Bet Hesa Freckledcat is a talented athlete in more than one event – from reined cow horse to roping to halter. Beyond his ability in competition, he’s a beloved member of John and Kay Coltharp’s family. The 6-year-old stallion was a gift from above for the Coltharps, starting with his serendipitous birthday.

Touched by an Angel

In December 2005, John and Kay, then of Erick, Oklahoma, lost their only child, their adopted son, Caden, to suicide. He’d joined their family at 2 1/2 years old after horrific abuse and neglect, and he passed away at the age of 16.

Devastated, the couple grieved in their own ways. John returned to roping and riding his American Quarter Horses. He encouraged Kay to join him, but her heart wasn’t in it.

“I had just kind of given up on life. I would go to the grocery store or church and then I’d come back home,” Kay says. “John tried and tried, he bought me horse after horse. I wasn’t interested.”

One day, he came home with then-9-year-old mare Ms Freckled Star (Freckles Smokin Doc-Star Girl Seeker by Flashy Seeker). Kay noticed the mare’s brand on her left shoulder looked like an “A” with wings, so she called the mare “Angel.”

The sorrel mare was handy. Rodeo, barrels, poles, breakaway roping, heading, heeling, goat tying – she could do it all. She was an expert judge of rider ability, too.

“If they were little kids and they didn’t kick very hard, she didn’t go hard, but if you were an adult, the harder you cued her, the better she went,” Kay says.

After some professional ropers used her in competition, Kay decided to get on Angel herself.

“For me not having any kids, I didn’t have any hope for the future,” Kay says. “Angel took care of me. I had not roped in so many years, so to jump on a mare who was very athletic, very fast and she knew her job – all I had to do was rope, and she did the rest.”

After about four years together, Kay wanted a foal out of her beloved Angel. She asked God to give her a foal, some hope to look forward to. She had parameters ready when she approached John with the idea.

“I told John, ‘I want a red or a red roan,’ because our son was a red-headed baby,” Kay says. “And I wanted Angel to be the momma. His answer to me was, ‘Get online. Find you a daddy.’ I didn’t look at breeding, I just looked at color, but I found one down at the Four Sixes Ranch.”

The stallion she had in mind was Bet Hesa Cat, a royally bred National Cutting Horse Association world champion by High Brow Cat and out of Bet Yer Blue Boons by Freckles Playboy. But Kay didn’t know any of that when she selected him. She just liked that he was a red roan.

“When I showed John who I picked, he told me, ‘Well, honey, if you’re gonna pick one, you picked a good one.’ ”

The couple scrimped to come up with the stud fee and sent Angel off to be bred in early March 2012, on a Friday. Angel was 15 and had never been bred, so there was concern she might not be able to get in foal. But that Monday, she was bred and she settled.

“When we went to pick her up, we calculated a 340-day gestation, and it landed to have her baby on February 25,” Kay says. “That is the day we adopted our son. And I even knew he was going to be a boy. I was telling everyone that I’ve got my red-headed boy coming on February 25. People called me crazy, and I didn’t care, because I knew God was confirming it to me.”

Getting an Answer

Of course, it happened just as kay knew it would. on February 24, Kay gave Angel a pep talk. The mare munched her hay that evening like nothing was going on.

“I got up the next morning, and there he stood in the barn with momma,” Kay says of the new foal. “I was giddy.”

The Coltharps named the new foal Bet Hesa Freckledcat but insist that everyone knows him by his barn name: “Answer,” so named because he was their answer to prayer.

“Not long after he was born, God told me, ‘Kay, I’ve given you a champion.’ And I’ve never heard God’s audible voice,” Kay says. “But I know when he’s speaking to me. So I said ‘OK, I’ll take it.’ ”

Having moved to Stephenville, Texas, the Coltharps sent Answer to Rhett Baker in nearby Granbury, Texas, because they knew he rode with soft hands, and they wanted the colt to do whatever his abilities allowed, not forcing a career. But very soon, they realized they had something special on their hands.

“The first time I loped him, I could tell he was special. He was like nothing I’d ever felt before,” Rhett says

Even as a youngster, Rhett said Answer was incredibly good-minded, could really stop and was really cowy. These traits pointed the young stallion to a number of career options.

Futurity Horse

Rhett thought the colt would do well in reined cow horse and wanted to aim him at the prestigious National Reined Cow Horse Association Snaffle Bit Futurity. Kay had reservations. She wanted Answer to have a long, sound career, and she worried that a futurity would cut that short. But after discussing it with her veterinarian, she knew Answer’s laid-back response to training would help extend his career, so she agreed.

Answer and Rhett placed fifth in the limited open, taking home $7,500.

“We never won big at the futurity, but he pulled a check everywhere he went,” Kay says. “We went home, he’s sound, and we were happy.”

Rhett took Answer to the NRCHA Celebration of Champions Cow Horse Classic Derby the next year, where, although they didn’t place as well as they’d hoped, he still pulled a check, thanks to a fourth-place finish in the limited open.

