Page 28 - ATR 2 2015 web

bUTcH rIcE of STallIoN TraNSporTaTIoN TakES ovEr aS

cHaIr of THE arkaNSaS TrUckINg aSSocIaTIoN

by jim harris
Contributing Writer

He’s not quite a year old and still doesn’t have a name. But
the black thoroughbred with a flash of white down his face stands
majestically in the pasture, seemingly knowing just how impressive a
pose he strikes to onlookers.
He’s one of three horses who are taking in this large tract of land
to run free on this bright afternoon — a rare sunny day the way
the weather has gone in Arkansas this winter. Another is a 2-year-
old brown filly, also unnamed, and a tiny painted horse, slightly
bigger than a Shetland pony, just the right size for Butch Rice’s
granddaughter to ride.
Rice, the owner of Stallion Transportation Group, enjoys this
midday respite from the ringing phones and the deskwork back at his
Beebe trucking company. Racing horses, and more recently breeding
and selling them in Kentucky, is a hobby he started eight years ago.
He points out the legs of this young colt, who has mosied up
alongside other two horses in greeting his afternoon visitors at the
Kentucky-style fence line of the Rice homestead, about three miles
outside of town. The horse’s legs, Rice said, are the shape that any
horse buyer is going to love, not one tiny crooked flaw. They provide
a sturdy foundation for a 1,000-pound animal to eventually fly
around a racetrack for a mile, sometimes two.
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28 aRkansas TRuCking RepoRT | issue 2 2015