For a horse that wasn’t destined for the show pen, Monster Truk is making Morgan Holmes’ dreams come true.
Monster Truk stands out in a crowd. The tall grullo is unique in many ways, and not only because of his color, but also for the scars he carries from sarcoma removal surgery, his tiny, adorable ears that are always forward and his sheer ease in any situation. The 8-year-old horse is wise beyond his years, and while owners and rider Morgan Holmes shows him, she takes no credit for his many accomplishments.
“I don’t claim to have trained him; he figured it out,” says Holmes, the Non-Pro competitor from Stephenville, Texas. “I say I’m along for the ride and don’t claim to have taught him anything. Half the time, I am loping him in a halter and enjoying him.”
It has been quite a ride for Holmes on the gelding. He was foaled where Homes’ parents, Jay and Rhonda, live and work in Triple J Ranch. in Sarasota, Florida. His ties to her family run generations deep.
The 2016 gelding is by Ima Downtown Cat, by Lil Quixote Badger, a son of Peppy San Badger. Monster Truk’s dam is Cowgirls Gettinitdun, by Dun It Big and out of A Cowboys Sweetheart.
“His pedigree is really interesting because every stallion that has molded my dad’s career is on his papers, within the first two generations,” Holmes says. “His sire’s mom is a horse my dad brought from the King Ranch when he moved to Florida. My dad bought her as a broodmare for $2,000, and when he showed up to get her, she had a yearling stud colt on her side, and that is Monster Truk’s daddy. [Monster Truk] is my hodgepodge, but that is what makes him special.”
Monster Truk may have been special from the start, but that doesn’t mean he had it easy. Today, he has overcome obstacles to become a consummate show horse.
Rough Start
Most horses have a barn name — a shorter version of their registered name — but since birth, Monster Truk is known by his entire name, like “John Wayne” or “Ted Lasso.”
“When he was born, he was a big, black stud colt, and he put three of us on our butts when we were trying to give him an enema,” Holmes says with a laugh. “We said he hit us like a monster truck, and it was very fitting! He is grullo now and very sweet and special.”
With a hodgepodge pedigree and an arsenal of show horses, Holmes didn’t set out to get Monster Truk trained for the competitive cow horse arena. She simply started riding him to gather in roping cattle when she wanted to ride around for fun or just use him for a job. There were setbacks to his early training that made this outlook a good fit for the gelding, and one that didn’t leave room for disappointment.
“We have big dreams for home-raised horses,” Holmes says. “But him, he had terrible luck. He had these big sarcoids on him as a baby and has scars all over his body because of those, including one on his head and chest. He was always a big colt, and with the sarcoids, we left him turned out and thought he’d make a rope horse one day. He was my using horse, and I just rode him for fun! Then, COVID happened his 4-year-old year, and I went home to Florida, thinking this would only last a couple of weeks.”
“I say I’m along for the ride and don’t claim to have taught him anything. Half the time, I am loping him in a halter and enjoying him.” — Morgan Holmes
Instead, the world shut down due to the pandemic, and Holmes had time on her hands. One morning, when her dad asked what horse she was working on, Holmes said it was time to make Monster Truk her project horse.
“I threw a hackamore on him, and he went down the fence like he’d done it a million times,” Holmes recalls. “That was April 2020, and in Scottsdale that June, he marked a 220 down the fence [at the National Reined Cow Horse Association Western Derby]. Then he got hurt. He tore his superflexor tendon down his tendon sheath. The veterinarians gave him a 40% chance of being a show horse again.”
It was a big blow to Holmes’ rising hopes of having her home-bred horse move into the competitive arena. Yet, her focus was just to get the big grullo well. With the help of Dr. Felipe Maciel at Signature Equine Hospital (formally Brazos Valley Equine), in Stephenville, Texas, and Lane Wood, Monster Truk’s months-long rehab had him back and better than ever.
Passion Project
When Holmes and Monster Truk returned to the competitive arena for the horse’s second, third and fourth shows, she didn’t unleash his full potential. She held back for fear of reinjuring her beloved mount.
“I didn’t want to risk him; I was such a chicken,” Holmes says. “After every show, I took him back to Dr. Felipe to make sure I hadn’t hurt him.”
Finally, at the 2021 NRCHA Celebration of Champions, where Holmes and the gelding had qualified to compete for the Non-Pro Hackamore world title, she let him make a full-running, hard-stopping cow horse run. They won.
Holmes is no stranger to the show pen, having earned multiple NRCHA world championships on different horses. Yet, with Monster Truk, it was different.
“When I won on him, I cried!” Holmes says. “People asked why I was crying because it was not my first [world] title, but they don’t know what it means on him. He is so special; he makes it a lot of fun! I just thank him for taking care of me.”
Her mom, Rhonda, said that the win was the thing a small breeder dreams of watching.
“We have big dreams for home-raised horses. But him, he had terrible luck. He had these big sarcoids on him as a baby and has scars all over his body because of those, including one on his head and chest.” — Morgan Holmes
“Over all the years, first showing them, breeding and raising, then showing the offspring, it is the ultimate for a breeder,” she says. “We trained and showed the sire and dam, and now to watch Morgan show Monster Truk, that is what it is all about. Every time she walks into the arena, I thank God for that blessing she has that horse. Those two, they are made for each other.”
Armed with the confidence in her horse’s health and knowing they could be the best, Holmes aimed him for another title and looked to capture another goal: the Art of the Cowgirl‘s World’s Greatest Horsewoman. To do so, the duo would need to be exceptional in four events herd work, reining, fence work and steer stopping.
*At the time of posting this article online, Morgan Holmes, aboard Monster Truk, won the 2026 Art of the Cowgirl World’s Greatest Horsewoman.*
In 2022, she had competed on her palomino gelding “Nine,” registered as Dun It On Que, but didn’t earn the win. So, in 2023, she prepared the youngest horse in her barn, Monster Truk, for the big title.
“I knew it would be hard to do all four events [at Art of the Cowgirl], and I wanted to know he would be physically ready to do it,” Holmes says. “It has taken me a little time to jump off the deep end with him, and bless his heart, he has put up with me fretting over him.”
The pair made the 10-rider final and, eventually, left Queen Creek, Arizona with the reserve champion title. It was more than enough.
“It was special to make the finals out here [at Art of the Cowgirls’ World’s Greatest Horsewoman], and it really means a lot that I can go home and ride him [and] prepare him on my own with some help. But really, it is him,” she says. “He’s never had good luck until he became a show horse, and now I say he makes his own luck. He just wants to be good!”
This article was originally published in the February 2024 issue of Western Horseman.
