A rough-coated Miss Apache entered the sale pen as a yearling in the early months of 1967.
“We saw her in that sale at Bozeman,” says Ward Fenton of Shepherd, Montana. “She was just a little bundle of hair. They hauled her there in the bed of an old Ford pickup.”
Ward looked past the filly’s 2-inch-thick coat and her modest means of transportation and bought her as a show prospect. “She had a look of elegance about her,” he recalls. “You could just tell she was something special.”
Miss Apache, by Apache II and out of a mare simply listed as “Quarter mare — sorrel,” had resulted from the breeding program of Obert and Irene Nyland of Wolf Springs, Montana. Clarence Olfert, also of Wolf Springs, had purchased and registered the frosted-hipped filly.
Entering Ward’s program, Miss Apache shed into a champion, first at halter, and later in performance events. “Western pleasure, English pleasure, reining, cutting, roping — we did everything with her,” he says.
Miss Apache collected several high-point awards in her home state and made top-10 placings at the National shows in the late ’60s and into the 1970s. The Fenton family used her for many years before retiring her to the broodmare pasture.
Ward tried to cross her to Dial Bright II for three years, then turned to the stallion’s son, The Executive. Crossed to The Executive, Miss Apache produced six registered foals. “It’s hard not to like a mare that produces good foals out of your stallion,” says Lew Eklund, who owned The Executive and kept Miss Apache for many years in Carlin, Nevada.
Miss Apache’s produce includes winners of seven performance points, 388 halter points, five registers of merit, two halter superior event titles, five bronze medallions and a superior achievement certificate. Ward and Lew both consider the 1980 mare Miss Executive as Miss Apache’s most outstanding foal.
Miss Apache lived into her 30s and died of natural causes.
