Padres Perfection, aka “Preacher,” the 1999 PRCA Steer Wrestling Horse of the Year, died Oct. 15, 2010 at the ranch of owner Dean Louis in Ponoka, Alberta. He was 26.

Preacher took Butch Myers to the National Finals Rodeo average title in 1997, and in the years that followed, the gelding was hired out by then-owner Wayne Jennings to a virtual Who’s Who of professional bulldoggers.

“Guys tend to stay with one horse now more than they did in the late 1990s,” said two-time World Champion Lee Graves. “Wayne would go to every big rodeo back then, and you’d just walk over and talk to him about riding Preacher.”

“That (award-winning) 1999 season, I’ll bet there weren’t more than three or four guys who went to the NFR who didn’t throw their leg over Preacher a time or two that year. I know I did, and so did Birch Negaard, Mike Smith and Brad Gleason.”

Byron Walker, the 1981 world champion, bought Preacher from Jennings and competed on him for a couple of years before selling the horse to Graves, who rode him frequently in 2005, his first world championship season.

In 2008, Graves sold Preacher to Louis, and he competed on him in a few events each year through this season. “The last time Preacher went to the Canadian Finals Rodeo was 2007, when B.J. Zieffle rode him,” Louis said. “I only went to a handful this year, but I won about $5,000 riding him in Canadian rodeos. He was just a special horse.”

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