Jeff Hooper, executive director of the National Cutting Horse Association, was one of four members of the Jalapeno Racing Team II, which pooled $16,000 in 1987 to purchase a Quarter racehorse yearling and provide expenses for its training. The yearling turned out to be Okeydokey Baby, a filly that Hooper purchased at auction for $9,000 and who would go on to win the 1988 Kansas Futurity for Jalapeno Racing Team and place third in two more important stakes races at two.

During her two-year race career, Okeydokey Baby earned $230,000. Jalapeno Racing Team sold the mare at the end of her three-year-old season; she is currently owned by Jim and Marilyn Helzer’s JEH Stallion Station, which sold her yearling filly, Hustled, for $70,000 at the Eclipse Sale at Lone Star Park on August 8.

Hooper has been involved in other racing partnerships as recently as this year, but that’s another story……