LEAVING A LEGACY

Our dad was a damn good horseman with an eye for winners and a champion horse to his credit. Ostensibly, that might be his legacy. But he was larger than life and his legacy reaches way beyond racehorses.

“Daddy grew up dirt-floor dirt poor, but he had drive,” said Audrey Franz, youngest McMullen sister and CEO of Double D Ranch. “He had that fire in him – a desire for more for himself and, more importantly, a belief he could make it happen. Intentionally or otherwise, that had an indelible impact on us. Starting out, we never imagined that Double D Ranch would evolve into what it’s become, but we sure didn’t spend a lot of time doubting ourselves either.”

It wasn’t just the ideation, it was how he put it into practice.

“Dad’s dad, Odie, had a saying, ‘If it ain’t red, it ain’t no good’,” Hedy added. “And boy, we really took ownership of that with 5M Racing. The trailers, the silks, the blinders – they were all custom and they were all red. It was our signature, people could see us coming and they knew it was us. It taught us about building a brand – and brand identity – and that’s definitely carried on into Double D, we are recognizable at a glance. We sometimes laugh at Cheryl for being such a stickler about being ‘on brand’, down to the most peculiar thing, but she gets that from Daddy.”

In a way, we all did – it’s the DDR difference. Commitment to quality, dedication to detail, and taking pride in everything you put your name on.