“As long as we have cattle, we are going to have horses,” said AQHA Past President J. D. Blondin.
Blondin was elected to the AQHA Executive Committee in 1997 and served as president from 2001 through 2002. Before serving on the Executive Committee, Blondin served as the youth adviser for the Louisiana Quarter Horse Association in the mid-1980s.
J. D. Blondin
J. D. Blondin
He was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2007.
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In 1989, Blondin accepted an appointment to the AQHA Youth Activities Committee.
Three years later in 1991, he was named an AQHA Director from Louisiana. Blondin also served on the membership services and judges committees. Once on the Executive Committee, Blondin served on both the racing council and the professional horsemen’s committee.
The Louisiana native grew up on a dairy farm and bought his first American Quarter Horse as a senior in high school from AQHA past president Lee Berwick.
Blondin began tie-down roping, and continued the hobby all through college and into the mid-1970s.
Blondin graduated with two degrees from Louisiana Tech University. He also taught at the university for a couple of years before returning to the dairy business. Shortly after marrying his wife, Connie, the couple bought a farm near Arcadia, Louisiana. Attending AQHA shows with his sons became a family activity and, before long, Blondin was also hauling two to four other youths to AQHA shows.
In 1994, Blondin and his family moved to Shreveport and leased a 5,000-acre ranch south of town. He raised about 1,000 cows and his own Quarter Horses on the ranch.
Blondin died in March 2006, and was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2007.
Biography updated as of March 2007.