Switching Gears

With reined cow horse events behind them, Kay and John decided to introduce Answer to roping.

“Answer’s not very big. He’s only around 14.3 (hands) and weighs 950,” John says. “I was afraid he wouldn’t hold up because I’m 6’4” and weigh 255. But it doesn’t matter to him. He always does well.”

John only roped the dummy a handful of times a day at first, slowly working up to the real thing.

“We thought we’d take him to some Quarter Horse shows and see if we could make the World Show on him,” Kay says. “So John got his amateur card and he rode Answer in amateur heeling, and Shay Carroll rode him in the open.”

Anticipating a lot of training to get Answer up to snuff, Shay was pleasantly surprised at Answer’s aptitude.

“That horse was so good, and he had such a foundation on him by the time I got him that I didn’t have to do much training,” Shay says. “It was a combination of a great horse with a great rider, and then as I got on, I just got to reap the benefits of both.”

Shay was also impressed with Answer’s temperament, especially for a stallion.

“I just haven’t been around very many stallions that act like that,” Shay says. “He has got a pretty neat personality, and if you didn’t know, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between him being a stallion or a gelding. Not just when you’re roping on him – when he’s tied up to the fence, too.”

Answer’s first roping was at the 2018 Fort Worth Livestock Show and Rodeo. John rode him first. It was the stallion’s 21st steer to ever be behind, and his first-ever roping event. John won under all three judges, got 15 points and qualified for the World Show on the first steer he ever ran in competition.

“I say he’s my son,” Kay says, “and Momma was proud.”

In just a couple of shows – one time competing against aged rope horses when the classes got combined – Answer was qualified in open as well as amateur heeling.

At one of the spring shows, the Coltharps entered Answer in an aged stallions halter class.

“John just had a rope halter, and he had to borrow a long-sleeve shirt,” Kay says. “Answer had a bath, but he wasn’t spiffed up for a halter class. But he went in there and did well.”

When it came time to enter the 2018 AQHA World Championship Show, the Coltharps planned to enter Answer in Level 3 amateur and junior heeling. The stallion had also qualified to compete in Level 2 amateur halter, but they nearly passed on it. He then got a state invitation to compete in Level 3 amateur halter, so Kay convinced John to dress up and take their roping horse to the World Show in halter.

“Of course, we were up against the big horses, but he got third place, and he’d never even trotted beside John until he went into that arena,” Kay says fondly. “But he got us a bronze globe, and Mom was tickled.”

He had fared well in Level 2 amateur heeling, too, taking home fourth place. Back at their ranch in Stephenville, Texas, the couple has now pointed their talented stallion to jackpot ropings. Kay says out of all the events they’ve taken Answer to, he has been out of the money only three times, due to the header missing in the short go.

Kay isn’t surprised that her horse is successful. Not one bit. It started with a bedtime story, a tradition she began when he was weaned.

“He’d take a bite of grain and turn to me, and I’d tell him ‘Answer, God says you’re a champion. You’re athletic, you’re strong, you’re willing-minded, and you’re confident with your rider.’ I say that to him every night, and he looks and listens,” Kay says, “like he knew exactly what I was saying. And when I took him to the trainer for the first time and handed the lead rope to Rhett, I told him, ‘Now Answer, you know who you are. Now go do your stuff.’ ”

What’s Next?

Now mainly retired, except for breeding and roping, and fully entrenched in their local roping community, the Coltharps treasure their surrogate grandchildren amongst the ropers.

“We have 10 kids calling us ‘Nana’ and ‘Papa,’ ” Kay says. “Speed Williams’ two kids started it, but they’re all rope kids, and we have a ball with them. That’s another way God intervened in our lives.”

Angel is still around, the matriarch of the Coltharps’ small herd of broodmares and their foals. She’s in foal to Playen Spades, an own son of Playgun, with her final foal, and Kay is keeping a close eye on her; the mare pasture is just outside the door of their house.

The Coltharps have also started breeding Answer. Despite his new job, Kay says Answer is still a gentleman, letting her ride him bareback with a halter around their property. And he’s still thriving as John’s rope horse. He has been in high demand as a rope horse for a number of pros, including Paul Eaves and Chad Masters, but Kay prefers to keep him close to home.

“I don’t want him to travel a lot, and maybe that’s greedy at some point, but I just want him here with us,” Kay says. “Everybody who has thrown a leg over that horse loves him.”

The couple has set aside the stallion’s competition earnings to start a foundation for abused children, and they’re committed to donating breedings at benefit ropings as a way to give back.

“Answer lives what I told him all his life, and I still tell him that he’s a champion,” Kay says. “He looks at me with those big, brown eyes, and it’s like looking in Caden’s face. A preacher friend of ours said, ‘Don’t you think God would do that for you?’ and I said ‘Yes, I know he would.’ ”