11/17/2025
The perfect-sized Sun Frost won a cutting at just 2 years old and has sired rodeo progeny with earnings of some $3.5 million.
The Frosting
What sweetened Potter’s deal was that Cowan had also gotten his hands on Sun Frost. For reference, he’s a close brother to Skid Frost, sire of two NFR head horses, including the only team roping horse in the ProRodeo Hall of Fame (Travis Tryan’s “Walt”).
Sun Frost was bred in Arizona, so Potter knew personally every horse on the papers, from the running and roping blood in the Doc’s Jack Frost line to the Chicaro second dam on the bottom. Heck, Potter once neighbored with Art Pollard, whose top hand’s son—NFR team roper-turned-jockey Ramon Figueroa—used to rope on Doc Bar’s Hall-of-Fame daddy, Lightning Bar, in Potter’s arena. Who knew Lightning Bar won a team roping jackpot once?
Anyway, Potter most loved Sun Frost because he was out of a Driftwood Ike daughter. In the 1990s, when a Sun Frost son became one of the two greatest barrel horses that ever lived (Kristie Peterson’s Bozo), Potter went directly to Cowan’s sale to buy the full brother to him.
What about the rumor that Bozo bucked as a youngster? Potter dismisses that one as human error while the horse was being broke. The stereotype he will confirm is that you’d better show these horses something the right way the first time—because that’s the way they’re going to keep doing it.
A year after Potter bought PC Frenchmans Hayday (“Dinero”) by Sun Frost, Cowan bred a Sun Frost/Wilywood daughter to Lone Drifter to get PC Lonewood Ike. “Frisco” went back to Arizona and carried Colter Todd to three NFRs and almost a half-million dollars, starting with a Shootout they won at the USTRC Finals … heeling.
Sun Frost today perpetuates Driftwood’s rodeo legacy. And his brother’s roping talents are often overshadowed by the two barrel racing world champions he’s sired to date. Dinero placed in the AQHA/PRCA Heel Horse of the Year voting despite being hauled only a few months by Cory Petska. Plus, Potter said he’s “a helluva head horse” and may have missed his calling as a calf horse.
“With Sun Frost, it’s not just that they’re athletes, but that they’re “good-thinking horses,” said Jill Cowan. “And they’re medium-sized and powerfully built. So we’ve had a fair number of rope horses that would have made great barrel horses, and good barrel horses that would have been awesome head or heel horses.”
Cowan likes the Driftwood mares they cross with Sun Frost because they’re predictable. Another trait of the get is they seem to take good care of the rider.
“They learn what you teach them and retain it well,” she said. “We hear that a lot about these horses; people can ride them and then let them sit idle and pick up virtually right back where they left off.”
Cowan also likes their penchant for running fast and flat (just watch an old video of Frisco). Sun Frost also sired the dam of the horse on which Zac Small won an NFR go-round, the BFI and Houston Rodeo all in six months in 2017. Plus, remember in 2013 when Willow Nicholas became the first female team roper to earn money at Cheyenne Frontier Days? She was riding a son of Sun Frost out of a double-bred Orphan Drift mare.
Truly, the Cowans are building a similar multi-event legacy with Sun Frost as the one they keep alive with Driftwood—all while retaining a touch of Hancock through John Red. Reportedly, the Quarter Horse-Thoroughbred son of Red Man held the record at 220 yards and could really stop.
