syracuse, New York and challenged her to pick a destination and move south with her. Her friend chose Dallas, and on the day the two young women arrived in Texas, they met the next-door neighbors a group of young cowboys, including ba****ck rider Larry Hall.
"A few days later, Elaine and her friends ran into Larry at a local country music club. "Larry strutted in Mr. Texas, tall, dark and handsome," Elaine remembered. "He asked me to dance and that was the end of that."
Elaine and Larry married in 1970; in 1971, their son Jay was born, and daughter Sheree followed, in 1973.
Larry, who already had custody of a son, Shane, from his first marriage, worked for family-owned Hall Mechanical Contractors of Fort Worth, a commercial plumbing, heating and air-conditioning business. Later, he and his father, C.B. Hall, owned Jahn's Plumbing Supply Company.
Although Larry tried to put Elaine at ease before she met his family for the first time, she still felt intimidated when the day came. "Larry had been brought up with more material things than me, and I already had three strikes against me going in," she explained. "I was Catholic and the Halls were Southern Baptists, I was a Yankee, and I was so skinny, they thought I was going to be a doctor bill for him for the rest of my life."
Elaine soon won the Halls' love and respect, just as she had Larry's. C.B. became her dearest friend and at the age of 80, converted to Catholicism. Before he died in 2001, C.B. asked Elaine to arrange his funeral service at St. Stephen's Catholic Church in Weatherford, the same church where Jay and Sheree were married, where all the grandchildren were baptized, and where Larry's funeral was held.
It was Elaine's faith that ultimately sustained her through six trying years. No one can begin to comprehend bipolar illness, unless they have lived with it. (QHN File Photo)
(TO BE CONTINUED STAY TUNED)
