Famed cutting mare Dont Look Twice and her mother, Tapt Twice, have new owners. They do not, however, have a new home.
The winner of $850,628 and her mother, a producer of more than $1.6 million, were recently sold by Waco Bend Ranch to new owners Bobby and Lori Gale of Gale Force Quarter Horses. A key aspect to the deal? Dont Look Twice, 16, and her 22-year-old mother will remain at their longtime home with their breeders, Phil and Mary Ann Rapp.
Louis Baldwin, who co-owns Waco Bend Ranch with his wife, Corliss, said the sale was part of scaling back their breeding operations. The couple is moving from away from breeding in exchange for owning competition-age horses to be shown by their son, Ray, and wanted to find the right buyer for their two famous broodmares.
“So, when we looked at maybe there could be someone who could put more resources behind the bloodline and could promote the bloodline more enthusiastically than we have, the only people we considered were ones that also have relationships with Phil and Mary Ann,” Baldwin said. “That’s where Bobby and Lori came in.”
The Gales were caught by surprise. As longtime clients of Phil Rapp, the couple from Conway, South Carolina, had front-row seats as Dont Look Twice racked up accolades for the Baldwins, including a National Cutting Horse Association (NCHA) Open World Championship, NCHA Open Horse of the Year honors and breaking the NCHA high score record when she marked a 234 in 2011.
“Lori and I both, we didn’t know how to react,” Bobby Gale said. “Because, for us it’s, ‘Don’t lust for what another person has.’ And we’ve seen Waco Bend have such great success when [Dont Look Twice] was showing and everything, and we were kind of like one of the cheerleaders.”
Dont Look Twice
The highest money-earning cutting horse mare of all time, Dont Look Twice is an NCHA Hall fo Fame horse and American Quarter Horse Association World Champion who has already proven herself to be an outstanding producer. The top earner for the broodmare by High Brow Cat is Rapp Ranch resident stallion, Dont Stopp Believin, a son of Dual Rey who earned $463,794 and whose first futurity-age crop hit the show pen last year, collectively earning nearly $100,000, according to Equi-Stat.
Dont Look Twice and Tapt Twice were part of a package of Waco Bend’s breeding stock that the Gales bought. It included two 2020 foals out of each mare — Dont Look Twice had a Hashtags filly and colt, while Tapt Twice had a filly and colt sired by Hottish — as well as 2021 foals in utero. There’s also a Metallic Cat embryo due in 2021 out of one of Dont Look Twice’s daughters, Dont Happen Twice (by Woody Be Tuff ).
Bobby Gale also said their purchase included some frozen embryos out of Tapt Twice, as well as the genetic materials for each broodmare, though he added that Gale Force has no plans to clone either mare.
The price was not disclosed.
Gale Force Quarter Horses
Though buying Dont Look Twice was an unprecedented opportunity, the Gales did had experience with high-class mares, campaigning Reyzin ($423,522, by High Brow CD) and Short A Shay, a 1997 daughter of Shorty Lena who won $175,834 competing with trainers in the Open, as well as in the Amateur with their son, Robbie Gale.
Reyzin is kept with the Rapps, who are her breeders and for whom she earned the honor of NCHA Non-Pro Horse of the Year prior to the Gales’ purchase. Short A Shay, a mare that was very near the Gales’ hearts, unfortunately died in 2019.
Buying Dont Look Twice was an opportunity to bring another special mare into their lives.
“It kind of helped us fill the hole a little bit,” Bobby Gale said.
Several of Gale Force’s broodmares are Short A Shay babies, including 2019 NCHA Super Stakes Amateur Co-Champion Sugar N My Shayk ($74,542, by Kit Kat Sugar), The Non Pro Plus the Open aged event Classic/Challenge Amateur Champion Hershay Kiss ($59,720, by Metallic Cat) and multiple aged event finalist Couture De Force ($34,005, by Stylish Wood 003).
The Gales also have a coming 3-year-old out of Short A Shay named Double Entendrey (by Dual Rey) and a 4-year-old, Shay Once Was Yours (by Once In A Blu Boon). Other mares in their show string include Bet Shes Believin, a daughter of Dont Stopp Believin and out of Bet Shes Smooth (by Smooth As A Cat); Driven Miss Sallie, a 6-year-old Hydrive Cat mare bred by Ray Baldwin, and I See U Dancin, a 4-year-old Playgun mare who is a full sister to NCHA Non-Pro Triple Crown Champion Watch Me Whip.
Family Ties
Keeping the mares at Rapp Ranch allows them to remain a part of the family who has nurtured their bloodline since Phil Rapp was 14 years old.
The mares and their family mean a lot to the Rapps, whose involvement with the bloodline started 37 years ago when Phil’s father, Jerry, bought him Tapt Twice’s granddam, Tapeppyoka Peppy (by Doc’s Oak).
Tapeppyoka Peppy produced Tap O Lena, a daughter of Doc O Lena who won $502,145 and produced the earners of $652,622, including Dont Look Twice’s mother, Tapt Twice (by Dual Pep).
“We’ve raised [the mares] and cared for them and showed them and enjoy them and had so much success with them that it’s,” said, Phil as he searched for words. “It’s just invaluable for us to be able to continue to care for them, and not to have any major changes in their lives.”
One thing that appealed to Lori Gale with the opportunity to buy the Waco Bend mares was to keep Dont Look Twice with Mary Ann Rapp. As one of the sport’s leading non-pro competitors, Mary Ann rides many of the Rapp family horses. However, she never got to show Dont Look Twice, who was sold to the Baldwins as a 3-year-old.
“She’s always been just a very, very special mare to Mary Ann,” said Lori, herself a lifelong horse lover. “And when we were made aware that the opportunity might be out there [to purchase Dont Look Twice], part of that was that mare got to stay with Mary Ann.”
Lori’s husband, Bobby, said he’d like the mares to stay at Rapp Ranch as long as possible.
“We’ve made arrangements that the horses would stay there, even if something happened to us.”
