Bud Dunn

Emerson "Bud" Dunn (May 15, 1918 – January 11, 2001) was a Tennessee Walking Horse trainer from Kentucky who spent most of his career in northern Alabama. He trained horses for over forty years and won his first Tennessee Walking Horse World Grand Championship at age 74 with Dark Spirit's Rebel; at the time, he was the oldest rider to win the honor. He was inducted into the Tennessee Walking Horse Hall of Fame in 1987 and named trainer of the year in 1980 and 1991. In 1999 at age 81, Dunn surpassed his own record for the oldest winning rider by winning his second World Grand Championship, riding RPM. He died of a heart attack in January 2001.

Life and career Dunn was born on May 15, 1918, in Scott County, Kentucky, near Lexington, the second child and only son of Lucius and Sadie Burgess Dunn. and in 1951

Dunn's training facility, Bud Dunn Stables, (later Bud Dunn and Son Stables By the mid-1980s, Dunn had over 50 horses in training at a time, and had several full-time employees. an annual Tennessee Walking Horse show in Shelbyville, Tennessee, that is traditionally popular with trainers who hope to enter horses in the National Celebration later in the year. Bud Dunn exhibiting RPM, winning the World Grand Championship in 1999 at age 81. Dunn trained and showed Tennessee Walking Horses for 50 years, and during his career won two World Grand Championships and 20 World Championships with various horses, In total, Dunn personally showed 108 horses at the Celebration, and several hundred others which he trained were shown by other riders. Among them was Sundust Royal Flush, a stallion who, at the 1970 Celebration, won both the Preliminary Stallion class and the Three-Year-Old World Championship. Among other winning horses were Stock Exchange, who won the Junior Stallion Championship at the Dixie Jubilee in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1984, and Yankee Delight, who won the Grand Championship at the same show. Dunn rode both horses to their wins.

Dunn was given the Trainer of the Year award by the Professional Walking Horse Trainers Organization for the first time in 1980.

Dunn had three children: Billie Ann by his first wife; David and Steven by his second wife Charlotte Blythe Dunn, and no children with his third wife Elaine Steve Dunn also became a successful horse trainer, winning two World Grand Championships, the first before his father won one. Steve Dunn's winning horses were Motown Magic in 1989, and Out On Parole in 2002. Bud and Steve Dunn were at the time of Bud Dunn's death the only father and son to win World Grand Championships within the Tennessee Walking Horse industry. When Bud won his first World Grand Championship in 1992, three years after his son's first, Steve said, "I think him winning meant more to me than when I won it." following two heart attacks brought about by complications from knee replacement surgery. He was buried in Oakwood Cemetery, in Sheffield, Alabama, United States. Dunn had hopes of winning first the next year. In May 1999 the horse was sold to L R & N Partners, LLC for $1.25 million. The new owners moved RPM to trainer Sammy Day's stable in Shelbyville, with the intention of entering him in the Celebration. Shortly before the Celebration, Day was convicted of bribing a judge, fined, and put on a five-year suspension. Dunn was given the task of riding RPM in the show, and won the World Grand Championship. Dunn was 81, again making him the oldest rider ever to win the class, breaking his earlier record. At the same show, Steve Dunn rode Out On Parole to a Two-Year-Old World Championship, and another Dunn-trained horse, Broken Promises, won the Four-Year-Old World Championship.