17/08/2026
There are great horses, and then there are the ones who change the course of an industry.
On January 3, 1983, Kirby Harper went to work for trainer Larry Reeder. In the years that followed, he would have a front-row seat to a piece of cutting horse history.
Recently, we had the opportunity to sit down with Kirby, who spent years behind the scenes with Royal Blue Boon while working for Reeder and her owner, Larry Hall. Long before she became one of the most influential mares in cutting horse history, Kirby knew her simply as the mare he fed, saddled, loped and cared for every day.
And according to him, there was something different about her from the beginning.
“She was eat up with cow.”
Kirby remembers that very few horses at the time wanted to work a cow the way she did. One of the only others he could remember having that same kind of intensity through the middle of a turn was Haidas Little Pep.
When asked when he realized just how special Royal Blue Boon was, his answer was simple:
“The first time I saw her work.”
Kirby rode her for two years, spending countless hours with the mare away from the show pen. He shared with us that, outside of Larry Reeder, there was only one other person Kirby remembers seeing work Royal Blue Boon…the legendary Gary Bellenfant.
But the road to becoming a legend wasn’t glamorous.
Kirby remembers the hours that went into getting her ready. Before a run, preparation could mean five hours of walking, trotting and loping. She wasn’t one you simply saddled and took to the herd. At that time it was common to spend many hours on a horse before their name was called.
No shortcuts were taken when it came to the care and preparation of Royal Blue Boon.
At the direction of Dr. Murray, Kirby would sweat and ice her legs every single day. At the time, that level of preventative care was far from common practice. In fact, Kirby remembers other trainers sending their help over to Larry Reeder’s stalls to learn the process firsthand.
It was just one more example of the attention to detail that surrounded Royal Blue Boon and of a program that, in many ways, was ahead of its time.
It was a different era of cutting. Kirby remembers finals where there might be four horses that truly stood out. Today, he says, “it’s anyone’s game.” The depth of talent in both horse and rider has changed tremendously.
Looking back, Kirby believes Larry Reeder was doing then what much of the industry does now. The kind of preparation, conditioning and attention to detail that has become commonplace at the highest levels of the sport.
Of all the memories Kirby has of Royal Blue Boon, one still stands above the rest: the night she won the Derby at the Augusta Futurity.
He remembers the energy inside the James Brown Arena being unlike anything else. Years later, of all the miles, all the preparation and all the time spent with her, that is the memory that still comes to mind first.
There are pedigrees, earnings records and statistics that tell us what Royal Blue Boon became.
But stories like Kirby’s tell us something those records never can:
what she was like before she became a legend.
Before generations of cutters carried her name on their papers. Before her influence stretched across an entire industry. Before everyone knew Royal Blue Boon, the people closest to her already knew there was something different about that mare.
A small piece of history from a man who had one of the best seats in the house.
