Tom Bradbury had many achievements on the track, whether alone or in partnership with others. He bred and/or raced luminaries such as Los Alamitos Two Million Futurity (G1) winner I Like The Odds, world- and track-record holder Dolls Prodigy and stakes horses Shazooms Doll, Miss Jet Queen, You Betcha Can and Tsunami Splash.
Tom was born June 30, 1936, to Tom and Gladys Bradbury, who farmed and ranched near Littleton, Colorado, where young Tom showed steers and clowned at rodeos in high school. He graduated in 1958 from Colorado State University with a degree in farm and ranch management. Tom was a CSU Distinguished Alumni and had served on the alumni association board.
While at CSU, he met and married his wife, Margaret. On their honeymoon, they attended a Quarter Horse sale in Brush, Colorado, which fueled their lifelong passion for Quarter Horses. The same year, they founded Bradbury Land and Cattle Co. at Byers, Colorado, where they raised their three girls and one boy.
The ranch also was where they put together an elite band of broodmares and had bred and raised some of the finest and fastest Quarter Horses in the nation.
They had shares in syndicates of elite stallions First Down Dash, Wave Carver and Teller Cartel, and as with their Quarter Horses, the Bradburys also maintain high-quality bloodlines of Hereford and Red Angus cattle.
Tom had found time to serve the livestock and other industries in many organizations. He was a director emeritus of AQHA, and had served on many committees and was chairman of the AQHA Stud Book and Registration Committee. A director and former president of the Rocky Mountain Quarter Horse Association, and a member of the Colorado Horsemen’s Board, where he had worked to bring racing back to the Rocky Mountain State. A former president of the American Hereford Association, he had served on the executive committee of the National Western Stock Show and on the board of the National Cattlemen’s Association and Colorado Livestock Association. He also had served numerous other local and regional activities.
Tom and Margaret believed strongly in the youth of this nation. They had served as leaders, mentors, advisers and sponsors of 4-H and other agricultural youth groups. They also had sponsored scholarships and other financial assistance to youth at both the high school and college levels.
After complications from a knee replacement surgery that included two follow-up surgeries and then an allergic reaction to an antibiotic, Thomas Bradbury died early morning on January 10, 2019. Tom Bradbury was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2015.