Ebony's Senator was foaled the property of S. W. Beech in Belfast, Tennessee on January 23, 1964.   His dam was Go Boy's Merry Bird 580542 by Grand Champion Merry Go Boy 431336.   Second dam was Merry Bird 390145 by old Merry Boy 350189, and the third dam was Bird Worde 000507 by Wood's Black Eagle 391228. The fourth dam was Sallie Fite.   The sire of Ebony's Senator was the Grand Champion Ebony Masterpiece 560568 by Skipper's Son of Midnight and he by the Grand Champion Midnight Sun 410751.

Ebony's Senator was from the first crop of colts produced by Ebony Masterpiece, the Grand Champion Walking Horse of the World in 1962.

The Senator was purchased as a yearling by Billy Hale of Gallatin, Tennessee and was sent to Texas with Bud Seaton when Seaton moved there to the Frank Mason Stables in 1965.  Later, one-half interest in the colt was sold to Frank Mason.  Senator was not shown as a two-year-old and only lightly as a three.   At the 1967 Celebration Horse Show he won fourth in one section of the class for Three-year-old Walking Stallions, that event having been split into two sections due to the large number of entries that year.   He was entered on the Celebration records that year as being the property of Mason and Seaton, Dallas and Grapevine, Texas.

During the year following the 1967 Celebration, Ebony's Senator was sold to Vic Thompson of Shelbyville, Tennessee.   Thompson, in turn, sold the Senator to Lloyd Wood of Tuscaloosa, Alabama before the beginning of the new year.   He remained the property of Lloyd Wood until August 1969 when he was purchased by O. D. Carlton of Albany, Georgia.

The show ring career of Ebony's Senator began to make headway during the 1968 season.   Marvin Wilson, one of the trainers at the Vic Thompson Stable in Shelbyville, Tennessee, had been working the horse during the few months that Ebony had been back from his sojourn in Texas.   His first show that season was at Fayetteville, Tennessee where he handily captured the blue ribbon in a great class of three-year-olds.  

Ebony's Senator continued his winning ways throughout that season, being undefeated at Celebration time and highly touted as one of the more likely candidates for the Junior Championship that year.   He was reserve in the junior stallion class in 1968.
He was shown fourteen times during the 1969 season and among his wins were:

• the championship at the Tennessee Walking Horse Trainers' Association show in Nashville,

• the stallion and gelding event at Moulton, Alabama,

• the championship stake at Lynnville, Tennessee,

• the stallion and gelding event at Petersburg, Tennessee,

• the stake at Winchester, Tennessee, and

• the stallion and gelding event at Wartrace, Tennessee.

Ebony's Senator and Marvin Wilson were, during the summer of 1969, talked of as likely contenders for the Celebration that year. Both horse and rider were ready when the going got rough.   Many have called the exhibition put on that last Saturday night by Ebony's Senator and Marvin Wilson, "A brilliant performance under impossible conditions!"   Through mud and water, in a driving rain interspersed with shattering thunder claps and startling lightning flashes, Marvin Wilson kept the Senator on the rail and working all the while to win the coveted tri-colored ribbon that night.

<==1968   1970==>

Web WALKERS WEST