Smash Par Fancy—the bay gelding who won Justin Maass three go-rounds at the 2005 Wrangler NFR and earned the AQHA/PRCA Tie-Down Horse of the Year Award in 2007—died peacefully June 17 on a ranch in South Texas at 29 years old. 

After spending years in the breakaway roping pen with Uvalde, Texas’ Morgan Brown and eventually being retired, “Flip” went to horse heaven under a tree at Brown’s place. 

“I thought that was pretty cool,” Maass said. “That should be a God decision, not us having to make that decision when it’s time for them to go.” 

Little Foot ➡️ Flip

Maass bought Flip from Clay Cerny back in 2004. Cerny had ridden him at RodeoHouston when the horse was still green but had all the pieces to a great-horse puzzle—he scored outstanding even then and was “next-level” fast. But with all that speed came some erratic behavior. 

Despite that, Maass tried him at Sonora in August, on the bubble for the Finals, and liked what he saw enough to take him to the Northwest run. That’s where things got interesting. 

“We’re at Lewiston in the slack, and I get him over the rope and the sucker flips over backward twice,” Maass said. “He freaked out—and I don’t own him, mind you.” 

He and Scott Kormos came back and rode him again the next round and he worked fine. But on the drive out of town, Kormos decided it was time for a name change from the original “Little Foot.” 

“It was just a bunch of us guys in the truck,” Maass said. “And Scott goes, ‘We’re calling him Little Flip from now on.’ Then it got shortened to Flip, and that’s how his name with us got acquired.” 

Regardless of his flaws, Maass wrote the $45,000 check in ’04, which to this day is the most he has ever given for one. 

“I was on the fence about whether or not I wanted to buy a 6-year-old that made some mistakes when I fired him,” Maass said. “But then, some parts went really, really good.” 

Freaky Fast

In 2005, Maass made the NFR on Flip and made the most of it—winning or tying for the win in three of the 10 rounds in Las Vegas. He also won the Cinch Roping Fiesta in San Angelo, Texas, on him that year. 

“I won my first NFR go-round on Flip,” he said. 

What made the horse special was a timeless combination of traits. He could stand in the corner without moving a muscle and when you dropped your hand, he was gone. He was fast in a way that scared you at the big rodeos with long setups. 

“Those two things—the scoring and the running fast—you don’t get that combination a whole lot,” Maass said. “To be able to score, then stand like a rock, and then run that fast. That one, he literally would stand there and wiggle his ear.” 

The catch was Flip was so good it was borderline scary. 

“He scared the absolute daylights out of me when he got to going fast at places like Salinas or Cheyenne,” Maass said. “I’m telling you, he would get to rolling so fast, and I didn’t have a lot of trust in him. Scott, he would just go to the saddle horn and hang in the stirrup, but I was never the ‘hang in the stirrup’ guy.” 

“I was too hardheaded—too dumb—to stay out of his way,” Maass wrote in his Facebook post after Flip passed. “He hated when you pulled the reins and I knew it, but I was determined to make him change. However, he was more determined not to. On the days I put my hand on the saddle horn, we won.” 

“That horse would be phenomenal in today’s rodeos where you’ve got to turn them around,” he continued. “That’s why he was so good at the short setups. For those places where the big, big money is, he would have been outstanding.” 

The making of the Horse of the Year

In 2006, Maass tore his ACL at Calgary and his season was over. That same year, on the way home from the NFR, Kormos was in a traffic accident that injured both of his horses. So, when 2007 rolled around—Maass rehabbing his knee, daughter Addy born in July, rodeoing a distant priority—the answer was clear. 

It was Kormos and Flip’s turn. 

“He said, ‘I’m going to make him win Horse of the Year this year,'” Maass said of when he handed the reins over. “He actually said that to me. And so he did.” 

Kormos won at Ellensburg, Bandera, and made his third NFR on the horse. He also mounted other ropers on Flip throughout the year, which Maass says is what really gets those votes. 

“He let other guys ride him, which is what I think truly the Horse of the Year—that’s probably what gets those votes,” Maass said. “If you let other people ride them, and if they do good, they’re going to nominate him and don’t mind voting.” 

For a stretch, Maass had both Flip and Oz, his back-to-back Horse of the Year winners, at his place at the same time. 

“I really feel like I was one of the very few that had multiple great horses at one time,” he said. 

Their relationship around the barn was something. Oz wanted to be best friends. Flip did not. 

“Oz would buddy up a little bit,” Maass said of the now-30-year-old. “He wanted to be best friends, and Flip absolutely did not want to be best friends. Oz would still just nicker over him because he was so in love with him.” 

Retired Life

Maass kept Flip through the end of 2011. He sold him to Tyson Arledge, who eventually sold him to Brown. Maass watched Brown ride him at amateur rodeos around Texas in the years after he stepped back from rodeoing full-time. 

“She got along with him good,” he said. “She did well on him. Then she turned him out and kept him until he passed.” 

Flip was 29. He was the 2007 AQHA/PRCA Tie-Down Horse of the Year. He won three go-rounds in one week at the National Finals Rodeo. He made careers and, by Maass’ account, went out in the best way he could’ve. 

“I wish they all went like that,” he said. “He was the most talented one I’ve ever had.”