For a ranch and family that has been around since the open-range days in Texas, Anne Windfohr Marion and the 6666’s Ranches are still in the forefront of the industry.
The only child of Anne Burnett Tandy, Marion was raised in Fort Worth, Texas to be a strong businesswoman who appreciated the arts and loved the ranch that would someday be hers. Marion spent summers on the 6666’s in Guthrie, Texas, established in 1870 by her great-grandfather Samuel “Burk” Burnett.
When her mother, Miss Anne, died in 1980, Marion took the reins of the vast Burnett ranches. She also inherited a legacy linked to the American Quarter Horse Association. A group of horsemen discussed the idea of forming an association for Steel Dust and Billy horses in Miss Anne and husband James G. Hall’s home in Fort Worth in the early 1940s.
The following day, the horsemen formed the American Quarter Horse Association. Marion’s father, Jim Hall, was the Association’s first treasurer.
In 1993, Marion brought racing back to the 6666’s by purchasing racing champion Dash For Cash and by securing Special Effort and Streakin Six for stud duty. The ranch was expanded to include a deluxe “mare hotel,” a facility that houses 160 visiting broodmares.
AQHA honored the Four Sixes/Burnett ranches as the 1993 Best Remuda Award winner. For 50 consecutive years of breeding Quarter Horses, the Association also bestowed the inaugural Legacy Award on the ranch in 1997. Marion also donated the life-size bronze of Dash For Cash to The American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame & Museum in 1995.
Activities outside the ranch have included serving on the Texas Tech University Board of Regents, director of the Fort Worth Stock Show, a trustee of the Modern Art Museum of New York City and the Fort Worth Zoological Association. Marion and her husband founded the Georgia O’Keefe Museum in New Mexico.
Marion was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2007. She passed away on February 12, 2020.
Biography updated as of March 2020.