Charles Lowell Cook 1889-1964,  Famous Saddle Horse Trainer Charles Lowell Cook was born February 2, 1889 in Shelby County, Kentucky, the son of Isaac Marion and Mary Elizabeth Cook.  Charles was a horse lover from the start and, at the age of ten, prepared a suckling colt for the Shelby County Fair.  Thereafter, he won every boy’s riding class in which he showed until he was fourteen.  For the next five years, he worked on his father’s farm training young horses for the show ring and at the age of nineteen opened a training stable in Shelbyville.  On June 5, 1913, Mr. Cook was married to Miss Sallie Thomas Lee, at “Maplewood”, the home of the bride’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. George Thomas Lee, Shelby County.  They had two children Mildred Louise and Charles Jr. Early in Charlie’s career he was manager of Otto W. Lehman’s Chesney Farms, Lake Villa, Illinois and his brother E. J. Lehman’s  Longwood Farm, Lake Villa, Illinois where he brought out the champions Ella May, Baby Vampire, Personality and such contenders as Brilliant Scandal, Prince Pal and Silver Gale. Under Charlie’s management and showmanship these stables became prominent in America’s show stables of saddle horses. Charlie returned to his hometown, Shelbyville, Ky. and opened a public training stable. He discovered Easter Star, a chestnut gelding, 15.2, with two white feet, and a small star, foaled on Easter Sunday in 1915.  Most of the good judges of horseflesh, at one time or another, viewed Easter Star but he was passed over until Charlie Cook saw him.  After watching his unusual speed and hock action, Charlie lost no time in buying him for $600. Closing out the season of 1921 as a five-gaited horse, Easter Star won the open gelding class and finished third in the Gelding Division of $10,000 Stake at the Kentucky State Fair.  In the World Grand Championship Stake with Cook in the saddle, Easter Star was tied second to the famed Mass of Gold.  Susanne (Emily Ellen Schaff) writing in Volume II, Famous Saddle Horses says,  “Charlie Cook made one of the greatest shows with Easter Star that has ever been witnessed in any ring, a performance that was so brilliant, so inspiring and thrilling that it caught the fancy of the crowd and there was vociferous shouting from all points of the amphitheater for ‘Number 9’, the designation of Easter Star.”  After Charlie sold Easter Star in May of 1922, the gelding went on to win the Gelding Division of the $10,000 Stake at the State Fair in Louisville and was resold on the morning of the night when the finals were held.  Easter Star brought the highest price ever paid up to that time for any saddle stallion, mare or gelding. That night Easter Star won the finals of the World Grand Championship Stake and Charlie Cook had made a World Champion which had been his lifetime ambition. Another champion that Charlie Cook developed from his stables in Shelbyville was Jonquil.  She was a golden yellow mare, 15.1 1/2, with three white feet, black legs and a small star.  Jonquil was entered in the 1926 Championship Three-Gaited Stake at the Kentucky State Fair carrying number 13.  After one solid hour of showing, in the third workout, she won the stake over a field of twenty-three horses.  Jonquil was the first horse to ever win the Three-Gaited Championship at Louisville for four consecutive years.  This was during the period when the stake included both over and under fifteen two horses.  Jonquil was ridden to victory each time by Charlie Cook, who understood her every move.  This record is a monument to his horsemanship. Charlie stated that this golden mare was the only horse of her time who could show for a solid hour without making a mistake.  She was conceded to be the best three-gaited saddle mare in the world. A darling of the horse fanciers in 1940 was Sweet Campernelle, the first three-year old to win the Three-Gaited Grand Championship Stake at Madison Square Garden, New York City, trained and ridden by Charlie.  A New York sportswriter wrote, “Sweet Campernelle’s color as that of a cloth of gold; she has a small star, flowing cream colored tail and both rear ankles white, while her motion both fore and aft, her air, poise and determination, together with her faultless confirmation, make of her just that which she has proven to be a ‘freak of the saddlebreed’.” In 1939, V.V. Cooke, owner of Meadow View Farm, Louisville, Ky., and owner of the third largest Chevrolet dealership in the south, persuaded Charlie Cook to leave his hometown and become the manager of his saddle horse nursery.  It did not take long for Charlie to have Meadow View Farm well represented at the Kentucky County Fair horse shows and the State Fair.  Some of the popular winners that he brought out were Commentator, Meadow View Mist, Commander In Chief, Smart Trick, Genius Jewell, Dixie Bell, Midnight Rose and War King.  When World War II stopped the manufacture of cars, Mr. Cooke was forced to disband his show horse stable. Once again, Charlie Cook returned to Shelbyville and reopened a public training stable at the Shelby County Fair Grounds.  Soon after returning he began to experience health problems and at the same time was faced with the terminal illness of his wife, Sallie, who died February 5, 1943 at the age of 51. His saddle horse business was dissolved in 1944 and he lived with his daughter for eight years. In spite of his bad health, he returned to training saddle horses on several occasions in his latter years. Charlie Cook died in Shelbyville’s King’s Daughters Hospital on May 3, 1964.  His obituary said, “Mr. Cook was a gentlemen with high ideals, strong in his convictions, devoted to his family and loyal friends.” Charlie Cook being a breeder, trainer, exhibitor, and dealer was known as one of America’s foremost authorities on saddlebred horses.  He was registered as a senior judge with the American Horse Show Association.  It was said of Charlie, “They like Cook because they know he judges the horse on its merits, and not on who owns it.  They know he judges it on the way it looks and handles in the ring that day, and not on the number of blue ribbons taken in times past that hang in the tack room of its stable.”  Charlie established a reputation for breaking horses so that amateurs or ladies could ride them. With his “million dollar hands”, he could transform a “bad acting” horse into a steady performer with gentle manners. Shelbyville became a popular town for hunting finished saddle horses with buyers from all over the country stopping at the Charlie Cook stables. Written and compiled by Charles Lowell Cook, Jr. A "Biography of Charles Lowell Cook 1889-1964" with a photo of the golden colored champion saddle horse "Sweet Campernelle" may be found at Pat Scheele's website, Cook Families of KY & TN, Main Page, Charlie Cook and Middle KY Counties. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Estates/4375/cookmain.html