Marvin Barnes and his wife, Lela, and horse Mr. Master Bug are pictured in September, 1982.
Photo by Lynette Shurtleff
Ada Evening News

ADA, OK—FEBRUARY 13, 2009—Ada’s Marvin Barnes and the two females who arguably had the biggest influence on his life over the past half-century — his wife Lela and their broodmare FL Lady Bug — will all be inducted in the Oklahoma Quarter Horse Hall of Fame Saturday night in ceremonies at the Renaissance Hotel in Tulsa.

The gala event will begin with a reception and dinner at 6 p.m., with the induction ceremonies for six horsemen and four horses to follow.

Marvin and Lela Barnes have been among Quarter Horse racing’s most influential owners and breeders during their 50-year marriage. They won the All-American Futurity in 1982 with Mr Master Bug at a time when the Ruidoso Downs fixture was the world’s richest horse race, and, through FL Lady Bug — a 1945 foal Barnes originally purchased for $1,000 and bought and sold several times over the years before buying her back for keeps in 1955 — and other horses produced at Lady Bug Stallion Station, they established a line that is still having a huge impact on the sport today.

“Lives have been changed all over the world because of FL Lady Bug,” Barnes said Thursday. “Corona Cartel, First Down Dash, Holland Ease (three of Quarter Horse racing’s top stallions) all trace back to her.”

FL Lady Bug’s son, Lady Bugs Moon, was part of an historic running of the All-American back in 1968 when he finished second in a 10-horse field where the second through fifth-place finishers were all bred by Barnes. In 1982, Mr Master Bug, a great grandson of FL Lady Bug, won the All-American, and Marvin and Lela Barnes were also the owners and breeders of runner-up Miss Squaw Hand.

“Nobody’s ever done that before or since,” Barnes said. “And that was the first time anybody ever got $1 million for winning a horse race.”

The 1982 running of the All-American was the first in a three-year window in which the race was the richest in the world. That streak ended with the inception of the Breeders’ Cup for thoroughbreds in 1984.

Barnes estimated he has raced the winners of over $5 million in purses over the years, with more than $1.7 million of that total coming from Mr Master Bug.

“I’ve won every stakes race run at Ruidoso,” Barnes said. “Mr Master Bug (whose earnings total would have been higher if he hadn’t been disqualified after winning the All-American Derby at Ruidoso in 1983) is still the leading money-winning Quarter Horse stallion in the world.”

Barnes has trimmed his operation significantly since his glory days in the 1960s, ‘70s and 80s. Today he has only two horses in training — the 2-year-old fillies Fly Lela Fly and Fly Like A Bug Fly — with veteran Oklahoma trainer Rodney Reed and a yearling filly, Fly Jess Fly, out of a daughter of Mr Master Bug. His 2-year-olds both ran in training races Wednesday at Remington Park, and both will be the trials for the Oklahoma Futurity when the track opens its 2009 Quarter Horse meeting on March 6.

“They both looked pretty good yesterday,” Barnes said.

Marvin and Lela Barnes and FL Lady Bug will be inducted in the OQHA Hall of Fame in a class that also includes such industry leaders as Jack Collins of Verdigris and Joe Young of Guthrie (both former presidents of the OQHA), trainers Jack Kyle of Yukon and Nick McNair of Pryor, legendary rodeo announcer Clem McSpadden of Bushyhead, the stallion Sugar Bars and the mares Prissy Gold Digger and Miss Pawhuska.

The Oklahoma Quarter Horse Hall of Fame was created by the Oklahoma Quarter Horse Association in 2004 as a means of honoring people and horses which are or were significant in the growth and success of the quarter horse industry.

“I’m getting pretty old,” Barnes said, “but I guess this is a pretty big honor.”

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