BY AUDRA DAUGHERTY
Saying you’re having fun behind a couple of “Fat Chicks” will raise some eyebrows until people get to know the just what Fat Chicks you’re talking about. These particular “Fat Chicks” are part of an all-mare hitch of spotted, pinto draft horses owned by Brett V. Barker that he affectionately nicknamed.
Barker tells people that as he sits behind them, what he mostly sees of them is their nice, round, colorful behinds and that is “phat” excellent and that is how they became the “Fat Chicks.” People remember the story and tend to remember the nickname. The real names of these sisters are Abby, Gail, Maude, Molly, Trixie, Stella and Lilly.
“Teamster, Chef & Raconteur” is what it says on Barker’s business card. Are you running for your dictionary? Raconteur means a person who is skilled in relating stories and anecdotes in an interesting manner. Barker, who summers with his horses near Beulah, Colorado, owns and operates Brett’s Desert Adventures in Scottsdale, Arizona. There, he and the horses provide chuck wagon cookouts, hayrides, weddings, funerals, cowboy poetry, harness and tack fabrication and repair. This story goes way beyond a business though … this is a story about a man who wants to share his knowledge about life, our western heritage and horses with everyone he comes in contact with.
Barker’s obvious passion in this venture is the horses. He says they are the “glue that holds the outfit together.”
Both sides of Barker’s family are steeped in agriculture and Colorado going back four generations. At one time his great-grandfather owned more than 300 mules. Barker’s middle name is Vergil, after his mother’s father, Vergil Walker. Vergil was a gentleman, rancher and businessman who owned truck stops and gas stations in Trinidad, Colorado. He also owned and raced thoroughbred racehorses throughout Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona after World War II. He owned a gas station called The Crown Service Station in Trinidad, and he and his buddies would sit around and discuss racehorses.
Barker’s mother graduated from Trinidad High School in 1941. Growing up, Barker spent many of his summers in Stonewall, Colorado. However, Barker was primarily raised as a suburban student athlete in Lakewood. Horses were not a part of his everyday young life. After graduating from Colorado College in Colorado Springs in 1983, he and a good friend bought motorcycles and took off for Arizona because it was not snowing there.
One of the things that makes Barker unique is the way he views what he does with his horses. When he was getting started, he noticed that many people specialized in particular disciplines within the horse industry. Some people just did cutting or roping with their horses, but Barker realized that with draft horses not only could they be useful around the farm or ranch, you also can share them with people. Instead of having saddle horses, you can hitch up a team to a wagon and people can hop on and go for a picnic.
In training and conditioning his horses, he uses his vintage horse-drawn road grader and a road drag. When he takes his “girls” to Colorado for the summer, he mows and rakes hay. He has wagons that he uses to go cross-country through the land behind his ranch. He also uses a team to pull a vis-a-vis carriage for a wedding party or he may use his freight wagon in a parade. He has also used the horses in a four-up hitch, pulling a stagecoach in rodeo exhibition events. Barker finds the versatility of his horse hitch is one of its main attractions for him. He likes the fact that he is not limited to one type of training or use of his horses.
Barker has always had a day job. Currently, he as a sales executive with Climatec selling engineered electronic systems to the kindergarten through 12th-grade education market. Bretts’s Desert Adventures is a sideline that started with the thought of entertaining his day job clients. He was always looking for opportunities to find something different to do with his clients, whom he felt had been “golfed and dinnered to death.” He wanted something to do with them that would develop a level of intimacy and connection and was different.
So Barker started pairing up all the things he loves and sharing them with his clients. He loves to cook and share stories around the campfire, and he found that people of all ages enjoy going on a wagon ride. They enjoy watching the process of harnessing and hitching the horses, hearing the teamster and even smelling the horses on the ride. And they enjoy coming back from a ride, “breaking bread” and sharing time around a campfire.
Barker also feels the “Fat Chicks” and his employees are ambassadors for the horse industry, and as such he requires the people who work with him be neat, polite, respectful and highly organized, and the horses and equipment need to look good. Brett’s Desert Adventures employs several young men and women as helpers. Barker impresses on these young people that they need to be polite and professional with the public. The relationship starts with the horses, but the help and advice he gives them goes beyond horses to showing young people valuable lessons that will be with them their whole life.
He encourages cross training to show that in business and other aspects of life, the more you know, the more valuable you are and the more money you’ll make. Barker encourages all of the young people who help him to get their education. In today’s economy, few people can make a good living at horses. He encourages education, and then good jobs that can afford them the luxury of having horses. He hopes his legacy is that the children and young people with whom he comes in contact will view driving and draft horses favorably in the future so it will sustain itself and grow.
Come summer, Barker loads up his “girls” and takes them to his ranch in Beulah to get them out of the Arizona heat. Having been raised in Colorado, he feels privileged now to own such a beautiful property. The horses are at the ranch Memorial Day through October. It is a place of rest and solitude for Barker and the horses.
He can enjoy them more when they are in Colorado than when they are in Arizona. In Colorado, they are just grazing and getting to be horses, and watching and listening to them out in the pasture is a real treat for anyone who gets a chance. Then, every night there is another treat, as it sounds like thunder as these huge horses come running into the barnyard, splashing through the creek.
Barker hosts a few parties for family and friends every summer and gives wagon rides, which are always the highlight of the event. The “girls” are quite popular with the neighbors and people often stop by to visit the horses during their summer break.
Barker’s ranch is referred to as the “old dairy” as there was once a small dairy on the property. Some of the old timers have commented that from a distance the black and white spotted horses look a lot like dairy cows around the barn. They do some work while at the ranch, but the “girls” primarily spend four months a year just being horses, after working hard the eight months in Scottsdale.
Barker’s horses get the best veterinary care, feed, and farrier care possible, either in Colorado or Arizona. He feels all this combined is the reason he has so few problems with them.
He also pays close attention to the condition of all his equipment and harnesses. Safety is his number one concern and one of the reasons he has his own leather shop. He makes all his own harnesses, something he learned how to do by taking a set apart and putting it back together.
Barker noted that it seems that most wrecks are caused by equipment failures of one nature or another. He is acutely aware that he has people’s lives at stake when they are around his horses and equipment, so he takes great care in making sure everything is in top condition. He’s proud of the fact that he has a perfect safety record.
Barker shares his leather shop with the public as well, always with education in mind. He gives demonstrations of working with the various tools needed to make harness. He makes a heart- shaped center drop, and as he’s making it he shares stories about the various metaphors that we use today that have their roots in the history of driving: getting hitched, teamwork and teamster, for example. Barker particularly likes to recount the history of “teamsters” and the value of their place in our history. He likes to tell people how horses did things 100 years ago.
Barker is something of a renaissance man, keeping alive skills that have almost vanished. He tries to pass on the stories of how horses have helped us get to where we are now. He is part of the unique breed of people that you meet in the draft horse community.
When you meet Barker it is easy to see that his passion is his horses, but he also cares deeply about the people in his life. He takes concepts he has learned in business and applies them to his horses, and he shares his horses with people who wouldn’t ordinarily get that chance. And, he has a real affinity for his “Fat Chicks.”
For more information on Brett’s Desert Adventures, visit desertadventures.net or email Brett at brett@desertadventures.net.