Jerry Davis and his beautiful family were promoting their AQHA Champion stallion He's A Dude in the Million Dollar Stallion Avenue of the 1970 Quarter Horse Congress. Jerry commissioned me to do a 30" x 36" oil of their popular stallion.
At the close of the Congress I rode with the family in a caravan of horse trailers, cars and tack from Columbus to Perry, Georgia. Their place was a huge pecan plantation with roots well back before the Civil War. The guest room was originally Jerry's dad's room--he had passed. Jerry said his dad could not sleep if the ceiling was down in his face--this one was not. The guest room was about a 14' high ceiling with an original old squeaky ceiling fan right over the bed.
The old plantation home was huge with beautiful flowers all around and fig bushes on the south side of the house---I partook heartily of the figs.
There were hundreds of acres of paper shell pecan trees in every direction, white fences and a horse breeding facility. More details on Jerry, his family, and their trainer Mike in the book "HORN STEW." As we walked around the trees Jerry had a way of picking up 2 pecans and rolling them in one hand perfectly cracking a circle so they could be pulled apart for a quick eat. He never ate one--he would pick up 2, in seconds do the crack thing, and hand them to me. If I wasn't full of figs he would fill me with pecans.
He's A Dude was a 1967 son of Blondy's Dude who pumped a lot of great show horses in the industry. He was the prettiest chestnut roan you could imagine and a real head ache to paint the detail of the roan hair color. In years to come his progeny would earn nearly 4000 AQHA points.
We drove around the area and selected a background on Houston Lake (pronounced "house--town" in Georgia). It was October and some leaves were turning yellow. He was an easy horse to work with and had won championships all over. He would freeze a pose then turn his head and look any direction asked. What wonderful people and a great show stallion.
Author: Darol Dickinson
