Boggs Don and Shorty Boggs.
Being unaware of the Boggs family in the Arabian horse business is a little like being unaware of Elvis in the music business. This family that started from humble beginnings has created one of the best known brands in the Arabian community, amassed countless awards, bred exceptional numbers of champions (who are producing still more champions)—and they did it all because of their love of the Arabian horse. Don and Shorty Boggs were a couple who truly had their hands full. Don worked two jobs that demanded odd and long hours, as a milk supplier and a school bus driver. Shorty (Alverna) was a full-time mother and a waitress at a couple of restaurants, one of which she worked at for 25 years. Not only did they have as many as four jobs between them simultaneously—they had eight children in the span of 15 years: Sandy, Judi, Tom, Jim, Mary Sue, Kathy Jo, David and Bob. As if that wasn’t enough, as soon as they were able to have them, Don and Shorty made Arabian horses a part of the family. It was perhaps unsurprising that Don would love horses. His father, Bernard Boggs, had a colorful association
Shorty Boggs enjoying the Scottsdale Show.
with them. “They would buy boxcars of horses,” Bob Boggs says of his grandfather and his associates. “They would get these wild mustangs on the train, and they’d break them and sell them to supplement the family income.” Don’s grandfather, Homer Boggs, was a veterinarian who treated horses. Though Shorty’s family wasn’t involved in horses, she fell in love with them, even before she became a smiling fixture in the minds of every Arabian horse enthusiast who had the pleasure of meeting her. In 1961, the Boggses bought property and built a farm in the then-rural area near the towns of Elk River and Rogers, Minn., where these days the spirit of their original venture carries on, despite the encroachment from ever-expanding suburbs of Minneapolis and St. Paul. For all the potential chaos that a brood of eight kids could portend, Don and Shorty wouldn’t accept anything other than helpful, hardworking attitudes from their kids. The boys helped out with the barn chores, and the girls mostly took on the household tasks—though the girls also helped out with the horses whenever they had the opportunity to do so. Sister Judi Anderson attributes her early morning arrivals (sometimes between 3:30 and
M AY 20 09 | 171