Lions of longevity (part II)

Plenty of GOATs agreed that the longest-lasting head horses are made of heart, crossed on toughness. Now, we tip our hats to even more road-warrior heel horses. With them, being in a hurry seems to be the common denominator. That is, of course, along with love of the game.

We've got a runner

Just about any heel horses that lasted up to 15 years on the gold-buckle highway had both lightning speed and the fire-breathing motor that goes with it. Not many people know that Hall-of-Famer Rich Skelton's late, great Roany backed into virtually every box he encountered over his 12-plus years on the road on a hefty dose of acepromazine. Switchblade's face was plenty scarred from spooking and running off, but the super-fast bay hummed along for a steady 15 years under four NFR veterans. And what made Clay “Champ” Cooper's immortal Ike so good over a full dozen years? He was a virtual runaway.

“I'd let people ride him that asked to get on, and he'd scare them a little bit,” Cooper recalled of the horse on whom he set an NFR average record that lasted 27 years. “He was basically running off down the arena,